Encre, papier, ciseaux

Under the Sea

Inspiration: March 2024 Page Maps sketch

I decided my next layout would combine the pictures taken in line and riding Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid and the Simple Vintage Vintage Seas collection from Simple Stories. I had multiple pictures, so I picked a two-page layout sketch and I particularly liked that the sketch had a large circle on the left page, perfect to use the porthole chipboard frame. The title was included in this circle on the sketch, but I used mine to add one more picture and I glued my title around the porthole instead, also filling the space out a little more, as I was initially finding the pages a little bare.

Most of what you see on those pages comes from the collection. I did add white rickrack, that I sewed in place with my sewing machine, braided burlap trim, a wooden arrow and some epoxy hardware embellishments. To add interest, I matted the centre picture on the right page with the paper from the Basics kit (using both the white and the red sides), and I drew a border using a marker to fill in some of the white. 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Basics Kit, Cardstock Stickers, Sticker Book, Foam Stickers, Bits & Pieces,
Decorative Brads: Simple Vintage Vintage Seas (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Wooden Arrow (Simple Stories); White Rickrack (Unknown);
Vintage Artistry Essential Hardware Epoxy Stickers (49 & Market); Brads, 
Stampin' Dimensionals, Mysterious Mist Stampin' Write Marker, Perfect Layers Tool (Stampin' Up!)

 

Rawr is I Love You in Dinosaur

Inspiration: Page Maps September 2021 Sketch + Simon Says Stamp Monday (Architecture/Building = The Dino Institute)

I love the Dino-Mite collection from Echo Park. I'm a fan of soft sky blue, navy blue, green and orange together (Stampin' Up! had a Simply Scrappin' kit in those colours ages ago and I used that kit down to the last bit) and the dinosaurs are just adorable. I had not scrapbooked our pictures taken at the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom yet, so I purchased the 12" x 12" paper collection with that in mind.

My design is loosely based on a September 2021 Page Maps sketch, which I tweaked to work with the size of the pictures I had printed. The ones with the dinosaur bones couldn't be cropped so I moved the little image to the bottom instead of the top of the page, but I kept the title block and the little tags in the same spots on the left side. One of the cut-aparts had a speech bubble, so I cut the inside out with a kraft knife, glued it on white cardstock and fussy cut the outside. I was fully planning on creating my own title inside with Thickers, but I reverted to using the original text. I did take the opportunity to fussy cut it and pop it on dimensional adhesive, since it was already cut out. 

I remembered I had little bones from Tim Holtz so I went to dug them out (pun intended) and I also found some rub-ons and Halloween metal pieces that had the words "bone" on them. The smaller "bone" tag went on one of the paper flags I placed on a large paper clip, and the "bone collector" one went over the fossil picture. I used Jack-o-Lantern Distress Crayon to fill in the words with colour. It was not the first time I used this trick, but I still find the result pretty cool.

I added a tiny bit of printed journaling at the top, but this page is quite simple, with most of the work being done with using the patterned papers and the cardstock stickers. Oh, and I will point out a little detail: as if often the case, the sticker border was not a full 12" x 12" (Doodlebug seems to be the only company that manufactures its border to make sure it runs the full length of the 12" x 12" sticker sheet). I figured I would have to cut the border in the center and use the title block to hide it, but then I got the idea to use pinking edge scissors to cut the band instead of regular scissors. Which is a good thing, because I ended up having to place the title block higher so as to not hide the dinosaur image in the corner, and so the place where the sticker is cut is showing, but the decorative edge makes it feel like a design choice rather than a too-short sticker.

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: In the Navy (Gina K Design); Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Cardstock Stickers: Dino-Mite (Echo Park)
Accessories: Fashion Silver Embellishments (Spellbinders);
Cool Summer Brads (Carta Bella); Boneyard, Halloween Words Adornments,
Eccentric Remnant Rubs (Tim Holtz for Idea-ology); Distressing Tool (Tim Holtz for Tonic);
Jack-o-Lantern Distress Crayon (Tim Holtz for Ranger); Silver Jumbo Clip (Dollar Store);
Embroidery Floss (DMC); Banner Pick-a-Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Box of Crayons Enamel Shapes (Shimmelle for American Crafts)
Font: Californian FB

 

Mickey's Magical Friendship Faire

Inspiration: March 2023 Page Maps Sketch + Tic Tac Toe #206 (Flowers + Yellow + Gems)

I wanted to scrapbook today and I went back to the Disney pictures I had put aside. I picked the ones from the show we caught as we walked by the castle on our way to a ride. We stopped to watch, thinking the kids might enjoy seeing their favorite characters in their medieval costumes.

To highlight the colorful costumes, I picked Simple Stories' Little Princess collection. I used the Basics kit to create my base and I added stars to it using Tim Holtz's Sparkle layering stencil. I used Pearfection Glitz Glitter Gel, and Fuchsia and Turquoise Stencil Butter. The yellow felt a little flat, so I spritzed the page with Pearl Glimmer Mist. The mediums made the paper warp, so I cut the top and bottom off and layered the paper on teal cardstock to make the base sturdier and add a bit of colour. I turned the strips to the other side and glued them in place to add pink strips for added colour.

In the center, I worked with the leftover papers I had to create blocks, and I used the scalloped border from the cardstock stickers on the left. One of the cut-apart pages had an oval on it, which I die-cut and used as my journaling block. I added lines with a grey pen before handwriting my text to help me write straighter. To keep with the medieval theme, I picked the knight and princess images from the sticker sheet and popped them around the journaling with dimensional adhesive. I also popped the castle on dimensional adhesive and added it to the lower left corner. I added a little enamel heart to the door.

I recently cleaned and organized my craft room and I pulled the remaining chipboard pieces from a 12" x 12" sheet off to organize by colour, so I was inspired to pick the aqua flower from it and add it to the layout. I like how this balanced out the cutesy style of the other elements a bit.

For my title, I used four different alphabet sets. I die-cut a piece of teal paper as a banner to fit with the theme, and I picked alphabets that had the right size and colours. I knew the title would be too long to fit on the pennant, but I made do in the space I had available. I also used the Little Letters from Queen & Co to add my date at the bottom of the page.

To finish off, I sprinkled sentiment strips around the page and little gems stickers as well. I also added a tab and topped it with a yellow Dottie, and I added enamel shapes to my images.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Papers, Basics Kit, Cardstock Stickers: Little Princess (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Pearfection Glitz Glitter Gel (Simon Says Stamp and Deco Foil);
Turquoise and Fuchsia Stencil Butter (The Crafter's Workshop); 
Sparkle Layering Stencil (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Yellow Dotties, Purple LIttle Letters Stickers (Queen & Co);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Banners Framelits, Layering Ovals Dies (Stampin' Up!);
Enamel Dots (Violet Studio); Enamel Dots (Your Next Stamp);
Halloween Mix Matte Enamels (Bella Blvd.); Mini Hearts - Cotton Candy Glossies (Pure & Simple)

 

Let's Cruise

Inspiration: July 2022 Page Maps Sketch + Lasting Memories Layout Challenge #642 (Make a LO about something that makes me happy - Going to Walt Disney World and riding the Jungle Cruise makes me happy!)

This is the second page I made using the Say Cheese Adventure at the Park collection from Simple Stories. I really wanted to use the Jungle Cruise images, but I realized I had not taken any pictures while we were on the ride. (We rode it after dinner and it was already dark, so I think the pictures would not have shown much.) I picked a cute picture of my niece and let the embellishments set the theme instead.

The starting point of the design was the torn paper I had leftover from my previous project. I liked how the white edge looked like seafoam on top of the waves, and I had a larger scale boat in the Page Elements pack. To create the sky, I used a piece of Robin's Egg Color Vibe cardstock. I made sure to use the polka dot side to get a point, and I ran it through the Stitched Cloud Backdrop: Portrait die from Lawn Fawn. Adding cloud also produced a point, but it was nice way to create the scene as well. I played around with the vine from the Page Elements and ended up hanging it at the top, dividing the scene and the picture on the side. I didn't like the top part leading to nowhere, so I added a flower cluster foam sticker.

I created my title using a cardstock sticker that reads, "Let's Cruise." From this same sheet, I pulled the music notes, as if people on the boat are singing. I had quite a bit of journaling to include, so I use a word processing software to type it out and I used the Typewriter Rustic RNH font to get a typewriter font extra point. I printed it directly on patterned paper to create my lower right panel. I had room at the top, so I wrapped a piece of tiki pattern washi tape.

The day we visited Magic Kingdom, after dinner, we had limited time to try and squeeze in additional rides before we went to see the firework show. We had to decide between Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise. My sister and brother-in-law voted for the former; my oldest niece and I voted for the latter. My sister said, "It's too bad Arielle is too young to vote as she would have been the tie-breaker." She was two at the time and LOVED animals. She kept making animal sounds all the time, so when I pointed out to my sister that should Arielle vote, she would most likely be more interested by animals, we ended up going to queue for Jungle Cruise. That being said, the discussion ended up being a moot point as the lines were under 20 minutes each and we ended up being able to ride both!

This page was surprisingly quick and easy to put together, despite the result being fairly embellished. There's a lot of stickers and die-cut layering involved. Because of that, I didn't think it would score me that many points for the Calvinball challenge, but it turned out to be the second-highest scoring project I've made so far! There are a few elements that I auditioned and decided not to add to the page even though it could have scored me a few extra points. In the end, I aim at ending up with layouts that I really love, so I will take pleasing design over additional points.

Total points: 37 points

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Robin's Egg and Lime Color Vibe (Simple Stories); Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Cardstock Stickers, Foam Stickers, Sticker Book, Enamel Dots,
Page Elements: Say Cheese Adventure at the Park (Simple Stories)
Dies: Stitched Cloud Backdrop - Portrait (Lawn Fawn); Curves Ahead (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Lagoon Vintage Bits Filmstrips, Sunbeam Ticket Essentials (49 and Market);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Tropical Elements, Crushed Curry Baker's Twine,
In Color Printed Designer Brads (Stampin' Up!); Clear Art Pebbles (Prima Marketing);
Into the Wild Puffy Stickers (Simple Stories); Clear Stickers (Maggie Homes for American Crafts)
Font: Typewriter Rustic RNH

 

Training Required

Inspiration: September 2022 Page Maps Sketch + Festive Friday #130 (Children + Squares + Patterned Paper)

Those pictures were taken during our day at Animal Kingdom. My sister had purchased Mickey binoculars for the girls and even though we kept insisting they were looking in them the wrong way in, they were refusing to turn them around! 

I pulled out the Say Cheese Adventure at the Park collection from Simple Stories. It's arguably my favorite of the Say Cheese collections they released last year, because the colours look really good together and the tiki images are really cute. I've noticed that their Say Cheese collections are inspired by Disneyland as they include the Indiana Jones images, the whale image from the Storybook ride, the submarine, and the collections are based on the different lands, which are not the same in Disney World. For example, I used the Frontier at the Park collection to scrapbook my pictures from Pirates of the Caribbean, but in WDW, this ride is in Adventureland. So I went about it the other way around: I pulled the collection, looked at the sticker images, and decided which pictures from the trip could go with it. When I spotted the binoculars, I decided to pull pictures from our day at Animal Kingdom, where we see the girls playing with their souvenir toy.

