Saturday 6 May 2017

NSD | Scrapbook Fails!

For a bit of a giggle on NSD we thought we'd share our biggest scrapbook fails with you!





Emma C: In a layout where I used no photo I wanted the focus to be on a brush script title which I was going to hand letter onto the page.  Great right?  No!  I practised, I sketched it out, I come to do it on camera - nah, not happening!  I’ll link the video here but to quote the lovely Vickie Rich, I went total ‘smudge-mageddon’ on that thing.  The title was not my friend!



Laura: Well, I poke myself with a needle a LOT when I'm hand sewing on a layout.  Fingers, hands, tummy and boobs - nowhere is safe!



Maria: The number one #firstworldscrapproblem for me is size.  Being in the UK, we haven’t got the same variety of products than in the US, so finding something the right size can be an issue sometimes!  Do you want to scrapbook in 8x8?  *Error!*  you will struggle to find decent albums and protectors at a decent price.  Have you heard of 8.5x11 scrapbooking?  You mean A4 in the UK!!  Do you want to buy a lovely single piece of 12x12 paper?  *Error!*  be prepared to pay a hefty price for shipping!  My biggest scrapbook fail so far has been buying albums and page protectors from different manufacturers believing that they would all be compatible. *ERROR!!!*  Each manufacturer will put the holes in slightly different places so you can only use their products.  Not a cheap mistake to make!  I’ve had plenty of little fails too, from smudging ink on a finished layout to pouring half a bottle of Heidi Swapp Color Shine over my page.  Thickers that didn’t glue properly and got lost along the way, or not measuring accurately and cutting the last piece of your favourite patterned paper wrong hence wasting a good chunk of it!  Some people say that there aren’t mistakes in scrapbooking, just opportunities to embellish ... but sometimes not even the biggest embellishment can cover some mistakes!




Susan: Well my first mistake was writing this paragraph then forgetting to save the doc ... grrr!  So, starting again ... I’d like to say all my scrapbooking disasters happened when I first started scrapping but I’d be lying, though there are some Bobby-dazzlers in my early albums!  I am notorious at our crop for cutting, poking or scratching myself and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination, but in future years a forensic scientist will have no trouble in identifying my work.  Any form of liquid is a no-go for me - I cannot get that carefree misting look without it looking too carefree if you know what I mean?  I once knocked over a glass of coke on my desk rendering my laptop useless and, more importantly, drowning a pile of pages waiting for a place in their album.  I have no use for a coffee cup ring stain, stamp or stencil - I can do that all by myself.  And last but not least, please tell me I am not the only person in the world to search through Cricut cartridges for a particular font, pop it in the machine then happily cut the name of the font instead of the title of my page?  Really?  No-one?  Oh dear!



Vicci Lou: Double sided sticky tape the struggle is real.  I walk a very fine line between love and hate for this adhesive.  There's no denying it's cheap and very good at keeping things in place...  So good in fact that half of my scrappy life is spent fighting to get the backing off!  It's like a naughty child though... because as soon as I have my layout complete I sit back and look at it with love and the nail chipped tape struggle is forgotten until next time.




Pol: There was that one time I painstakingly glued tiny confetti hearts in and around a heart shape on my page.  I then decided to tone it down a little by adding watered down Gesso over the top.   Epic FAIL.  It turned the confetti into a sludgy mess and warped my card stock beyond belief.  That one went straight in the bin!  I do a lot of hand stitching on my layouts too, so I've often got one on the go left at the side of the sofa.  I never learn, and they've often had anything from Chinese takeaway to Irn Bru spilled on them.  They've had a few mishaps with small children too! 



Beth: I've had a couple of cat related scrapbook fails...  I've now learnt never to leave the craft room door open if I have layouts on the table!  I've lost count of how many layouts have been ruined by little paw prints, chewed corners or worst of all ... cat sick in the middle of the page!! 


Sarah T: I have more of a confession to make. This is my third year doing Pocket Page scrapping, and I haven't completed the previous two years. Does it bother me!? A little, but all the photos are saved into dated albums on my computer, some are even printed out and in empty page protectors ready to be made pretty. I will finish them, but with a two little ones my hobby takes a sideline sometimes. Plus I'm shocking at time management and procrastinating, I'm sure I could fit more crafty time in if I was a little more disciplined, but thinking about scrapping is part of the hobby too, right?!?





Leave a comment here with your biggest/funniest/most cringe-worthy scrapbook fail (and a way to contact you) and you could win a RAK from one of my wonderful creative team.  Entries close on Sunday 14th May at 9pm.  Winners will be chosen and notified on Monday 15th May 2017.  Prizes posted to UK addresses only.


