Encre, papier, ciseaux

7 Dwarfs Mine Train

Inspiration: Festive Friday #85 (Stripes + Stars + Circles + Punches) + Just Us Girls #586 (Spots or Dots)

This is the first page I made using some of the handmade embellishments I just finished putting together. You will see three embellishments that are not in the collection picture I shared yesterday, as I started working on the page right away, but until took pictures the next day in daylight. I used the layered circles with the Mickey head at the bottom right, the stitched cut-apart with the "vacation memory" layered sticker and the embellished doily. After looking for pictures from our Disney trip that could match this collection, I picked the ones from our ride on 7 Dwarfs Mine Train. They are very neutral, in full shades of browns, so they blended well.

I have the coordinating solids, so I picked the kraft paper for the background and I started layering patterned papers following the sketch. The outside rim felt a little blah, so I went looking through my stamps for something appropriate. I found Happiness is a Journey, a nice train silhouette, which I stamped at an angle in the bottom left corner in Soft Suede. After the ink was dry, I added the sentiment from the same set ("Happiness is a journey, not a destination") and overstamped it in Early Espresso ink. In the top right corner, I added a ticket railway ticket from Tim Holtz's Ticket Booth stamp set, also in Soft Suede ink.

While looking through my stamps, I spotted a film embellishment I purchased at the end of last year on Clearance. I wasn't sure what I would do with it exactly, but I had seen a cool one from Tim Holtz at a much higher price, so it was something that I grabbed while it was on sale, knowing I'd be able to include in a design later. Out of curiosity, I tried it on my layout, at an angle over my polka dot strip and it instantly made the layout more interesting. I stapled it in place with my mini stapler and added my title stickers over it. Also spotted in my embellishments container while looking through stamps - the wood veneers from Say Cheese II, which I had leftover from making a Disney album for my niece five years ago. I added a couple of stars and the arrow to my page.

I wanted to make the "seven" a number instead of a word, so I went looking for my chipboard numbers and found a kraft and white cut-apart sheet from a Christmas kit sold by Stampin' Up! years ago. The size and colours were perfect, so I added it to the page and stitched around it with black needlepoint floss. The second word was made with One Fine Day stickers from My Mind's Eye. Those were also found on clearance at a really good price, but online, they looked like black on white rectangles. They are actually clear, so that was a surprise when I got my package. That being said, black block letters shouldn't be too hard to use, so not a bad deal despite not being what I expected. I added a few more stickers from the sticker book and I was done. No journaling on this page, as there is not much to say about this ride. We went on it, had fun and that was about it! 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Ticket Booth (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous);
Happiness is a Journey (Stampin' Up!); Date Stamp (Office Supplies)
Patterned Papers, Sticker Book, Puffy Stickers: Remember the Magic (Echo Park)
Ink: Soft Suede, Early Espresso (Stampin' Up!); Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Alphabet Stickers: One Fine Day Marquee (My Mind's Eye); Ladybug Just My Type (Doodlebug Design);
Jane Tile Alphabet Stickers (Elle's Studio)
Accessories: Say Cheese II Wood Veneer (Simple Stories); 
Playing with Patterns Resin Dots, Stampin' Dimensionals, Jute Ribbon,
1½" Circle Punch, Mini Stapler, Pearlized Doilies, Die-Cut Numbers (Stampin' Up!);
Needlepoint Floss (DMC); Clear View Film (Fun Stampers Journey);
Disney Mickey Icon Punch (EK Success)

 

So Adorable

Inspiration: March 2018 Page Maps Sketch

I was so pleased to find some Monsters Inc. papers from the Scrapbook Customs company. My sister and I hae this long-standing tradition of bringing back a plush from every trip we have taken to the Walt Disney World parks. I really thought this time we'd be buying plushes for the kiddos instead - which we did - but no, I ended up adding one more to my collection. 