I had a lot of pictures to choose from, so I pulled a two-page layout sketch that included 5 pictures. In order to stretch my patterned papers, I added Color Vibe cardstock in matching colours for the base page and the central block. I also cut out the center of the green patterned paper so that I had some leftover for other projects (since part of it was going to be hidden underneath the Coral cardstock.

I started by cutting the main papers to size and putting them in place with the pictures. Then I immediately went to the Calvinball list and started pulling out elements based on the list so I could work my design around them. I will tell you, it made a huge different on how many elements I was able to fit on my page, rather than doing that step when I was ready to start embellishing. For example, the list had "cut-apart cards" so I cut three of the little square images, then I snipped the bottom of the definition one as a banner (because that was also on the list), and I fussy cut the map from the page as well since fussy-cutting was on the list. So rather than put a die-cut on the bottom right circle, I selected my hand-cut image instead. I also slipped an arrow under it as I had since it on the list.

I like that Calvinball made me pull out some older supplies (chipboard and wood veneers) and also mix and match items from other collections. The chipboard flowers are from a My Mind's Eye collection that is not the same colour scheme, but I was able to pull out the aqua flowers an the green leaves, which did match the collection. I also used my travel-theme rub-ons from 49 and Market and go the idea to add them to an acetate (which was on the list), which I then cut underneath the photo frame die-cut. And I was inspired to use this die because I was looking for a camera die and found one in the same die set. Which happened to have a heart in the center so I was able to top it with a heart enamel shape and check that off the list as well.

I found a chip frame in a P13 set and saw that one actually was a vine, so that went with my theme very well. The wood veneer set had chevrons, so I made sure to pull those out. I was debating leaving the wood bare or not, but I got curious to know how Distress Glaze would look on it, so I pulled out Peeled Paint to try it out. I thought since the glaze is sheer that we would see the wood underneath. The first layer turned out very uneven. I let the pieces cool, and I pressed them in my VersaMark pad again and added a second coat of glaze. The result got a bit more even, but it did not end up like I hoped it would. It was good enough to keep on the page, but I might favour embossing powder over glaze next time.

The foam stickers for this collection have some really cool images in it. I realized that contrary to most of Simple Stories' foam stickers pack, which include large words meant for page titles, this set contains a large selection of images and a few words that are smaller and therefore usable as accents. I wish their foam stickers sets were always done that way - they'd definitely work better for my scrapbooking. So I used the binoculars, the safari shirt and the "welcome to the jungle" sentiment. Because I love that collection so much, I did get the matching washi, which has really cute patterns. I cut my branding strip with pinking shear decorative scissors and wanted to add washi at the top. I usually would have picked one of the thematic patterns, but I realized that the brown tape had a woodgrain pattern, which allowed me to score a point for that as well. That strip also became the grounding point for the first part of my title, which I did in two different fonts for an additional point. Last time I ordered from Elle's Studio, they were offering an alphabet grab bag, which included a white cardstock alphabet. I don't know why it never occurred to me when I ordered to get white cardstock alphabets, but it suddenly dawned on me after looking through my sets and not finding the colour I was looking for that I could pull my alcohol markers out and make my own yellow letters. 

I scored a total of 53 points for this double-page layout.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: This & That Date Stamp (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Always Artichoke (Stampin' Up!); VersaMark
Cardstock: Espresso, Lime, Coral and Dandelion Color Vibe (Simple Stories);
Acetate (Lawn Fawn); Foil Sheets (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Bits & Pieces, Washi Tape, Foam Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, 
Enamel Dots: Say Cheese Adventure at the Park (Simple Stories)
Dies: Planner Essentials 37 Letters & Numbers, Planner Essentials 4, Sidekick Essentials 11 (Elizabeth Craft Designs);
Cross Stitched Circles (Lawn Fawn); Curves Ahead Sizzlits (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: White Jane Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio); Chasing Adventures
Puffy Stickers (Jen Hadfield for American Crafts)
Frames Light Chipboard Embellishments (P13); Yellow Say It in Crystals (Prima Marketing);
Vintage Artistry Travel Anywhere Rub-On Transfers, Eucalyptus Ticket Essentials (49 and Market);
Light Mango Melody Stampin' Blends Marker, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals, Jute Ribbon, Mini Stapler,
Butterfly Punch, Essentials Wooden Elements, LIbrary Clips, Tropical Elements, Mini Vintage Tags (Stampin' Up!);
Star-fetti Shape Sprinkles, Heart-fetti Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design); Peeled Paint Distress Glaze (Ranger);
Happy Days Chipboard Elements (My Mind's Eye); Disney Mickey Icons Punch (Ek Success)

 

It's a Beautiful World

Inspiration: April 2022 Page Maps Sketch + Lasting Memory Layout Challenge #627 (use three of various products)

I went back to scrapbooking tonight and made a page for the picture of my niece in front of It's a Small World. I know that this ride is polarizing - people either love it or hate, but my family falls in the "love it" category. As kids, we often visited WDW during summer, when the heat was smoldering, so a lazy boat ride in air conditioning was very welcome and since the queue was often pretty short, we've even been known to ride it twice in a row so that we could enjoy and relax. I still get amazed by the amount of details found in the various scenes and I am always happy to revisit this old favorite. It's also classic Disney, which adds to the charm.

This gave me a chance to dive into the Say Cheese Fantasy at the Park collection from Simple Stories, one of my favorites from this release with its charming colours. Most of the design is based off of products from the line. I only die-cut one of the cut-apart images with a scalloped rectangle die, threaded twine to the chipboard tag and stamped my date on a ticket, but the rest all comes from the collection.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Ink: Old Olive (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Cardstock Stickers, Foam Stickers, Sticker Book, Decorative Brads,
Enamel Dots: Say Cheese Fantasy at the Park (Simple Stories)
Dies: Scalloped Contours (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Golden Yellow Twine (May Arts); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Out of This World

Inspiration: Page Maps July 2022 Sketch + Scrap Our Stash (2 forgotten tools: my Perfect Layers (to mat pictures) and the flip pockets with the fuse tool

I was eager to use the Say Cheese at the Park line with my Disney vacation pictures, and the Tomorrow collection was a great pick for our pictures taken at Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin ride. That being said, I had three full-size pictures of us riding on it and I was struggling to find a way to get all of them on a page without it feeling crowded. I ended up putting the pictures aside and working on something else until I thought of the flip protectors I have and once I thought of those, I was ready to revisit the page again. I'm so glad I got this idea, because it allowed me to include the Zurg picture on the page as well.

Inspired by the Page Maps sketch, I stitched a double circle with sparkly red floss in the background. I layered images from the Page Pieces to create the title at the bottom, and I added the rocket with the words Blast off on the right side. I matted the Zurg picture with patterned paper. I cut two tags from the Say Cheese at the Park papers, layered them at an angle and handwrote my journaling on them. I added a little zapper sticker at the top from the Sticker Book, and I added twine bows on both tags.

Once the page itself was done, I slipped it into a page protector and then I layered the three pictures in flip pockets where I wanted them and used the fuse tool to add them to the page protector. I added black sparkly washi tape over the top to hide the seam. 

The Sticker Book included little tabs that were the perfect size, but they couldn't be used on their own on the flips, as the stickers from the book are made of flimsy paper and also would have remained sticky, so I added them to white cardstock, fussy cut them out and then glued them on the flips.

I realized as I was turning the flips over that the back of the pictures didn't look great, so I went back to the patterned papers and cut-apart sheets and I created little inserts to put behind the pictures (gluing them behind the picture so that it would remain aligned). That made me happy, as the page looks more finished that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Page Pieces, Cardstock Stickers, Enamel Dots.
Puffy Stickers: Say Cheese at the Park, Say Cheese Tomorrow at the Park (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Yellow Twine (Doodlebug Design); Red Twine (Recollections); 
Red Sparkly Needlepoint Floss (DMC); Page Flips (Project Life)

 

Pirates of the Caribbean

Inspiration: Festive Friday #115 (Dog + Spots + Cannon Balls)

I got really excited when preview of the Say Cheese at the Parks collections from Simple Stories appeared online. Those might be the cutest Disney-inspired scrapbook collections I've seen so far. I impatiently waited for them to come out and got my hand on most of the items as soon as they came out. This is my first time finally using them. I have to assume the collections are based on Disneyland's lands as the pirates images are found under the Frontier at the Park collection, but the pirates ride is clearly in Adventureland in Walt Disney World. (I pulled the map I have from our last trip to double-check, as I was doubting my memory.)

The design of the page is pretty simple. I basically just had fun moving the ephemera images and foam stickers around to make a cohesive design. I love the picture of my niece - she doesn't need much prompting to make sassy poses for pictures and that pirate face is all her! I discovered that the pirate's hat from the foam stickers was the perfect size to fit her head and I couldn't stop giggling once I put it on her.

We visited the Adventureland section of the park after dinner and we started debating whether to ride Pirates or Jungle Cruise. We got lucky, as the lines for both rides were pretty short, so we ended up being able to ride both before the firework show started. I'm glad we had the chance to revisit this classic with the kids.

This was perfect for the challenge, as I had dotted paper, cannon balls and the little dog holding the key. I love that Simple Stories incorporated that image in the collection - it was the scene from the ride that stuck the most for me as a kid.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Ink: Pool Party (Stampin' Up!); Vintage Photo Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, Bits & Pieces, Enamel Dots,
Decorative Brads: Say Cheese Frontier at the Park (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Stitched Oval Stackables Dies (Lawn Fawn);
Tree Rings Dies, Tree Rings Hybrid Embossing Folder, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

 

 

 

 

Frozen Ever After

Inspiration: Paper Issues July 6 Sketch 

I thought this sketch could work well to scrapbook our picture taken at the Frozen Ever After ride. We almost never received this picture, as it had not originally saved to our account and we had to contact Disney and provide them the exact day and time we were at the ride, with a description of what our party looked like. Thankfully, they located it in their archives and were able to send it to us. My nieces were big fans of that movie and this was one of the rides we definitely wanted to capture a memory of. 

As you can see, Disney adds this Frozen overlay to the picture, which is entirely turquoise and therefore dictates the colour scheme. I had already done a monochromatic turquoise page in another album when I recorded an Olaf costume my brother-in-law's cousin had done by hand. I didn't want to go down that road again so I started shopping my stash and I got excited when I spotted the Sparkle City collection from American Crafts (2018). The colours were a nice match and I thought I could make it work if I avoided the city-themed papers. 

I used purple textured cardstock for the page base and I layered orchid dotted paper on the right, teal geographic paper on the right and a strip of paper with light strings on it (some of the lights having holographic foil on them). This detail is particularly nice because in the queue for the ride, we go through the Arendelle village and there are strings of lights hanging above our head, so I feel like that makes for a nice callback.

The picture mat is actually the packaging of the sticker pack! I liked the colours and patterns so I cut the marketing strip off and placed it under the picture on my page. I found a border punched out of holographic paper that was leftover from a previous project, so I slipped it at the top of the picture.

