Touching Up the Mona Lisa

I'll be honest; I usually don't bother with already-scrapbooked pages. Once they're in an album, I consider them done for good! Yes, even if they're ugly five years later. But, for those of you who are considering the task, here's how I recently did it.

What I did:

Way back in 2004, I scrapbooked some of my daughter's earlier school years and they have been tucked away - completed - in her school album. I recently bought Becky Higgins' school kit and as I started using it, I realized that I didn't journal much on my daughter's earlier pages and I wanted the entire book to be uniform. So, I decided to update my original pages with more journaling, better design/balance and an updated look to match the rest of the album.

What you need:

Before touching up my pages, I made a list of the things that I didn't like and wanted to update. I didn't go crazy picking out every flaw; I wasn't trying to recreate my entire album. I just wanted do to a few things. Next, I pulled out my Un-Du. It's an adhesive remover and it's a must-have if you're pulling apart glued items.

How I did it:

First have a plan as to how you are going to fix the things on your list. Are you going to sneak journaling behind a photo? Are you adding a few embellishments? With this in mind, try as hard as you can to "add" things and not rip the page up altogether. I fixed mistakes by adding paper on top of what I didn't like. If you do need to remove something, use your Un-Du.

Before and after:

Before the layouts were slapped together with little or no journaling, as you can see in the images above. Below are the layouts after I touched them up:

Afterwards, I added tons of journaling and grouped the information together to make more sense. Before it seemed like pages with slapped-on photos. Now, my album is clean and understandable. I feel as though her preschool year is now better represented. Sure, it's a little journaling-heavy, but I'm not changing it. I'll just use more hidden journaling next time.

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