How to fix a mistake on your scrapbook page

It happens to everyone. The photo is crooked, there's a shiny glue mark next to your title or the stamp has just slipped. Your first urge is to bin the page. Don't do that straight away. Almost anything can be fixed, and what can't be fixed, you can hide or turn into something new.

First, stop for a moment

A mistake often gets bigger because you start pulling or rubbing at it too quickly. Put your page down, look at what exactly has gone wrong and work out what material it is: wet glue, dry tape, ink, a sticker or a tear. Each mistake needs a different approach.

Try a fix on an offcut of the same paper first. What works well on sturdy cardstock (thick, plain craft paper) can damage thin patterned paper.

Removing glue marks

Wet glue is the easiest. Dab the mark gently straight away with a dry piece of kitchen roll or a cotton bud, without rubbing. Rubbing only spreads the glue and roughens the paper.

If the glue has already dried, it depends on the type:

• Residue from tape or a glue runner is dry and a little tacky. You can roll it away with an adhesive eraser, a sort of rubber eraser for sticky residue. A piece of rolled-up sticky tape works too: press it onto the residue and pull it off.
• Dried white glue or craft glue can sometimes be scraped off carefully with a thin craft knife. If that doesn't work, leave it and stick something over it.
• Glue on a photo: wipe away a fresh mark with a slightly damp cloth. Dry glue on the picture side of a photo is better left alone, because scraping causes scratches.

Prevention is better than cure. Use only a little glue, spread it thinly and place small, delicate pieces with a cocktail stick or tweezers. Put a sheet of scrap paper under your work while you glue, so excess glue doesn't end up on your page.

Removing a sticker or photo

The less time a sticker has been stuck down, the more easily it comes off. Gentle heat softens the adhesive. Hold a hairdryer on its lowest setting a little way above the sticker for a few seconds, then lift a corner with a thin craft knife, a palette knife or the tip of a pair of tweezers. Pull slowly and low along the paper, not straight up.

For photos stuck down with tape, a piece of strong thread or dental floss works well. Slide it under a corner of the photo and pull it through underneath with small sawing movements. That way you cut through the tape without bending the photo.

A few things to watch out for:

• If the sticker has come off but the back is still sticky, you can simply put it somewhere else.
• If you want to reuse a sticker as something that stands away from the page, such as on foam tape, you can often take the stickiness off the back with a little cornflour. Try it on an offcut first.
• If it won't come off without tearing, stop and stick something over it instead.

If you're using original photos you don't want to lose, it's better to stick a print or copy in your book. Originals that have been glued down don't always come back out in one piece. There's a separate article about removing photos from old albums.

Hiding a botched stamp

A stamp that slips or only half prints is probably the most common mistake on a page. You can't get ink out of paper, so this is all about hiding it. A few ways:

• Stamp the same image again on a separate piece of paper, cut it out and stick it exactly over the botched print. With foam tape underneath, it even looks like a deliberate layer.
• Place a tag, label or journaling card over the spot.
• Cover it with a piece of washi tape or a strip of patterned paper.
• Stamp a second, larger design over the first print in a darker colour. A textured or patterned stamp works well for this.
• If the print is just a bit faint, finish it off with a fineliner or coloured pencil.

The best lesson comes afterwards: stamp on a separate piece or on a sheet of sticker paper, and only stick it on the page once it's right. In a journal or planner you can also stamp on a strip of clear sticky tape first. If it goes wrong, you only throw that bit away.

Repairing a tear

With a tear in your own, new page, you can sort out most of it from the back. Line up the two sides of the tear exactly and stick a strip of thin, strong paper on the back. Japanese paper is ideal for this: it's thin and tough, and the fibres bond well. Apply a thin layer of glue, press it down and leave it to dry under a heavy book, with baking paper in between.

If the tear is somewhere you can see, you can also make a feature of it. Stick a strip of washi tape over it, or cover it with a photo or a piece of paper with a torn edge. On lots of pages, torn edges are actually a deliberate style.

With an old album or a family heirloom, it's a different story. Ordinary sticky tape and glue do more harm than good there in the long run: they discolour, come loose and pull at the old paper. Put any loose pieces back in place without sticking them down, store the album flat in a box that fits, and have a truly valuable piece looked at by a conservator.

Rescuing a ruined journal page

In a journal, you can't just replace a page. You don't need to, either. A few ways to carry on:

• Cut out only the part that went wrong and stick a blank piece of paper behind it. You get a sort of patchwork, and the rest of the page stays as it is.
• Stick two pages together. That gives you a sturdy, fresh surface, and nobody can see what was underneath.
• Cover the whole page with a new background: patterned paper, a page from an old book, a napkin layer or a coat of gesso, a white primer you can then write and draw on again.
• Turn it into a collage: cuttings, tickets and tape over the parts you don't like.
• Leave the page as it is and write underneath what went wrong. A year later, that's often the most fun bit to read back.

A page you're not happy with can really take away your urge to keep going. So fix it if it bothers you, even if nobody else would notice. You're the one who opens the book every time.

Mistakes as part of your page

Lots of things scrapbookers love right now look like little accidents. Torn edges, ink splatters, a crumpled layer of paper, a stamp that half runs off the edge. On a calm page, a mistake can actually make it feel more alive.

A few ways to work your mistake into the design:

• An ink blot becomes a set of splatters if you deliberately add a few more.
• A crooked photo looks intentional if you add another tilted element.
• A strip of paper cut wrongly becomes a torn edge if you tear it along the line.
• A tear in a background becomes an opening through which a bit of the layer underneath peeks out.

Not every mistake needs to go. A scrapbook isn't a printed product. It's allowed to show that someone made it with their own hands. So a little imperfection that only you can see can simply stay.