I used the matching holographic Thickers to create the first word of the title and include the date at the bottom of the page. I've been doing that more recently instead of stamping a small date on the page and I'm liking the look that it gives, plus the fact that I get to use the number stickers, which otherwise would tend to sit.

The Sparkle City collection included a vellum page, that is entirely filled with marquee. It was not fitting my page really well, but as I was about to put it away, I noticed that one of the marquee had the phrase "Never Give Up" and I realized that if I cut the N at the beginning of the word, I would have "ever" ready to use for my title! The word "after" was added with the block letters from the sticker pack.

I had Frozen-themed stickers from American Crafts that I pulled out and added to my page. I had Olaf sit on top of my date, I added the sisters' shadow at the top of my journaling block, each sister in the bottom corners of my picture mat, and an Olaf silhouette on top of the title. I also sprinkled snowflakes (stickers and sequins) around the page. 

The camera was fussy cut from patterned paper and added at an angle to frame the journaling. I had a leftover half-ticket in a purplish blue colour that suited the layout, so I slipped that underneath the picture. I used a branding strip as a teal border, cutting the ends with pinking decorative scissors. At the last minute, I remembered to look at the matching chipboard and I found this neat arrow with holographic lights on it, and I added it underneath the title, pointing towards the picture. That little addition really made the page feel completed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Wisteria Wonder Textured (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Stickers: Sparkle City, Chipboard (Shimelle for American Crafts)
Embellishments: Harmony Thickers, Disney Frozen Stickers (American Crafts); 
Stampin' Dimensionals, Sequins, Rhinestone Stickers, Iridescent Trim,
Mini Stapler (Stampin' Up!)

Islands of Adventure

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Layout challenge #607 - Old and New

(This is my first time using the Color Study collection from Vicki Boutin, which is relatively new as it came out last year. The sparkly Thickers are really old and so are the Echo Park decorative brads and the washi tapes.)

This will be the first page of our day at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. I was going through my paper collections to find something that would work and I found Vicki Boutin's mixed media paper pad. I really liked the colorful background with the stars, so I went looking for patterned papers to match and I found the few sheets from the Color Study collection that I have. I matted the picture with the black paper and added a few torn edges with the pink and purple one. I ran my black ink pad along the edges to make them stand out.

For the title, I wondered if I had the word "adventure" anywhere in my Thickers or chipboard packs, and I realized I might in the Into the Wild collection. Sure enough, the foam stickers pack include the word adventure in a colorful rainbow that matched the papers well enough to go. The word Islands was created with the Fox Thickers from Dear Lizzy and the word "of" with Little Letters stickers from Queen & Co.

I have the cut-apart sheet, so I used one of the borders at the bottom of the page, one of the banners at the top (with washi tape layered underneath) and two of the tags underneath the picture. I kept the "This day was fabulous" tag intact and I cut the viewmaster wheel out of the other tag to use as a die-cut image.

I decided to add my date with the same gold Thickers to make it stand out and fill in the space. And then I went around the page embellishing with gems, enamel dots, brads and stickers. I'm trying to include the park map on my cover pages, but it wouldn't have worked with the layout I was aiming for here, so I created a pocket with the yellow star patterned paper on the back of the page and I slid our printed tickets and the map in there.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers: Color Study (Vicki Boutin for American Crafts)
Cardstock: Ready-to-Use Mixed Media Paper (Vicki Boutin for American Crafts)
Accessories: Into the Wild Foam Stickers (Simple Stories);
Fox Thickers (Dear Lizzy for American Crafts); Yellow Little Letters Stickers (Queen & Co);
Star Stickers (Maildor); Halloween Mix Matte Enamels (Bella Blvd.);
Enamel Dots (Your Next Stamps); All Occasion Enamel Dots (Pink & Main);
Cool Summer Decorative Brads (Carta Bella); Botanical Enamel Dots (Waffle Flower);
Love Filled Gems (Fun Stampers Journey)

 

The Cube

Inspiration: Paper Issues Sketch - July 4

When I went through Vicki Boutin's Ready-to-use mixed media paper pad, I tore this page and put it aside. In the pad, the stripes are horizontal, but I realized when I turned the page 90 degrees that it looked just like the July 4 sketch and I was immediately inspired to explore that idea.

I sort of did the monochromatic sections, except for the title, where I paired three colours from the page to make sure the words were showing up well. I did do tone-on-tone stitching on all of the sections. I placed my title over the yellow stitching and I glued the first word a little crooked so it wouldn't look so plain. I added puffy stickers in yellow at the top and bottom of the sentiment to keep with the monochromatic embellishing.

I typed my journaling in Word, using the Elegant Typewriter font. I printed it on a scrap of pink cardstock, cut it as strips and added it the page. I added sparkly enamel dots and a couple of puffy stickers in matching colours. I got lucky and had a drink image, which fits with the story. (The story behind this cube that my niece is holding is that I ordered a cocktail during one of our meals and the drink had a light-up cube in it to make the drink change colours. The kids were absolutely enthralled by it and a little bit of fighting ensued once we fished it out of the glass to see who could play with it. The youngest, who was about to turn two at the time, kept the thing in her hand for a big chunk of the Disney trip. That's kids for you - they'll be totally smitten with the dollar gadget!)

I placed the picture in the fourth section, and I like that the blue of my niece's dress fits with the blue section theme. I matted the picture with a blue paper from the Color Study collection from Vicki Boutin. I went through my blue embellishment drawer and I found blue tickets that I tucked in under the picture. I also found a blue chipboard banner that I added to the picture's corner. I also found blue rub-ons in 49 and Market's Sky & Navy rub-on transfers pack. I added blue and teal sequin rub-ons around the page, the word Reminisce on the picture, the word Simplicity on the chipboard banner and the words "greatest treasure" above the picture. (That was a lucky find!) 

The teal section is very narrow and didn't need a lot of embellishing, but I did get the idea of finding a scrap of matching paper and punching little Mickey heads to glue on the page. I have this punch that does six sizes at once, and the pattern I picked really blends into the background, so I like that it adds hidden Mickeys to the page. At the bottom of the stitching, I added an aqua tag, on which I stamped the date in Bermuda Bay ink and I added a little puffy sticker in matching color to the right.

It feels like a lot of the work was done for me since I used a pre-done mixed media page, but I really do enjoy the end result. I like that this will add variety to the final Disney album as well.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Ink: Bermuda Bay (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Pink (Unknown)
Ready-to-Use Mixed Media Paper Pad: Vicki Boutin (American Crafts)
Patterned Papers: Color Study (Vicki Boutin for American Crafts); Teal (Unknown)
Alphabet Stickers: Pink Little Letters (Queen & Co); Oh, What Fun! Puffy Alphabet (Pinkfresh);
Midnight Thickers (American Crafts)
Accessories: Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success); Here and Now (Dear Lizzy for American Crafts);
Dive Into Summer Puffy Stickers (Echo Park); Aqua Label Stickers (Elle's Studio); 
Vintage Artistry Sky & Navy Rub-On Transfers (49 and Market); Gumdrops (Your Next Stamp);
Bell Pepper Trinkets Puffy Stickers (Bella Blvd.)
Font: Elegant Typewriter

 

Animal Kingdom

Inspiration: Scrapbook Generation Free Sketch #2 + Lasting Memory Layout challenge #606 (Big and Small Elements)

I kept going with the Into the Wild collection from Simple Stories and made my intro page for the day we spent at Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World. This time, I remembered to make a pocket on the layout so that I could keep the map from that day in it! I had done that in my album from 2005 and I find it fun to pull the old map back and see how the parks have evolved since then. I forgot to make a pocket for my Magical Kingdom page, so I will probably just slip the map on the back of that page, in the pocket protector. Here, I used foam strips on both sides of the picture and on the bottom edge so the picture is off the cardstock and open at the top, and I was able to slip the guidemap in. Its colors also fit very nicely with the collection, so that's a win as well.

I made sure to pick green cardstock for the page base, as it seemed an obvious pick. I based my design on a free sketch from Scrapbook Generation that had four 4" x 4" squares on it. I realized when I measured the map that it would not fit in such a small square, so I simple made the two left blocks 4" x 6" instead. That had the added bonus of preserving my Tree of Life picture, as it was already cropped pretty tightly in the picture. I did crop the other two shots of the tree - one at day and one at night - to 2¼" x 2¼" and added them to patterned paper, as per the original sketch. I moved the pictures a bit higher on my design so as not to hide the words on the bottom square. I found this neat wood 4" x 4" cut-apart with the words Wild One in aqua and decided to use this on the layout. I then realized I had the same words, slightly larger, in the foam stickers and decided to overlay the words to make it a dimensional element.

I then went on to pick embellishment. I got to reuse that Jungle Safari chipboard piece that had not made it on my Kilimanjaro Safari layout, and I slipped a flower underneath. I wrapped twine around the photo mats and added a sentiment strip on one and a foam sticker on the other. The lion head came from the Bits & Pieces and is just adorable. At the bottom, I used the little animal banners sticker, then popped the chipboard explorer hat on foam adhesive, as well as the chipboard compass and the ephemera boots. I found those cute little chipboard pawprints and put them in the corner of the alligator paper. Then, I picked the Explore tag and stamped Animal Kingdom on it with a small wood-mount alphabet I found in the bins near the cash register at Michaels years ago. I added a little iguana sticker at the top (he reminds me of Pascal from Tangled!) and a leaf at the bottom. I went back to the animal-print gems from the Diamond Say It in Crystal pack to accent the strips at the top of the page.

This collection is working out very nicely for my Animal Kingdom pictures.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Alphabet (Studio G); Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Cardstock: Lucky Limeade Textured (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, Chipboard Stickers: Into the Wild (Simple Stories)
Ink: Mossy Meadow (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Twine (Recollections); Stampin' Dimensionals, Foam Adhesive Strips (Stampin' Up!);
Diamond Say It in Crystals (Prima Marketing)

 

My Little Monkey

Inspiration: Paper Issues - July 2 sketch

I was happy to see that Paper Issues is hosting a 31 days of sketches in July. Sketches are always a great way to spark inspiration and stretch my design muscle. I was liking the overlapping papers sketch, as I saw it as a great way to use smaller scraps on a full 12" x 12" page. I went to my Disney pictures to see what could work as a stand-alone on a page and when I saw the picture of my niece hanging upside down while we were waiting in line for a ride, I knew I could do something with the Into the Wild collection using the monkey images.

When I started working with this new collection a couple of weeks ago, I pulled out some monochromatic Designer Series Paper from Stampin' Up! in matching shades and kept those close so I could stretch the collection further. I decided to use those here rather than the papers from the collection since I knew we would only see corners peeking out from underneath the picture. Before I glued my papers down, I smooshed my Old Olive ink pad on a piece of acetate, spritzed it with water and I smooshed the acetate on my textured cardstock to create texture.

I found a little monkey in the chipboard pack and the title "My Little Monkey" in the foam stickers, which made my job easier to begin with. I also found a "just hangin'" die-cut in the Journaling Bits pack, which I superposed on another die-cut to give it more visual weight and add the leaf pattern. I snuck two branch die-cuts from the Bits & Bobs pack in the corners. I added flower stickers from the cardstock and foam packs, as wild as a little sentiment strip and paw print. I embellished with pearls, gems and enamel dots in matching colours. And I doodled borders around the papers.

