Re-doing pages

I am a fairly tolerant scrapbooker. When I make a page that doesn't satisfy me artistically, I let it go. Sometimes, though, the execution of the page dissatisfies me to the extent that I have to do the page. This is pretty rare: in 12 years, I've redone maybe 3 pages. Here's the story of one page.

When I went on a scrap retreat in November, I started a page about me and art. I printed three photos of me as a child doing artsy things, put it on a yellow piece of paper, pulled out a kit, and used some final pieces in it. And I hated it.

I'm not sure why. It looked OK but not special. I don't believe every page has to look special, but this story of my childhood in art meant a lot to me, so I wanted the page to look good too. I put the page aside for MONTHS so that I could think about it.

Finally, I determined what needed to happen: I peeled off the pictures* and threw away the page.

Seriously, I almost NEVER do that. But I did. Here's where I made a discovery. EVERY TIME I make a page scrambling to use up final bits of a kit, I hate the page. It just doesn't feel cohesive. I need to give myself permission more to split the kit when I get to the bare bones. In this case, I pulled out the new kit and was amazed at how fresh the page felt. Here's the page I made (and kept):

This is one of the pages I made for my 100 most important moments. I used the design elements I repeat in that album--color blocking, running stitch around the edge--and that combo made me much happier. I also loved using the overlay instead of patterned paper, and using the die-cut starbursts. Made me feel like an artsy star.

Thank you for checking out my page? Tell me: do you ever redo pages?

*When I need to remove photos from a page (which happens more often than I care to admit), I place the layout face down, then peel the backing off the photos so I don't curl the photos. That way I damage the paper instead of the picture.