When the Plan Doesn't Work

What do you do when your plan doesn't work out the way you planned? Do you throw it all out? Do you get creative?

I am working on a Project 365 album this year. Each day is represented by at least one picture and a statement or paragraph about that day. Each day can be represented by no more than one page in the album. But some pages may represent as much as a week.

So, what do I do if I miss a day? A friend suggested to take extra pictures the next day. No one will know that the photo wasn't taken on the exact day. Is this cheating?

Well, I have missed a few days over the past 5 months. What I have done is simply have pictures from the week but not worry about dating them. Then have a list of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,... with a statement of each day. I don't consider myself cheating because I am not pretending to have all the photos. I just don't bring it to the attention of the person looking at my album.

What about a baby book? If your child is 15 years old, can you go back and create the baby book? I read an article in a scrapbook magazine years ago that suggested making up dates for the child's milestones. I don't know if I agree with that. But I do believe you can take a guess as to when something happened. Don't remember the date of her first steps? Take a look at pictures. I know looking at my daughter's photos that she walked after her first birthday but within a week of it. I just base it on the events that are in the photos. I never make up dates; I just am not that specific.

Looking back at the few photos I have of me as a child and the little information written in my baby book, I feel that today we go a little over board in documenting every detail of our lives. I do wish I had more family photos from my childhood. I don't feel however that I need as many as I take of my three kids now. My mom made sure we had a happy childhood without worrying about the dates of things in an album. She made sure we had our baseball photos but never added the year. Going back to those photos, should I throw them out since they don't fit into my plan for having it all in the correct order. No. I simply estimate where to put things and move along.

Sometimes the thing that stops us in a project is the embellishments are not working. There is a spot that must have something decorative and I can't figure out what would look good there. What to do?! Don't abandon a project. If what you have doesn't work, nothing is calling out to you saying "use me!" then it's time to accept that the spot is going to stay like that and move on. Don't stop scrapbooking. Give yourself permission to move on and not throw it away and not get bogged down with it.

I know plenty of scrappers who simply don't want to complete the project because they can't do it exactly the way they have it planned. Everything must be correct and perfect. I suggest not throwing it all out but instead get creative. The fun part of scrapbooking is getting creative. Change your plans. Be flexible. Don't worry about the project too much. Have fun!