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Old Olive Textured (Stampin' Up!)
Designer Series Vellum: Vellum Layering Designs (Stampin' Up!)
Designer Series Paper: Brights Stack, Neutrals Stack (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Old Olive (Stampin' Up!)
Foam Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, Bits & Pieces, Journaling Bits: Into the Wild (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Brown Pen (PaperMate); Stampin' Dimensionals, Distressing Tool,
Treasured Tags Pick a Punch (Stampin' Up!); Café au Lait, Rose Pink and Apricot Glacé Pearls (Studio Katia); 
Bundle of Joy Enamel Dots (Echo Park); Diamond Say It in Crystals (Prima Marketing)

 

All-Star Movies Resort

Inspiration: July 2016 Scrapbook Generation Free Sketch + Simon Says Stamp Monday (Inspired by a Movie = The Love Bug)

While I was working on my last layout and going through the very generous pack of Odds & Ends from the Fun in the Park collection by Doodlebug, I spotted some adorable old-time hotel keys. I had yet to scrapbook the pictures of the hotel we stayed at during our Disney trip, so I put those images aside and they became the starting point for my next layout.

I had quite a few pictures taken at the hotel and I decided to use another Scrapbook Generation free sketch I had downloaded recently from their website. The layout includes five full-size 4" x 6" pictures, a sixth one that's cut down to 4" x 4" and I included the room number in a 2½" punched circle. I popped some of the pictures on dimensional adhesive to make them stand out.

For the page base, I picked turquoise cardstock. I should mention that I purchased the matching textured cardstock pack from the Fun in the Park line and I'm glad I did because I can quickly grab the colour I need for my page base and know for certain that it will match.

This was another really easy layout: I put five strips of patterned paper along the length of the two cardstock pages and seven banners at the top of the right page. To make my life simpler, I used the stitched banner die from the Foundation 4 set by Queen & Co. It was way too long, so I cut it down to 2" afterwards, but not only was it quick but it added a little extra with the stitching as well. For the slim strip, I used red foil polka dot washi tape, which has a definite Minnie vibe to it (even though it's from a Christmas set). I first tried the strip down like on the original sketch but I was not liking the look, so I moved it up.

Along with the keys, I had also put aside the luggage images from the Odds & Ends pack. I really liked the three luggage pile, but it was too short to fill in the space on the yellow paper and it looked lost, so I popped the first image on top of the other suitcase, cutting the white border off at the bottom to make it look like one continuous image.

The title was created with three different Thickers set, overlapping the lobby picture a bit. I printed my journaling on a scrap of grey cardstock, using the Waltograph font. I cut the text in strips and added it to the page with liquid glue so I could move the strips around before the glue set to make sure everything was straight. I'm glad I went for grey cardstock instead of white, I think it pops better against the movie strip and it adds a bit of interest.

Embellishing if fairly simple. I added rhinestones on the left page, epoxy stars to the film strip, enamel dots to the banners, a little Mickey heart sticker and a few Travel Time Shape Sprinkles. I hope they don't yellow too badly over time. It's been my main gripe with the epoxy stickers from Doodlebug - they yellow pretty badly and pretty quickly, too. It's really too bad, because those things are incredibly adorable, but I feel it makes a project look dingy when the colour turn. We'll see how it goes, but I added a backpack and a suitcase to the top of the right picture, a third suitcase at the bottom of the page and I dangled the cute little room keys from the journaling strips. I also added a geotag to the first journaling strip.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Fun at the Park Solid Assortment (Doodlebug Design)
Patterned Papers, Icons, Odds & Ends: Fun at the Park (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Foundation 4 (Queen & Co)
Accessories: Red Foil Polka Dot Washi Tape (Recollections); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); 
Festive Assortment Sprinkles, Festive Assortment Mini Jewels, Travel Time Shape
Sprinkles, Star Attraction Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design); 
Lindsay, Land of Wonder and Sorbet Thickers (American Crafts)
Font: Waltograph

 

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)

 

Mickey Pretzel

Inspiration: June 2013 Scrapbook Generation Free Sketch + Tic Tac Toe #167 (Metallic [thread] + Gems + Patterned Papers)

Another element from the Fun at the Park Odds & Ends I had put aside was the pretzel. When we went to Disney, my brother-in-law and I talked about how we had a craving for a Mickey pretzel. Thing is, we had tried the meal plan with the sit-down dinners for the first time and we discovered that the meal plan includes a LOT of food! After a sit-down dinner, where you had appetizers or a big buffet plus dessert, you're not really hungry for a snack. At least, we weren't. On the second to last day, we had dinner at Disney Springs, shopped at the Disney Store and when we came out, I spotted a pretzel cart and decided, Our trip is almost over - tonight is the night, I'm getting that darn pretzel! My brother-in-law was not hungry, so he just tasted a piece of mine and what's funny is that two years later, he is still talking about how he regrets never getting a pretzel while we were there! It's just a funny story that I wanted to add to the scrapbook. I didn't have an actual picture of my own pretzel, but I grabbed a picture online so that I would have something to put on the page.

I looked at the Scrapbook Generation sketches and I liked the June 2013 one. It has three pictures, but Allison always encourages her readers to adapt the sketches to their needs and I liked the rest of the design - particularly since I figured I might be able to cut my pattern paper to a 8½ width and run it though my printer to print directly on it. This became the starting point of the page, and I love how it turned out. I cut the page down further after I was done printing, turned the pieces I had cut off over and used the backside pattern to make contrasting strips at the top and bottom.

I centered the picture over the text and I added my title to the right, using two different Thickers set. I added the little twirly border from the cardstock stickers underneath the last word and added a little snack Shape Sprinkle to the side.

Rather than waste paper, I just cut the edge of my paper strip to look like pennants and I slid short pieces underneath the main paper, then I added hand stitching on each strip. I used regular white thread on the red paper, and sparkly red thread on the black paper and sparkly black thread on the turquoise paper. (Those three patterns are from the Petite Prints pattern pack, which is helping me stretch my collection further when I design and tone the heavy patterns down as well.) 

I wanted to give the pretzel die-cut a little more visual weight, so I added a scalloped circle underneath, topped with a fireworks die-cut for layering. I included dimensional adhesive between both layers. The little stamp is cut with decorative edge scissors out of patterned paper, the little arrow is from the cardstock stickers and I added die-cut stars around the page, topped with rhinestone stickers and enamel dots.

This was a fun page to put together. I'm really making grounds on my Disney album lately. I've scrapbooked so much since the beginning of the year that I've pretty much put together the same amount of pages in six months as I've had all of last year! 

 

 

Supplies
Textured Cardstock: Fun at the Park Solid Assortment (Doodlebug Design)
Patterned Papers, Odds & Ends, Bits & Pieces, This & That Cardstock Stickers: Fun at the Park (Doodlebug Design)
Accessories: Star Attraction, I love This Place and Foodie Fun Shape Sprinkles, Festive Assortment Mini Jewels,
Festive Assortment Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design); Needlepoint Thread (DMC);
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Land of Wonder and Garden Party Thickers (American Crafts)
Font: Typewriter Rustic RNH

 

Where Dreams Come True

Inspiration: Freshly Made Sketch #541

I wanted to make a card with the Fun at the Park collection before putting it away, and I drew inspiration from the Freshly Made sketch. I used one of the stickers from the cardstock sticker sheet, and I was planning on hiding the English words with a die-cut banner with a French stamped sentiment, but I ended up switching gears as I was designing. I used the dies from the Foundation 4 set to create the background piece, the straight banner and the tag overlapping the image. The stamped sentiment reads, "Have a nice day" and came from a Stampin' Up! set. I added a Mini Icon bow sticker to fill the space above the sentiment and two turquoise rhinestones from the mini jewel pack. I used stickers to embellish inside the card and the front of the matching envelope as well. 

I think I can now retire this collection for a little while and try including some other ones in my Disney album!

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Douceur de pêche (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Mini Icon Stickers, Icon Stickers: Fun at the Park (Doodlebug Design)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Foundation 4 Dies (Queen & Co); Festive Assortment Mini Jewels (Doodlebug Design);
A2 White Envelope (The Paper Cut); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!);
Corner Chomper (We R Memory Makers)

 

Kilimanjaro Safari

Inspiration: November 2013 Scrapbook Generation Free Sketch + Just Us Girls challenge #639

Simple Stories has been releasing fantastic collections throughout the year and I was initially going to pass up on Into the Wild because I've found in the past that I've struggled to use collections that are animal or zoo-themed. I have been slowly but surely working on my Disney World album but I still had not put together any layout for our day spent at Animal Kingdom, as I wasn't sure what to use for those pictures. It dawned on me that Into the Wild could work pretty well, and this is the first layout I've finished putting together with the collection. I started with pictures from the Kilimanjaro Safari. It was pretty cool that the foam stickers have that exact word in it, and the Bits & Bobs have that adorable little green jeep as well.

My pictures from the safari are not stellar - most of the animals were far off in the distance, away or sleeping when we rode the attraction, but it was my very first visit at the Animal Kingdom park altogether, so I still wanted to document our visit there. Since the Scrapbook Generation layouts often include a ton of pictures, I had a look at various sketches and picked the November 2013 one. The fact that the animals were far off in the distance made it really easy to crop the pictures off to small 2" x 2" pictures and so on.

I bought a single collection pack so I didn't have any sheet duplicate, which means that in order to get the two blocks of paper going across the two-page layout, I had to get creative. I went looking through my monochromatic DSP from Stampin' Up! and pulled papers that matched the collection. I was really liking the yellow paper but only had a sheet and a half, so I reduced the size of the right-side block to accommodate the scrap I had. The photo mat and the two borders came from the Into the Wild papers.

For the square border, I would have die-cut squares out of patterned papers, but I wanted to be strategic about how I use the paper I have and I was also worried that would be one busy border, since the papers are not exactly discreet patterns. So I pulled cardstock colours matching the papers, die-cut each colour twice, then I used the Dotted and Stitched stamp set from Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous to add texture to each of them. I have to say, this might be one of my favorite detail of the layout! I also later on went through Candy Dots and Enamel Dots to add dots of matching colours on each of the squares.

I used one of the cut-apart blocks, turned 90 degree to match the sketch, for my journaling. I created my title with the foam sticker and gold puffy stickers from the Magical Forest collection. I recycled a piece of torn vellum that was on my desk to create a "shelf" for the word and add a bit of texture.

While looking through the ephemera pack, I noticed that the die-cuts included a lot of the same animals I had in my pictures, so I put those aside to see if I could match them to the pictures. I could not get each animal by its matching picture, because some of the animals were facing off the page, which did not look good and some were too big for the allowed space, so I moved the images around until I could find a pleasing arrangement. The animals I had the most trouble fitting in were the elephant, the zebra and the ostrich. I solved my problem by putting the elephant and the ostrich on top of other animals, to fill the space, and I found out that the cardstock sticker also included a zebra image that was actually smaller, so this condensed scale worked way better on the page.