19 comments:

  1. Ohhh I have a lot. I once spent almost an hour organising tiny buttons into a really intricate snowflake shape on my page. Got it just how I wanted it, lifted it to show my husband, and obviously the non stuck down buttons all fell on the floor. *facepalm*
    Also managed to set my fringe on fire leaning over a candle to get some alphas, lol.

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    1. Oh my gosh, is it bad that I laughed out loud at these?!

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  2. Great read, ladies, I'm soooo glad it's not just me ! ��
    I decided one day to make a background with alcohol inks ...FAIL! They do not work well on cardstock !

    Many a time ink has ended up on the floor, kitchen work top, my clothes - you get the picture !

    And yes, I can confirm that Sue R frequently has bloodied layouts ������

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    1. Cheers Karen - I am just now nursing a paper cut!
      xx

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  3. I was using the bleaching technique on a stamped image. When it was finished to exactly what I wanted my sister knocked the bleach over the desk and I had to watch my lovely work slowly disappear!

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  4. Lol, I can identify with many of these! My biggest fail was to set my layout on fire at a retreat! We were scrapping in the kitchen and I had my back to the hob, I had put a layout on the hob and then somehow must have leaned on the on button!

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    1. Oh no!!! Were you able to recover it at all?!

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    2. I can confirm this did happen! U was there and we have never let Jen forget it LOL

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    3. Hehehe no not able to recover it but it was in my turquoise phase (when isn't it for me lol) and there were plenty more of a similar nature ��

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  5. My fails usually involve my dogs.
    I have a box of tiny bits and pieces like wooden hearts etc. Carefully sticking hearts to a finished piece and BAM a dog headbut to the box = confettii,tiny wooden hearts, other ephemera all over the floor. I felt like crying!

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  6. My biggest fail would have to be getting glue on my photos! It just happens every time! I always end up having to re-print photos!

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  7. A few months ago I spent ages and ages making a page because I had a special photo of my daughter. I was really proud of the finished page too, but when I went to put it in my album I had already scrapped that photo! I must have really loved the photo to have 2 copies of it ;) I don't really know what to do with the spare page so they're just both in my album now!

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    1. I've also scrapped the same photo twice by mistake! Someone said to either frame one or give it as a present to a family member, but I just have them both in my album :)

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  8. The Worst Scrapbooking Fail EVER!!!!!!

    We had a challenge at a retreat to use spare alphas. My idea was epic... I completely covered 2 pieces of card stock with random chipboard alphas of all sizes, it was a beautiful jigsaw of alphas covering every inch of the card from top to bottom. I painstakingly painted the entire thing black with acrylic paint so that they both looked like a blackboard with lovely embossed letters on the background. It took 3 coats of paint and the entire thing took nearly 24 hours from start to finish. I used them to back a fab picture of each of my twin nephews with school awards that they had recently won. It was a true labour of love... but it looked absolutely amazing!! I proudly hung them on the wall and was chuffed to bits when it was voted the challenge winner at the retreat.... I proudly walked up to collect my prize and Lorraine our crop organiser whispered with a sad face and a big sigh.....

    You didn't cut the manufacturers strip off on either page.....

    Epic fail �� Although I can laugh about it now they still don't fit in my page protectors or album and I still haven't figured out a way to fix it!!! And it's still a topic of conversation at the. Rips whenever I start a new layout.. lol

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  9. My biggest fail would be stamping. I always practice on scrap paper first to get the amount of ink and pressure right, but as soon as a stamp goes near my page I mess it up - either smudges from the edge of the stamp or an incomplete image.

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  10. My biggest scrapbook fail was making an album - I make quite a lot of albums so it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing but I think that's where the problem started - over confidence! This one was going to be a 9x12 size. I spent hours padding the chipboard bases, gluing and cutting some very precious fabric, (like Japanese import stuff quilting shops sell for ££) putting in the spine, riveting etc etc. Really cuffed to bits with it - go to put my page protectors in.... oh no, I made the album 9x12 perfectly totally forgetting about the page protectors being larger for the spine bits. doh doh doh.

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    1. Hi Leo, you have won a RAK for this challenge, please can you send your full name and address to Laura Rumble or UKSA

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  11. I can go one step worse than Beth's cat incidents ... my old cat sat on one of my completed layouts. When he got up to go I found he'd left a little, erm, butt kiss print :(

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Thanks for your comments...