Encre, papier, ciseaux: Be Our Guest

Inspiration: Festive Friday #112 (Heart + Teacup + Magic) + January 2020 Page Maps Sketch

I really wanted to include the Dulce collection somewhere in my Disney album. With the soft pink hues along with the food and carrousel images, it seemed like a great fit. I kept going through the pictures from our day at Magic Kingdom and either all of the colours from the pictures were too bright or the attractions we had visited just didn't work. I finally realized my best bet might be pairing them with the pictures taken at the Be Our Guest restaurant, where the colours were more muted. This also worked well with the Festive Friday challenge, since the pictures are taken at Magic Kingdom and I had teacup and heart images in my chipboard pack.

I started with the Page Maps sketch and picked pictures that would suit the sizes. It worked surprisingly well, as most of the pictures I could cut to the size mentioned on the sketch and have the fit be exactly what I wanted. I adapted the size a bit on the pictures at the left of the title, changing the height to fit my pictures.

Things were going well picking papers and putting the layout together and then I hit a wall for a little while and was finding the resulting pages very boring. I kept trying out items and moving them around until I finally managed to get myself out of that creative corner and put something together that I was pleased with.

The middle panel was made out of Opalescent Green Ombre cardstock from Tonic. That paper is gorgeous! The colour and sparkle is beautiful, and I'm mostly impressed with how smooth that paper is. Glitter paper is usually a little sandpaper-y in texture, but not this one. You could never believe you are touching glittery paper if you had your eyes closed. Using a long vertical strip allowed me to showcase the ombre effect as well. I punched the corner with a Curvy Corner punch, and I layered a few cut-apart and chipboard pieces to dress it up. I created my title using three different alphabet stickers pack. I decided to stop being stingy with my alphabet stickers. Life is short and I might as well use them while I can. I have noticed that I tend to like my finished layouts more when I use stickers as well, as the different fonts and the dimension add to the final design. I got lucky here and was able to find the letters I needed for the second word in my Treasure Thickers pack, which is getting really empty. I made sure to add liquid glue behind the pink letters to make sure they would stay put on the glitter cardstock.

The sketch had the top border go all the way across the two pages. I tried it and was not liking the look, so I stopped at the edge of the pictures. I used an old vanilla flower trim, which suited the papers well. I added flowers from the matching flower pack.

For embellishing, I didn't have a lot from this line aside from the chipboard stickers and Say It in Cystals gems, so I went to town with those elements. Once I was finished with the layout, I realized I could probably include two more of my 4" x 6" pictures if I used a little floating pocket (those independent pockets with holes that are meant to be added between larger pages in an album). I went looking through what I had and could only find 5" x 7" protectors. I was about to put them back and I realized that if I matted my pictures with paper, that would solve my problem. I recently purchased the Christmas Sparkle vellum sheet when it was on sale at my local store and the colours were a nice match, so I cut a piece to size and glued my pictures back to back on it. I added chipboard pieces on both sides to decorate, glued over the page protector.

Supplies
Cardstock: Pool Party (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Chipboard Stickers, Say It in Crystals, Flowers: Dulce (Prima Marketing)
Ombre Cardstock: Opalescent Green (Tonic)
Vellum Sheet: Christmas Sparkle (Prima Marketing)
Accessories: Curvy Corner Trio Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Vanilla 5/8" Flower Trim (Stampin' Up!);
Treasure Thickers (American Crafts); Pink Jane Tile Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio);
Office Hours Puffy Alpha Stickers (Pinkfresh); 5" x 7" Page Protector (Project Life)