I added some of the sentiment stickers around the page - my favorite is "Hakuna Matata" on the image of the warthog, my little Pumbaa lookalike. I had a jungle safari chipboard piece I was hoping to fit in, but I found the "Welcome to the jungle" cardstock sticker and again, the size was more convenient, so I popped it on foam and placed the puma over it. When I looked for embellishments, I found the Diamond Say It in Crystals gems, which actually have leopard dots and zebra stripes on them. They were perfect for this layout, so I added them to the title, and then I worked enamel dots around the pages.

I have a few remaining pictures, so I will probably make a couple of extra pages (maybe using pocket protectors) to add them to my album, and I'd like to use this collection to make the front page of our day at Animal Kingdom as well, so more to come later!

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Marks (Woodware Craft Collection); Dotted and Stitched (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Ticket Express (49 & Market)
Cardstock: Grey (Bazzill)
Ink: Regal Rose, Peach Passion, Mint Macaron, Dusty Durango, Lucky Limeade, Sahara Sand (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers, Bits & Pieces, Journaling Bits,
Cardstock Stickers: Into the Wild (Simple Stories)
Designer Series Paper Stack: Brights (Stampin' Up!)
Designer Vellum Stack: Botanical Gardens
Dies: Square Nestabilities (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Diamond Say It in Crystals (Prima Marketing); Magical Forest Alphabet Stickers (Crate Paper);
Bundle of Joy Enamel Dots (Echo Park); Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); Decorative Scissors (Fiskars);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Enamel Shapes, Candy Dots, Mini Stapler, Gold and Clear Faceted Gems (Stampin' Up!)

Magical Memories

Inspiration: March 2016 Free Sketch from Scrapbook Generation (Allison Davis)

Inspiration sometimes take a hard left... I had taken out the soft Dulce papers from Prima Marketing and was rummaging through pictures to find something from possibly our day at the Magic Kingdom to go with it. Then I found those pictures of us munching on popcorn while waiting for the bus to go back to the hotel after a long day at Epcot and I remembered that I had purchased the What's Poppin' Shaker-pops from Doodlebug's Fun at the Park collection, which would work nicely with those pictures. The collection colour also fit the pictures' colours quite nicely, so I put the other papers aside and switched gears.

The design was based on some Scrapbook Generation sketches I recently downloaded. The design is really simple - five strips of patterned paper in the center of your page - which left a lot of room for embellishments. Initially, I had selected the scalloped circle from the sticker sheet to replace the star from the sketch and it was just supposed to be to mat the popcorn shaker, but some of the text was poking out, which was bothering. I tried finding something to hide it, but I was not liking the layering, so I changed my mind. I kept the sticker as the title and I moved the shaker to the bottom of the page, paired with the direction post Odds & Ends piece. From this same kit, I also pulled the Ice Cream cart, just to stay with the food imagery, and the popcorn bucket and kernels, which were added around the date tag.

The pictures were matted with papers from the Petite Prints pack to make them stand out more. I used the popcorn cut-apart image from the patterned paper, handwrote my journaling on it and I topped it with a Minnie bow. I used some of the little stars around the pictures and I added rhinestones to the main title. An enamel dot was added to the right of the date tag.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Au jour le jour (Project Life by Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Tempting Turquoise (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Petite Print Assortment, Odds & Ends, This & That Cardstock
Stickers: Fun at the Park (Doodlebug Design)
Accessories: Festive Assortment Mini Jewels, Foodie Fun Shape Sprinkles,
What's Poppin' Shaker-Pops Cardstock Sticker, Festive Assortment Sprinkles (Doodlebug Design);
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Racing Academy

Inspiration: NSD 2016 Free Sketch from Scrapbook Generation

I explored the free sketches from Scrapbook Generation this weekend and looked through them for inspiration for my next layout. I liked the two-page sketch from 2016 NSD as it had multiple pictures on it. I picked the pictures taken when we visited the Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy attraction at Hollywood Studios. 

The colours of the pictures are really bright - bold blue and red, so I knew I would have to pick papers with equally strong colours to them. The Family Fun collection from Simple Stories caught my eye because it had those bold reds and blues to it, but I also remembered the collection does have racing cars in the images and a race checker pattern, so I quickly decided this is what I would be using. I picked patterns for the background blocks, making sure to use a plain paper on the right so the title would read easily, and the checkered pattern on the biggest block, since it was my favorite with this theme. I picked the ticket paper to create my top border and I found a numbered washi tape in a matching green shade, so that's what I added underneath. On the right page, I traded the three banners for a checkered bunting chipboard piece.

I used white cardstock for my background and to help make it a little less stark white, I put Hickory Smoke Distress ink on a piece of acetate, spritzed water and I smooshed the acetate in the opposite corners of my cardstock pieces. I like that it adds a subtle bit of colour, and it reminds me of smoke coming out of an exhaust pipe.

I got lucky with the pictures, as the five pictures I had picked fit the exact size of the pictures shown on the sketch (which rarely happens) so I was quickly able to follow the sketch dimensions and put everything in place. I didn't have a sixth picture, so the second small picture block became a tag for journaling instead.

For the title, I remembered the sticker book includes alphabets, so I used the teal letters for my second word and red Thickers for the first word. I've said in the past I am not a fan of Simple Stories' stickers being made out of thin paper, and this was greatly amplified when I tried to line up the letters, which kept bending, making it really hard to line them up properly. You also can't really pull the stickers up once they are down on your paper as they rip really easily, so once they are down, you have to commit.

I tried to come up with a cluster above the title as shown on the sketch, and this is the closest I could come up with. I added a few more embellishments around the page and called this one done. One more ready to add to the Disney album!

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Cardstock: Textured White (American Crafts)
Ink: Hickory Smoke Distress (Ranger); Bermuda Bay (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Chipboard Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, Enamel Dots, Foam Stickers,
Sticker Book, Bits & Pieces, Journaling Bits: Family Fun (Simple Stories)
Accessories: 1/8" Blueberry Bushel Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Banner Punch (Stampin' Up!); Holly Jolly Thickers (American Crafts);
Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers); Washi Tape (Unknown) 

 

One-On-One With Daisy

Inspiration: September 2020 Page Maps Sketch + Lasting Memory Layout #598 (Something New - Flower Garden paper pad from Carta Bella)

During our trip to Disney, we booked a bunch of character dinners but the one that stood out the most was the lunch we had at Hollywood & Vine. The buffet food was really good and the retro decor was really cool, but this is also the place where the characters were the most fun to interact with and the place where we got the most face time with each of them. I already scrapbooked our interaction with Goofy, but Daisy was the other one that stood out as during her second tour of the restaurant, she actually came and sat in the booth with the kids. My niece Arielle got a good five minutes of uninterrupted time with her. She was at that age where she was mesmerized by the character and just wanted to pet them and kiss them, so this turned into a really special interaction. It was one of those moments that made the trip extra special.

I was planning to use the My Mind's Eye's Asparagus line but I realized the vintage washed out colours were clashing with my pictures and that something clean like the Flower Garden line from Carta Bella was meshing with the pictures better. I purchased the 6" x 6" mega pack from this line, so I had to be creative with how I used the paper to make it work for my 12"  x 12" layout. I glued two patterns together to make my middle piece and added black stitching rub-ons to the part where the papers met. I cut the top off with the File Folder Edges dies from My Favorite Things.

I knew I wanted my title to say Tête-à-tête with Daisy, but there is nothing that will kill an alphabet set faster than using all of the E's at once, as this is our most commonly used letter in French. So I looked through my alpha stamps and dies and I chose to use the Alphanumeric Script die set from Tim Holtz for Sizzix. The set doesn't include punctuation so I had to make my own hyphens and accents, but I love the final look and it is just the right size for the page. The letters were cut out of the monochromatic paper that is included in the mega packs - those are really helpful to have plain paper matching a project. One of my biggest challenge is to find matching cardstock when I'm using patterned paper, so I'm always jumping on the basics pages that more and more companies have started offering with their paper lines.

The rest of the title was created with black alphabet stickers from Pretty Pink Studio and Courtney Thickers. I'm already half-way through that pack, so it's nice when I find something I'm able to spell with the remaining letters. I've noticed with sparkly letters, they can sometimes be hard to match if the sheen of the glitter is not the right hue. Here, the glitter sparkled green and aqua, which fit with the papers and the sparkle of the tulle so it was a perfect match. I have another white glitter pack that has a yellow sheen and this one is really hard to pair with anything. Something I am keeping in mind now when I'm alphabet shopping. 

The main picture at right was matted with white sparkly tulle and white collage paper. I used one of the cut-apart sentiments from the paper pad underneath and I layered a little acrylic piece that says Kisses Kisses Kisses underneath. I added flowers fussy cut from the patterned paper and a black rhinestone flourish I've had in my stash for many years. I handwrote my journaling on the center block using a black pen.

On the left side, I included three hearts punched out of holographic cardstock that I had sitting on my desk. One of them has been embossed with the Geometric Lattice embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp. I put two of the hearts underneath the picture so I wouldn't hide the kids in the pictures, and the third one, I popped on dimensional adhesive and left over the pictures. I added Say It in Crystal gems in matching colours on each one. 

For the page background, I was wondering if I should add splatter or watercoloring or stenciling and then I remembered I had the Painted Flowers Wreath stencil that would fit very nicely over the top of the tabbed paper. I used blender brushes and Distress Oxide ink pads (with a bit of masking) to get the multicolored wreath. I added rhinestones and crystals to the center of the flowers.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps:
Cardstock: White (American Crafts)
Patterned Papers: Flower Garden (Carta Bella)
Ink: Saltwater Taffy, Speckled Egg, Bundled Sage Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Dies: Alphanumeric Script Alphabet (Tim Holtz for Sizzix); 
File Folder Edges (My Favorite Things)
Accessories: Christmas Fairy Crystals (Memory Box); 
Painted Flowers Wreath (Simon Says Stamp); Black Roughly Sewn Rub-Ons (49 & Market);
Heart Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Courtney Thickers (American Crafts);
Frosty Alphabet Stickers (Pretty Little Studio); Halloween Bling Stickers,
White Sparkly Tulle, Bling Stickers (Recollections); Geometric Lattice 3D Embossing Folder (Simon Says Stamp);
White Paper Collage (Tim Holtz for idea-ology); Blender Brushes (Taylored Expressions);
Mini Hearts - Cotton Candy Glossies (Pure & Simple); Décos Mots doux Rose thé (Florilèges Design);
Surfboard and Magic Love Say It in Crystals (Prima Marketing)

 

Dinner With Princesses

Inspiration: March 2019 Page Maps Sketch

When I organized my patterned paper collections earlier this year, I had put aside the Little Princess collection (2019) from Simple Stories  to use with the pictures taken in Disney when we dined at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall, where we were treated to a princess meet 'n greet. When the princesses started coming to the tables, my older niece wasn't keen on getting up to go and see them. We had to prod her a bit, her parents arguing that we had come all this way and me adding that we would need pictures for the scrapbook... This trip was the first time my sister and I had opted for the meal plan when going to Disney. When doing the booking, my sister and her friend had selected all of the restaurants with characters meet and greets, hoping the kids would enjoy that, but at the end of our week, we drew the conclusion that doing sit-down meals eats up a lot of time in a day. My sister and I are all about the rides when we go to an amusement park and we were shocked at the sheer amount of food you have to consume to break even when getting the meal plan, so if and when we visit Disney again, I think our meal strategy would be different.