In my journaling I explain that my choices of plushes over the year has always been random. You would assume I would pick my favorite characters, but some are more heavily featured at different times and Disney varies the ways they are dressing the characters or doing their features from one year to the next, which means that the plush you fall in love with during that trip might be unexpected. For example, Donald has long been my favorite of the classic characters, and yet it took four trips before I came back with a Donald plush. (It was worth waiting, though, as I LOVE the version I found.) Monsters Inc. has always been one of my favorite Pixar movies and I've always wanted a Mike Wazowski, but I could never find one that was what I was looking for. For some reason, this time around, they had a bunch of Monsters Inc. plushes available and all three main characters were just SO cute! I really loved the Mike plush that you see in the picture, but it was just too big. Had it been offered with the big feet in a smaller size, I would have been instantly sold! In the end, I surprised myself by picking Boo. I would never have thought when we left for the trip that she would be my pick, but she was a perfect size, I loved the details and textures on her and the fact that you can get the hood on and off of her. 

This was a really simple page to put together because the papers did most of the work for me. I did want to mat the eye paper with blue and I couldn't for the life of me find 12 x 12 cardstock in the right shade, so I decided I would use white cardstock and ink to make my own. I ended up pulling out an old retired ink from Stampin' Up!, Brilliant Blue, which was a great match. I was planning to add a circle to mat the title and then I found a Stitched Star Frame shape in my Tempting Turquoise cardstock folder, so I used that instead. My title was created with Thickers and the Wonderland Bigz Alphabet die from Tim Holtz. I used black cardstock and covered the letters with Glossy Accents to match the shine of the Thickers. I also used a few of my Roughly Sewn Rub-Ons to add stitching in a couple of spots for added interest. I'm not usually big on bright colours, but I do love how this layout turned out. 

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Whisper White, Black Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Eyes, Doors - Monster (Scrapbook Customs)
Ink: Brilliant Blue (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Stitched Star Frames (Lawn Fawn); Wonderland Alphabet Bigz (Tim Holtz for Sizzix);
Tasteful Trims (Stampin' Up!)
Thickers: Happy Day, Sorbet (American Crafts)
Accessories: Blender Brushes (Picket Fence Studios); Black Roughly Sewn Rub-Ons (49th and Market)
Font: Bio Monster (dafont.com)

 

Magical Memories

Here is the second layout from the Magical Memories Simple Pages page kit from Simple Stories. Again, this is pretty close to the original version, except for the second page, where I added two full-sized 4" x 6" pictures rather than a series of smaller ones. I also changed the size of the pictures I used in the bottom right corner of the first page as well, so I moved the banner to the left picture and added some of the chipboard flowers to the right pictures to balance the layout.

The pages showcase our pictures taken in front of the castle when we entered Magic Kingdom in the morning. Because I had changed the layout, I had a couple of empty spots, which I filled with stickers from the Say Cheese Main Street sticker book. I particularly like the main street one with the little buildings - really cute. I added a punch Mickey shape as well and added enamel dots. 

I'm looking forward to making more layouts with the Say Cheese Main Street collection. This might be my favorite one Simple Stories has put out so far! 

 

 

 

Supplies
Page Kit: Magical Memories (Simple Stories)
Sticker Book, Basics Kit, Enamel Dots: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success)

 

Let's Make Magic

I am finally getting started on my Disney trip album - yeah! Scrapbooking has taken a backseat to Christmas card in the last few months, but I would like to get back to it during my time off work and get a few more layouts done in the upcoming week. To ease into it, I pulled out the Magical Memories page kit from Simple Stories I purchased. I absolutely love their latest Say Cheese Main Street release, so much so that I decided to get the page kit as well. Technically, I have so much supplies that I don't really need ready-made kits, but I thought that one was adorable and I have a ton of pictures to scrapbook, so using a shortcut on a couple of pages is not a bad thing. 

There isn't much to say about this layout because I pretty much just followed instructions, but I did change the set-up of the right page a bit to work better with my pictures. The "Say Cheese" and camera made more sense on the group picture at the bottom, and so I moved the flower cluster to the top of the right picture and the stacked teacups to the journaling block. Because I've purchased a big chunk of the Say Cheese Main Street supplies, I also sneaked in a few enamel dots and stickers from the sticker book to complete the layout as well. I also added a few punched Mickey heads in there (including one on the sweets cart) and a rhinestone on the camera image. I'll be moving on to the second layout from the kit tomorrow, since everything is already out on my crafting desk.

