The Pressure to Be Perfect

Now that I'm done Eric's album, I really need to start Nathalie's. She's 18 months now and I don't have anything done for her. I'm even further behind in Kayla's, but I want to work on Nathalie's next.

I need to start with the cover page. The first thing anyone will see when they open her album. And I want it to be perfect. I want to look at it and almost cry because I love it so much.

OK, maybe not cry, but I want it to be perfect. So, I've avoided doing it at all. I've just come off Eric's album where I haven't done a lot of embellishments (can't really do flowers and flourishes in a boy's album) and so I'm in a bit of a creative standstill. I'm so far behind, that a lot of my pages are just embellished with paper and so I wanted to pump up the volume a bit.

So, last night, I sat down in my craft room, determined to start. I grabbed the 8x10" picture of her just an hour or two old. And I sat there. Nothing I thought of or planned seemed good enough for this little perfect baby.

I almost put it away with the thought that I'd be inspired tomorrow, but I persevered and just made a simple page. In the end I like it. I don't think I love it, but it's still a reflection of who I am and where I am today and that's OK. I let go my need for a perfect, elaborate layout and just let it flow.

And in the end, I survived. And the layout is done and now I can move forward.