I used the Teal/Lavendar paper from the Basic Kit for the page base. In opposing corners and along the edges, I inked Highland Heather ink with a blender brush and the Magical Night stencil to create little sparkles. I didn't have enough patterned paper to do a single block going over the two pages like on the sketch, so I had to add stripes at the top to make the block larger. I used a piece of patterned paper with the borders and fussy cut the edge following the yellow band. I added yellow gems to each scallop. 

I used one of the cut-aparts at the top (the tower image), punched a corner and I added a cute cloud fussy cut from the patterned paper to go over the edge of the image so that it didn't look as blocky. I also fussy cut the label from another cut-apart block to make my journaling block. I used three different alphabet sticker set to create my title. I really wanted to use the yellow foam alphabet, but it is now down to very limited letters and so I ad to be creative and cut leftover letters to create the ones I needed. The teal and blue alphabets were newer so I had all of the letters I needed. I like how the last letters go over the pictures, which help to tie the elements of the layout together. I also love that little birdie plucked from the cardstock sticker sheet. I was moving him around the page, not sure where to put him, and I put him near the tower, where the pictures were meeting and it ended up that the last word of my title fit in between the bird and the edge perfectly. Sheer dumb luck, but that worked out well.

I have the Princess Bits & Pieces pack, which is all princess images (that are just so adorable). I placed three in a row over the doilies as per the sketch on the right page, and I added Belle on the left page, to tie in with the picture. I punched two words from the patterned paper using my Duo Ticket punch, and created two small banners, to layer in the left lower corner, as per the sketch.

The cut-apart sheet had a beautiful swan image, which I handcut and added to the corner of the right page, adding a paper scrap underneath to ground the image, and a few sequin stickers from the cardstock sticker sheet. I fussy cut a frog from the patterned paper and added it beside one of the princesses. Then, I finished embellishing with gems and sequins. I was afraid when I pulled out the collection that I might find the result a little bit too pastel-y, especially when I picked the lavendar paper as my base, but since the pictures are all pretty neutral, it works out. I hope I can get back into scrapbooking a bit more now than the Christmas crafting is done.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Chipboard Stickers, Princess Bits and Pieces: Little Princess (Simple Stories)
Ink: Highland Heather (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Curvy Corner Trio Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Blender Brushes, Triple Banner Punch,
Duo Ticket Punch, Pearlized Doilies (Stampin' Up!); Silver, Sparkly Gel Pen (Gelly Roll);
Halloween Party and Princess Sparkle Doo Dadz (Buttons Galore & More);
Pale Ocean Blue Green, Hydrangea, Iris, Light Pink, Medium Cornflower Blue Sequins (Cartwright's);
PIneapple Delight Crystals (Studio Katia); Magical Night Stencil (Echo Park);
Teal Puffy Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio); Lullaby Foam Letter Thickers (American Crafts);
Super Cool Puffy Alpha Stickers (PinkFresh); Swimming Pool and Bumblebee
Mini Paper Doilies (Doodlebug Design)

 

A Cute Souvenir

Inspiration: March 2019 Page Maps sketch

I went back to my Disney pictures. This mug was purchased online but it does have the year we took our trip to Disney on it, so I guess it counts as a souvenir (and it prevented me from having to bring something fragile back in my luggage). This beautiful mug has become an instant favorite.

I decided to pull out the Say Cheese Main Street collection from Simple Stories to match the pink of the cup. The collection also includes cup patterns so it was a nice match. Of all the Say Cheese collections, this one is definitely my favorite. It has obviously been designed by the Crate Paper designer Simple Stories managed to hire a couple of years ago (don't quote me on that, I haven't seen confirmation of it anywhere, but I've been thinking the designs are way too similar to be a coincidence and I have heard so many YouTubers say that the new Simple Stories releases remind them of Crate Paper for it not to be the case).

This page design is quite simple. I used one of the cut-aparts at the bottom and cut my pattern papers to the same width, then I added white sequin trim as per the sketch. I die-cut a folk heart out of red paper and added the speech bubble foam sticker over the picture. It was a happy coincidence that the foam stickers had a speech bubble just like the sketch did, and that Minnie's mouth was located just right on the cup in the picture to fit where the bubble is. While looking through the sticker book, I noticed that there are three alphabets in there, so I decided to use them to create my title, since it didn't have too many repeats. Those alphabets are a little useful because they have so little letters in there that it is hard to spell anything, but I decided to use them while I could. I've mentioned in the past that while I love the quality of most Simple Stories products, their sticker books are a little bit of a let down because the stickers are very thin paper. I used the stickers from a Carta Bella book a few days ago and those are made of cardstock and lay so much better on a project. This is particularly apparent here, since I did two mats on my pictures and therefore the stickers have a very lumpy look as the thin paper shows everything.

I like the half-Mickey head embellishment. I found a Say Cheese Halloween stencil on clearance at a very inexpensive price and thought I might be able to use it just to get the outline shape of the Mickey head, without the English Halloween text that's in there. Once the outside has been traced, the shape is pretty easy to fussy cut. On the plus side, you can also use either side of the stencil and therefore have the head facing whichever way you need. I had done one on pink paper when I received the stencil to see if my idea would work and I was very pleased with the result. Here, I turned it around to get the head facing left and I used the backside pattern to make the tone on tone embellishment stand out.

The cut-apart piece had the words "Can I have your autograph?" on it, which didn't match my page, so I hid the text under other sentiment stickers. I added foam flower stickers to my Mickey head, a few decorative brads and a couple of enamel dots. Easy-peasy and one more page ready to add to the Disney album.

 

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Foam Stickers, Sticker Book, Enamel Dots, Puffy Stickers,
Decorative Brads: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Say Cheese Halloween Stencil (Simple Stories);
Foam Adhesive (Altenew); White Sequin Trim (Michaels);
Folk Hearts Dies (Essentials by Ellen); Pastel Pen Collection (Le Pen)

 

Magic Kingdom

Inspiration: Page from Traci on Doodlebug Design blog

Just like many others, I'm sure, I got really excited when I found out Doodlebug Design was coming out with a Disney-inspired line. I was even more excited that it came out while I was working on my last DIsney trip album. Of course, this line has been designed with all of the cuteness and charm Doodlebug is known for. I have been sitting on this collection for a few weeks now, but when I spotted the amazing page from Traci on the Doodlebug blog, I marked it as I knew it would be an easy layout to reproduce. I especially liked the idea of including tag-shaped pictures. Most companies like Doodlebug, Simple Stories, Carta Bella and Echo Park all include a full page of cut-apart tags in their collections nowadays, so this layout could be reproduced in various colour schemes and themes.

I'm really not going to take credit for this one as I made a pretty close copy of the original, but I did let my creativity roam free towards the end when it came time to embellish. For the title, I used two Thickers set that have been in my stash for a long time: Emma (red) and Lindsay (black). The red polka dot alphabet with the fun font screams Minnie to me. I like using Thickers when there's not too many letter repeats in a title, as repeats tend to decimate a sticker set prematurely and in those instances, I turn to dies instead.

This will be the front page of our day at Magic Kingdom and I thought the castle Doodle-pop would be in its right spot on this page. I found when I layered the sticker over the cut-apart tag that the two castle images were not lining up (not the same scale). I didn't like the towers and flags showing underneath, so I strategically used the firework stickers from the Doodle-pop pack to hide them. The third firework sticker came from the Mini Icons sticker pack.

To fill the top right corner, I added Balloon Bouquet Shape Sprinkles. I did one at the end of the twine, but it looked funny on its own so I went back and added two more balloons. In the center, I used two washi tape postage stamps. I LOVE when Doodlebug does washi stamps. I had the traveling themed roll and was using them everywhere so I was excited to see this new roll. You get a ton, too, so it's a good deal. I did a little punched hidden Mickey as well.

Another fun element is the two Mickey eyelets I added to some of the tags. Those eyelets were actually purchased in Disney World in 2005 when my sister and I had done our road trip there together. Back then, Disney was carrying a few scrapbooking items. I was on a pretty strict budget at the time, but I had just discovered scrapbooking a couple of years prior and knew I would be making an album about our trip, so the Mickey-shaped eyelets was the element I picked to bring back. I have a few leftovers so I'll work them into my new album.

The picture I included is the first picture we took at Magic Kingdom that morning. We had a reservation at Be Our Guest and had to wait outside until it was time to go in. My niece found this rock that was just the right size for her to sit on and for some reason, she was really proud of that seat and she actually asked me to take a picture. That was an easy enough way to make her happy, so I obliged.

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); White (American Crafts)
Patterned Papers, Mini Icon Stickers, Cardstock Stickers: Fun at the Park (Doodlebug Design)
Accessories: Festive Assortment Mini Jewels, Adventure Awaits Doodle-Pops Cardstock Sticker,
Balloon Bouquet, I Love That Place and Travel Time Shape Sprinkles, Fun at the Park Washi Tape,
 Ladybug Baker's Twine (Doodlebug Design); Mickey Eyelets (Disney);
Emma and Lindsay Thickers (American Crafts); Nested Tags Dies (Scrapbook.com);
Diamond Art Pebbles (Finnabair); Halloween's Night Baker's Twine, Mini Stampin' Dimensionals,
Mini Oval Punch (Stampin' Up!); Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success)

 

Going on a Ride with Dad

Inspiration: July 2019 Page Maps Sketch + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (something old = arrow die, Thickers, something new = Witches and Wizards collection)

My brother-in-law is not big on rides, but he decided to join us on Flight of the Hippogriff. My sister waited for us with her youngest daughter, who was not tall enough to ride herself, and when we came back, she decided she wanted to ride it, too, since the line was fairly short. We were watching for her to come near the fence at the end of the ride and when we pointed to Arielle, saying "Look, mom's on the ride right there", she burst into tears when she realized mom wasn't around with us anymore. I was waiting for my sis to roll by to snap a picture of her on the ride and I happened to snap right as she saw her daughter in tears, hence her concerned expression!

I kept going with the Witches and Wizards collection for this page since it was already out. I played with patterns until I found a pleasing combination for the background and then I cut my pictures to size. They were not standing out enough against the busy patterns, so I matted them all in Very Vanilla cardstock, using my Perfect Layers tool to create a 1/16" border (this was purchased years ago, but I still love to use it to help with precise matting).

For the sentiment, the postcard cut-apart caught my eye. I really loved the font and colour I had used on my previous layout, so I stuck with that (Garamouche font). I eyeballed the size I needed for the journaling, printed it on 8½ x 11 paper first, and layered the cut-apart over my paper to test the size and it looked pretty good, so I used temporary tape to place the cut-apart over the printed area on the paper and I ran it through the printer again. The centering turned out perfect!! I knew I wouldn't be able to fit the whole postacard, so I cut the sides with the deckle trimmer to add texture and then I cut the right side off following the edge of the page.