 

 

 

Supplies
Page Kit: Magical Memories (Simple Stories)
Sticker Book, Enamel Dots: Say Cheese Main Street (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success); Shimmery Gel Pen (Gelly Roll);
Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

 

Rides

Inspiration: March 2020 Page Maps Sketch + Festive Friday #60 (Bright Colours + Buttons + Vacation Theme)

When my 12 x 12" paper collections are down to scraps, I clip them together and slide them in a plastic pocket labeled scraps and once in a while, I'll get inspired to go digging in there and make something with it. I tend to use scraps for card-making but with all that YouTube watching I've been doing lately, I've found some really interesting scrapbooking videos that sparked new ideas and gave me a new perspective, including on how to work scraps into layouts.

This is the Summer Days collection from Echo Park, purchased many many years ago and used extensively over the years. I've really loved this collection - it feels like everything created with it is cheery and uplifting. I was looking at my printed pictures to see what I had that could possibly fit and I stumbled unto leftover printed pictures from my sister's trip to Disney with her spouse and daughter four years ago. When they came back from vacation, I made a mini-album as a gift for my niece and ended up with a few pictures that I ran out of space for. Two of them are of my sister riding coasters, having a blast. I picked a Page Maps sketch with pieces sized like what I had to work with, and I went to my cardstock inventory to find background pieces. I used purple for the main page and layered textured white over it.I got the idea to add stenciling somewhere on the page so I went digging through my options and once I spotted the Fireworks one, the choice was easy to make. I remembered I had picked up Silver texture paste in Stampin' Up!'s clearance rack, so I used this for the firework. I love the white texture paste I purchased from Stampin' Up! This silver one? Not so much. It is not consistent enough and since it's very runny, it seeped underneath the stencil and the image is not as crisp as could be. Not a huge deal for my page, but I'll have to come up with a game plan before I use it again. Either try mixing it with something else, or use it more as a paint instead of with stencils. 

I then started playing around with the paper scraps until I found a placement that I loved. One of the reason I was more inclined to make a page than a card was because I had a sheet of alphabet, words and 12" borders stickers from the same collection and I knew they'd be put to better use on a page. They're also highly colorful, so the chances of using them paired with other papers were pretty slim. I used the purple border at the bottom, I cut the cloud border apart to use on the side of my title block and over the layered banners and I used the alphabet stickers for the title, the speech bubble and the date. 

I remembered the Coaster Critter stamp set from Lawn Fawn and I pulled it out to stamp and color the little coaster added in the bottom left corner of the page. (So cute!) Even after I had started putting everything together and embellishing, the aqua tag seemed really bare so I went back to my scraps and I decided to fussy cut the bunting images. Because the pattern is a bunch of bunting overlapping, most of them are hard to cut out, but there were a couple of colors that were separated enough from the rest to fussy cut. It made a huge difference once I added them to the tag, breaking off that block of aqua.

Just before I finished, I remembered that I wanted to add a hidden Mickey to my page. I purchased a punch with six sizes of Mickey shapes in one punch last year when my local store got it in stock. We were discussing going to Disney on a family trip at the time and I knew it was one of those purchases that you recoup over time, because you might not use it a ton the month you purchase it, but it's a classic shape that you use again and again over the years for children's cards or scrapbook pages. So I punched a scrap and added my little Mickey head... Well, why don't I let you find it instead of saying where it is! *wink*

I'm surprised at how the finished page looks considering that the paper scraps felt very small when I started out and now it feels like the striped paper and pink papers were pretty big! But like the other projects I had made with this collection before, this just makes me smile.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps and Dies: Coaster Critters (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Purple Plum , Daffodil Delight(Stampin' Up!); Blizzard (Bazzill)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Patterned Papers and Stickers: Summer Days (Echo Park)
Accessories: Markers (Copic); Stampin' Dimensionals, Silver Texture Paste (Stampin' Up!);
March and August Crystals (Studio Katia); Disney Mickey Icons Punch (EK Success);
Lemon Sherbet Sequins Mix (Little Things from Lucy's Cards);
Buttons (Foof-A-La); Fold-Up Tags Die-namics (My Favorite Things);
Speech Bubbles Dies (Lawn Fawn); Fireworks Stencil (Echo Park)