Scrapbook Mistake? Just Put a Sticker on It!

I just had a lovely surprise visit from one of the Teen's friends and her mother this week. It was totally spontaneous and fun and surreal. The Teen and her friend had a blast reconnecting and talking about college options. The mom and I had a great time revisiting our days as school volunteers and fellow scrapbookers.

I used to be a big time scrapbooker before I became a full time writer. It was a wonderful creative outlet  and I enjoyed designing the pages and documenting our family's history. I have LOADS of scrapbooks. Are they perfect? Nope. But when people look through them they love the way I've pulled the pages together. I do, too. They are fun to look at and read.

My friend and I laughed about how different we were in our scrapbooking world compared to our day-to-day world. She's a spontaneous and by-the-seat-of-her-pants roll with it woman whereas I am an organized, everything-must-be-in-its-place and in order kind of woman. Yet when sat down to scrapbook together we were the polar opposite personalities.

And we were so surprised! She carefully planned her pages, measured everything twice, made sure all the pictures were aligned just so and very meticulously plotted her pages. By the end of a 3 hour scrapbooking session she might come away with 1, maybe 2, completed pages.

Me? I'd have 5 or 6 pages done. Why? Because I would go into the work with a basic plan, then happily select my beautiful accent papers and stickers and notions and go, go, go. She was so surprised by my complete lack of desire for perfection. I just cut pictures and paper, placed the sticky tape on, threw in the photos and notions with joyful abandon. I'd blithely say to her if it was little off center I'd just throw a sticker on it or add another notion to embellish the page and "hide" the imperfection.

Her visit this week reminded me that I'm pretty much that way in all my creative endeavors. When I don't worry about being perfect, I have fun and I end up with a fairly decent product that is pleasing to the eye, mind, spirit.

Hmmm, can you guess what my writing process is like? Wonder what my friend's would be like? Yup, I'm a planner, pantser, fixer. She'd be an outliner, plotter, editor on the go.

What is the worst thing I can do to my writing process? Try to be perfect. I need to go with the flow knowing that as long as I have a basic plan about what I need to do and where I need to go I will get there. And I'll actually enjoy the process because I know that if something isn't quite right I can always go back and add a sticker.

Have you ever scrapbooked? What's your creative process? Do you have any other hobbies that mirror the way you write?