For the title, I followed the sketch and die-cut a circle out of patterned paper, and then I played with Thickers and dies (same ones as on my previous page) and fiddled with placement until I was happy. My initial idea was to do a big "1" at the beginning of the title. I tested out five different dies and didn't like the look of any of them. So I decided to go back to the letters instead and then I realized I had the letters I needed in my Thickers set - and it looked infinitely better. I like the mirroring it creates as well. I had to move every single row down to make room for it, though, and I lucked out as nothing ripped and the letters remained intact. I used Basic Black cardstock for the die-cut letter and I added a bit of sparkle to the cardstock using the Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer brush.

To embellish, I added a few stickers and ephemera pieces from the collection. The ephemera includes a lot of tags, so I had all of the leftover hole pieces, which I lined up in a row on the side, along with a little star sticker. I also had a cute little green bow wrapped in gold thread that I had made during a previous embellishment session, so I added it to one of the tags. I knew I wanted to include an arrow pointing to my sister's expression to emphasize it, so I found a really old die from Stampin' Up! and die-cut an arrow out of champagne glitter paper. I added a little letter and an owl medallion, and I covered the wax seal with Glossy Accents to make it shiny. At the top, I wrapped sparkly thread and I layered a few elements to mirror the sketch.

 

 

Supplies
Patterned Papers, Stickers, Ephemera: Witches and Wizards (Echo Park)
Dies: Layering Circles (Tonic); Curves Ahead (Sizzix for Stampin' Up!);
Lowercase and Uppercase Mini Alphabet (Recollections); Put a Bow on It (Lawn Fawn)
 Accessories: Good Vibes Thickers (American Crafts); Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer Brush (Tonic);
Deckle Trimmer (Tim Holtz for Tonic); D168 Diamant Floss (DMC);
Deco Scissors (Fiskars); Gold Thread (Altenew)

 

Matching Souvenir

Inspiration: September 2019 Page Maps Sketch + Festive Friday #89 (Stars + Red + Embossing Paste)

Amongst the collections I had put aside to work with was the Witches and Wizards collection from Echo Park. I decided to pull out my pictures from our trip to Universal Studios and make a page for our vacation album. I settled on the pictures of my niece and me in our matching Gryffindor scarves. The shops were chock-full of merchandise and yet, we both happened to gravitate towards this specific scarf, so I bought one for myself and one for her as a gift. We went on the first week of January, so posing with the scarves was not as unbearable as it would have been in the middle of summer. 

One of the cut-aparts had the words "You are my favorite wizard" on it, so I had put it aside to work into my page design. I wanted to find a way to cut it out somehow so I wouldn't have a full rectangle and I actually found the perfect solution because I had this polka dot scalloped circle frame lying on my desk, leftover from my S'more card. The vanilla colour was perfect with the collection and the circle was the perfect size to house the sentiment (and much easier to work into my design).

I also got the idea for my journaling from the S'more card. I had used my computer to print out my own sentiment for the card, and printed it twice to get the wording right. My leftover printout was lying on the desk and I realized the font, colour and Distress Oxide inking I had done on the vanilla cardstock would work really well on page, so I created my own printout using the same font. The little banner at the top is actually a leftover piece from the Favorite Wizard cut-apart. I loved the banner, so I fussy cut it and added it to the tag with dimensional adhesive. On the sticker sheet, I found a striped scarf, the perfect addition to my page. I added a narrow strip of patterned paper to ground it, and I stamped my date in gold ink using a date stamp.

I also used my gold ink on the green pinking borders. I have gotten into the habit of purchasing the monochromatic papers sold with collections. While buying plain paper felt like a waste of money when I could simply dig through my cardstock, I've come to realize that matching perfectly is challenging, so I've given in and I am much happier having the matching monochromatic pieces. I used the green paper to create the edges and the navy paper to mat one of the pictures.

One of the patterned papers has banners on it, so I fussy cut a row and added it to the top of my page. I topped each rounded part with a gold sparkle crystal. I added crystals to the circle sentiment and gold foil pearls to the hat banner.

I switched two items around on my page: I decided to place the title at the bottom to have more room and move the circle element to the side of the picture, since the scale worked better. I was afraid the bottom would feel a little empty, so I pulled out the Hocus Pocus stencil from Tim Holtz to do a nice swirl of stars underneath the title. I looked at my available pastes and chose Fire Ruby icing paste from Finnabair. I have three jars of icing paste and I truly love how they look. They are creamy, easy to use, the perfect consistency for stencils and the colours are outstanding. Knock on wood, they have also held up well over time and not dried out or turned like some of the other products I own.

For the last word of my title, I went for an old Thickers collection, in a nice champagne glitter that complement the golden tones of the paper well. For the first two words, I decided to grab dies instead of stickers, because I had too many repeating letters. E's are especially prevalent in French and I need to be smart about how fast I use them, otherwise my alphabet stickers quickly become useless. Since I needed three E's there, I reached for my Uppercase and Lowercase Mini Alphabet from Recollections, a nice classic font. I used the navy monochromatic paper again, since I already had a lot of shimmer and shine going on with the Thickers and icing paste.

To finish embellishing, I added a little circle from the ephemera pack, a nice owl in flight sticker, a few star sequins and I stamped "It's too cool!" from an old rotary stamp I found in my stash and have kept on my desk in the hope to put it to good use.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: 12-in-1 Rotary Stamp (Kesi'art); Date Stamp (Office Supplies Store)
Ink: Rustic Wilderness, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain Distress Oxide (Ranger);
Antique Gold (Altenew)
Patterned Papers, Frames & Tags Ephemera Pack: Witches and Wizards (Echo Park)
Dies: Stitched Scalloped Circle Frames (Lawn Fawn); 
Uppercase and Lowercase Mini Alphabet (Recollections) 
Font: Garamouche
Accessories: Good Vibes Thickers (American Crafts); Emerald Green Sequins,
Star Sequins (Cartwright's); Blue Lagoon and Glossy Black Gems (Pretty Pink Posh); 
Gold Sparkle Crystals, Gold Foil Pearls (Studio Katia); Pinking Edge Scissors (Fiskars);
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Fire Ruby Icing Paste (Finnabair); 
Hocus Pocus Stencil (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous) 

 

Say Cheese Main Street: A Disney Notebook

I am coming on the end of a two-week staycation and I got so much crafting done during my downtime! I am feeling very relaxed and also very happy that I got to work on many crafty projects that had been on my mental to-do list. I am nowhere near done, but I at least hit some of the big-ticket items. One of those was to make a disc-bound notebook using the Say Cheese Main Street collection. I had figured out the measurements, done a sample page using the Crop-a-dile Power Punch tool and picked the patterned paper for the divider pages, but I was wondering whether to laminate the dividers pages or not and at that time, laminating seemed like a wiser option but I just was not in the mood to get the laminating machine out that evening, so the project got pushed to the back burner.

I am so happy that I finally revisited the idea and got it finished! My laminating machine was already out tonight to test out foiling, so I decided to get my notebook pages done at the same time, and then I kept going on it. The notebook could have been kept very simple - two laminated papers for covers, cut inside pages, punch holes in everything and assemble with discs, but I decided to organize it a little bit further.

I used pages from the 6" x 8" paper pad to create the cover pages and the dividers. I quickly realized when cutting around the laminated cover pages that if I left a 1/8" border around all four edges and punched, the inner pages would show under the clear left edge of the cover (I hope I'm making sense) so to avoid that problem, I cut the left edge straight to the paper and so everything lined up better that way. I rounded the corners of the plastic using my Corner Chomper (also from We R Memory Makers). For the dividers, I decided to forgo laminating. I wanted to add tabs and it seemed pointless to laminate the pages and not the tabs, and then if I did, I thought cutting the plastic would be tricky (and I didn't want the edges to be sharp either), so I decided I could live with just using paper.

I wanted to have a pocket to possibly house documentation, but I didn't want to hide the foursquare images on my paper, so I decided to add the pocket to the back of the first divider. I used the grey polka dot paper from the Basics Kit (it was a good additional purchase - the dots are adorable and having neutral papers helps complement the papers). I reused an idea from my recent summer mini-album - I really loved the look of the pocket created with the Puffy Cloud Borders dies from Lawn Fawn, so I did the same thing here as well. This looks way better than the straight pocket did, and the stitching adds a nice finishing touch. The pocket seemed a little bare, so I went through my embellishments and picked a border from the sticker book and a couple of images from the foam stickers.

Then came time to prepare the tabs. I looked at my punch and dies options. I was liking the look and size of the tabs from Planner Essentials 4 from Elizabeth Craft Designs (told you I love those dies!). I was trying to figure out how to add the names I wanted to the tabs, though. Using Word and the free Waltograph font, I printed the names on Very Vanilla Cardstock and tested them on the tabs, but they were too wide to fit on the tab part. I could have used the tab die directly on my vanilla cardstock, but I thought colorful tabs would be prettier and I'll admit, I was way too lazy to print my doc six times on a scrap of each colour. So instead, I die cut my words using the smaller of the Sentiments dies from Waffle Flower. Those are full dies (they are not open in the center), so I had to create a negative template, center it around the word, fit the die in the hole like a jigsaw puzzle, tape everything in place and run it through the Sidekick. I then cut two tabs out of each Basics Kit colors, then I added them to my divider pages using sticky strip and I added the words to the bottom of the tab. We can't see the words when the notebook is closed, but I know the order I put them in, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The paper I used for the inside of the notebook is actually nice paper with a linen pattern to it. It was actually what my office used for letterhead paper and when our logo changed, they collected it to recycle it. I asked if we could upcycle it as printing paper instead and the next day, I was gifted with a nice pile of paper... cut to 9" x 8½" to take the logo off. So... not exactly printing paper, but as a crafter, it has still come in handy. There is just a lot of leftovers because of the wonky size, but hey, it was free and it is nice paper, so I'll take it. I cut the pages to 6" x 8" like the patterned paper, so I have a nice stack of 3½" x 8" paper that will probably become a notebook for my grocery lists. I made sure to round the two right corners of the pages as well. At the last minute, I also remembered that I had the stamp set from this collection and that adding a little stamped image in the corner of the first page of each section would be super cute, so I picked matching ink colors and did just that.

The red discs I used are from Waffle Flower and I like that you get 8 discs for $6 US. Discs are not easy to find and I had a little bit of sticker shock when the disc-bound trend started and I started to get interested in it. I have a binding machine that I purchased over 15 years ago and that I still love and use once in every blue moon, but the appeal of disc-bound is that you can take pages in and out and move things around without damaging anything. This is perfect here, as I doubt I will have the same amount of notes for every park and since it's hard to anticipate, I can add to sections that need it down the line (as far as the discs can allow). 

Keeping with that same logic, the next project on the list would be a sample book. Where I can sample my products, pens, etc. and keep a bit of an inventory on items that I could benefit from. I don't plan on doing a comprehensive inventory, just for the elements that I keep searching for or where I want to have color samples on hand. This is a great example of something that grows over time and where you benefit from having a system you can add to. I would like to find larger discs for those sample books, though. Right now, I have two sets of larger discs that I got by purchasing planners from the Clearance section. I didn't really have any use for the planners themselves but they were clearanced at a lower price than a set of discs would have been. My niece actually expressed interest in keeping the pages for herself, so we punched holes in a corner and binded everything with ribbon and that made her day (and it cleared space in my workspace). 

On a side note, the cover pages are not flimsy, but they are not sturdy either since I only used patterned paper. I could have added cardstock, but then I would have either ended up with plain cardstock on the backside of the cover or would have needed to add a second piece of patterned paper and sandwich the cardstock in between. That seemed wasteful to me, so I decided the single-page cover was good enough for me. I will say that when I create notebooks for the office, that I plan to carry around with me and maybe write in while standing up, using chipboard for the back cover becomes highly important, so it depends what you plan to use your notebooks for. Just something to keep in mind when planning your design and supplies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Cardstock: Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!)
Basics Kit, Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Foam Stickers: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Ink: Real Red, Smoky Slate, Blushing Bride, Seaside Spray, Crushed Curry, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Sentiments Dies (Waffle Flower); Planner Essentials 4 (Elizabeth Craft Designs);
Puffy Cloud Borders (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Red Binding Discs (Waffle Flower);
Corner Chomper, Crop-a-Dile Disc Power Punch Tool (We R Memory Keepers)

Expedition Everest

Inspiration: May 2018 Page Maps Sketch + Lasting Memory Layout challenge #550 (use at least three pictures)

I knew I wanted to use the Winter Wonderland collection from Doodlebug to scrapbook my Expedition Everest pictures from Disney, because of the adorable yeti included in this collection. I had purchased the adorable yeti Doodle-Pops called Harry and kept him aside for this page. In one of the cut-aparts, I found an adorable crest with the words "Adventure Awaits!", which I fussy cut to keep only the shape, and I layered the yeti over it. I thought it could serve as my title, since I was planning to use three pictures on my page and knew it might be a tight fit.

I was looking at sketches for inspiration and ended up picking a two-page sketch, even though I knew I would only use one. I thought I could pick the elements I liked and shrink them down to a single-page layout. Two of the elements from the sketch that caught my eye were the character embellishment, which I knew would be my yeti, and the banners at the top. If you look at my bottom left picture, you can see the surrounding area of this ride is embellished with a lot of bunting, which is apparently inspired by what can be seen in this area of the world. I had initially passed on the Bunting Borders dies from Lawn Fawn when they came out because I had a few smaller versions in their interactive cards sets, but I found the set at a good clearance price last year, so it was perfect to decorate the top of my page. The dies are so well thought-out - you get the string with small banners on it, and then you have the individual banners separately. Two are individuals, with a heart and a star in the center and the other die has four banners on it, alternating sides, which allows you to die-cut four at once and to use very little cardstock to do so. Kudos to Lawn Fawn for always thinking their products through thoughtfully. This made it really fast to assemble the banners. I made sure to put adhesive sheets on the back of my cardstock before die-cutting, so I didn't even have to waste time on glue. I used my Blue Cashmere pearlescent cardstock from Tonic for the banner base, which works beautifully with the papers.

At the bottom, I used gingham paper for the band from the sketch and I was looking for a scalloped border die when I spotted the Snowflake Border die from Lawn Fawn and decided to use that instead. This is where organizing my dies by type has started to pay off, as I don't always end up going to the same options and might get inspired to use something else instead. The die is about 6 inches wide, so I repeated it twice on my cardstock. It's lucky that I purchased the texture cardstock assortment with this collection, so my colors match perfectly.

I wanted the ride picture to stand out, so I pulled out Dazzling Diamonds glitter paper and cut it to size with the deckle trimmer, which goes well with the snow and ice theme. I'm almost out of the glitter paper, so to avoid wasting everything that was hidden underneath the picture, I used a rectangle die to take the middle out and I replaced it with another scrap of cardstock in another colours using the same die, to make sure the center of the picture would not buckle in the album (to level things underneath the picture).

I thought the top left corner felt empty, so I decided to add "Expedition Everest" to the page after all.  I used the silver Abigail stickers for the second word and the Newberg Navy Alphabet stickers from Jillibean Soup for the first word. I tested out adding snow to the top of the silver letters with a white gel pen and I LOVE how it turned out! 

I embellished the page with Glitter and Shape Sprinkles and a rhinestone border. I happened to have a piece of purple thread on my desk that was actually fiber provided with a garment in case you needed to repair it. I don't have the garment anymore and the colour was a perfect fit for the page. The piece of fiber was unfortunately shorter than 24 inches, so I couldn't do too strands, until I realized that I could cut it and hide the ends underneath my yeti block, and that solves the problem. This adds a nice fuzzy touch and additional colour to the bottom of the page. At top, I folded a Swimming Pool paper doily in half, added a leftover patterned paper and the yeti waving from the cabin sticker. Then I found a cute acrylic piece from Florilège Design that reads "Bon courage", which sort of means Hang in there, but that seemed to go well with the roller coaster theme.

I love how the page ended up. That cute little yeti with his toothy smile really makes the page. I will admit that while I loved the elements of the Winter Collection when it came out, I was worried about the bright candy hues and the result being a little bit too much when all paired together. You'll notice I made sure to use the grey cardstock and the grey on white pattern at the bottom to try and mitigate that a little bit, and I think it worked out well. I now want to go use my leftover papers with the new background dies from Lawn Fawn to see what cute card I can create with it! They are doing a Christmas card drive at my local scrapbook store for the children's hospital and I think Doodlebug is a safe bet when crafting for kids.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Winter Wonderland Solid Assortment (Doodlebug Design);
Dazzling Diamonds Glitter Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Icons Stickers: Winter Wonderland (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Snowflake Border, Bunting Borders (Lawn Fawn)
Alphabet Stickers: Silver Abigail (Doodlebug Design); Newberg Navy Alphabeans (Jillibean Soup)
Accessories: Harry Doodle-Pops, Winter Assortment Glitter Sprinkles,
Winter Hugs Shape Sprinkles, Swimming Pool Mini Paper Doilies  (Doodlebug Design);
Décos Mots doux Céladon (Florilège Design); Adhesive Rhinestone Strips (Crafts - Dollar Store);
White Gel Pen (Gelly Roll); Purple Fiber (Upcycled); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Big Thunder Mountain

Inspiration: Page Maps June 2018

While looking through my papers recently, I spotted the Sasparilla collection from October Afternoon (2011) and thought it would be cool used to scrapbook my Big Thunder Mountain pictures, so I had put it aside. I pulled it back out today and made a page based on a Page Maps sketch.

This all went fairly smoothly. I started by working on my title. I wanted bold letters, so I looked through my Tim Holtz Bigz Alphabet dies and picked Handmade and Wonderland. I cut the letters I needed out of chipboard. I wanted to use my Distress Oxide inks to cover the chipboard but I spotted my ColorBox chalk mini inkpads and decided to test them out. The colours and coverage was perfect so I used Warm Red and Chestnut Roan. I am really impressed by those inkpads. They were purchased well over a decade ago and it never crossed my mind at the time to invest in reinkers, so I keep expecting for the inkpads to go dry at some point, but they are still as inky as the day I got them. Which is lucky, because ColorBox has since gone out of business, so I will not be able to reink those pads. I also used those same ink pads to stamp the stars you see spread throughout the layout, using the Simply Stars stamp set. The result is very crisp and even. 

I wanted the first word to be even bigger, so I used the Big Letters dies from Stampin' Up! I layered three layers of thick cardstock and added patterned paper over it. I liked the pattern I had picked but didn't think it stood out enough so I remembered a tip seen in a video recently, where the scrapper edged her letters using the tip of a dark marker. I did that on all of my letters, including the ones colored with ink. This step was pretty time-consuming, but it made a big difference in the end result. 

I used the File Folder Edges dies on the left side of the ledger paper. I also found the Mini Fringe die while I was looking for the file folder dies and thought I could make some tassels for the page. I ended up adding them at the very end, to the ends of a piece of twine cord. I wasn't sure where I'd add the tassels, possibly hanging from the side of a patterned paper, but I ended up adding the cord over the top of the page, lasso-style.

I also wanted to use the stickers from the paper collection and discovered that the boy and the girl were quite big, but I liked that the lasso happened to fall right over the title, so I slid some of the letters under the sticker. I used the cacti to add to the scene, as well as some of the matching mini flags I had on hand. 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: This and That Date Stamp, Simply Stars (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Word Stickers, Little Flyers: Sasparilla (October Afternoon)
Ink: Warm Red, Lime Pastel, Prussian Blue, Olive Pastel, Creamy Brown,
Chestnut Roan ColorBox Fluid Chalk (Clearnsnap)
Dies: Mini Fringe, File Folder Edges (My Favorite Things); Big Letters (Stampin' Up!);
Handmade Alphabet, Wonderland Alphabet (Tim Holtz for Sizzix)
Accessories: Fuzzy Brad, Metal Brad (Making Memories);
Twine Cord (Stampin' Up!)

 

Aboard the Magical Express

Inspiration: Lasting Memory Layout Challenge #550 (At least 3 pictures)

After putting together many various handmade ornaments this weekend, now comes the fun part: adding them to actual projects! I had gone through our Disney World pictures to see which ones could work well with the Remember the Magic collection and I had the pictures of us on board of the Magical Express bus, on the way to our hotel (after a much delayed flight that kept us on the plane 8 hours rather than 4!). I recently acquired one of the Simple Stories picture placement templates and I was really curious to test it out, so when I realized that I had two pictures going the same direction and a third that could easily be cut to 3" x 4", I jumped on the chance to use it. I give this template two very big thumbs up! I've never been able to do a grid with so much precision before and I love the look of this kind of placement, but it drives me bonkers if it is slightly off so this made it so much easier than relying on a T ruler and measurements.

Because my title was going to include the words Magical Express, I thought I would search online to see if I could find a logo that I could simply print. I found the older logo, which I was not liking all that much, and then I saw that cool mock-up of how the new buses would look, which is actually how they looked when we were on them, so I printed the image on white cardstock, cut it to size and decided I would add the other words over it. I was not liking the full 3" x 4" white rectangle, so I made it slightly slimmer and matted it with polka dot paper, which improved the overall look. For the words, I used black glitter paper and the Lucy Uppercase die from Echo Park.

For the background, I used three different patterned papers. I didn't have a full sheet of the stars on black, so I added the two other strips to fill the page, adding ribbon and washi tape between strips. I then picked three of my handmade embellishments, including the library card pocket for journaling. It was made using a stamp and die set from Hero Arts called Library Card. I love the size and look and I foresee using this one a lot for scrapbooking, mini-albums, ephemera and such. I filled in the space underneath the library pocket with a sticker strip and a word sticker.

Because the embellishments were made ahead of time, this page came together really quickly and I am very pleased with the result, I think it showcases the pictures well. I hope I can keep this momentum going and work steadily on my Disney album. I really thought I would work on it more during confinement, but my crafting focus ended up going elsewhere.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Library Card (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Black Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Puffy Stickers, Coordinating Solids: Remember
the Magic, Magical Adventure (Echo Park)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Dies: Library Card (Hero Arts); Lucy Uppercase Alphabet (Echo Park); 
Border Dies (Photoplay); Peek-a-Hoot Dies (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, 1½" Circle Punch, Wonderful Gems,
All the Trimmings Ribbon Combo Pack, Black Mini Sequin Trim (Stampin' Up!);
Deco Scissors, Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success);
Halloween Mix Matte Enamels (Bella Blvd.); Red Metallic Washi Tape (Recollections)