Disney pocket layout: Jasmine & Aladdin (DCC DT)

The February 2022 “Once Upon a Stash” challenge at Disney Creative Co. is to use chipboard! Now, I will admit, I don’t use much chipboard in my scrapbooking, but I did buy the coordinating chipboard sticker pack way back when I purchased a nice bundle of Starshine goodies in 2016. Aaaaaand I haven’t used much of it at all! So I took this challenge as a serious chance to put a nice dent in that pack.

This little 6×12 insert tells the story of meeting Jasmine and Aladdin when we visited the Morocco pavilion on our 2016 trip. I took a lot of photos, and so a pocket page was the best way to display them without being overwhelming.

I used my chipboard stickers on both sides of this insert, both inside and outside the pockets.

And because I always seem to need to make clusters, I added some flowers that I detail cut from two patterned papers from the Echo Park Beautiful Life collection pack, as well as strips of washi tape from the Princess Jasmine set to anchor them.

I don’t always put a hidden Mickey on my pocket pages in this album, but how could I resist, when this royal blue faceted one was so perfect?

supplies:
Scraps & Ink Crafts: Facets, Washi Set (Princess Jasmine)
patterned paper: Lily Bee Lovely “Whimsy,” Shimelle Starshine “Hubble,” Echo Park Paper Beautiful Life “Floral” and “Bouquets”
cardstock: The Paper Studio
chipboard: Shimelle Starshine chipboard stickers
alphas: Shimelle #stickerbook, Glitz Design Teeny Alphas gold
journal card: Project Life Jade edition
other: Spectrum Noir ArtLiner (.005), labels via Silhouette print-and-cut, craft foam

Note: I was provided products from Scraps & Ink Crafts at no cost as a member of the Disney Creative Co. design team.

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scrapbook layout: “It was awesome!”

This is the very first first-day-of-school layout I’ve ever made! I guess it’s because it seems like the first day of school is a fairly momentous occasion each year… and I didn’t even tackle her VERY first day of kindergarten…yet. I decided to start with first grade!

This layout is published in the Fall 2021 issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today; you can see it on page 65!

I’ve had this title planned ever since that first day of first grade– “It was awesome!!” was her immediate answer to my “how was your day?” upon getting off the bus that day! In fact, I jotted down a little sketch almost right away, which I’ve saved all these years! The end result is completely different, but that’s ok! (and yes, I finally recycled this scrap of paper as soon as I finished taking this photo!)

As you can see, my original thought was to make this a single page layout, but when I started looking back through the photos, I wanted to include so many more than would comfortably fit (and still be big enough to see well!) on one 12×12. I expanded my design to 2 pages, using nine 3″x2″ photos and one 4″x6″ feature photo.

left side

right side

Even though starting school makes you think of fall, in our area, it is still very much summer weather! I decided to use a color palette that bridges the two seasons– and included a lot of red because our red front door is hard to miss in the pictures!

I arranged the small photos in a grid and filled the spaces with a dark blue patterned paper. I stitched around the perimeter of the blue pieces to add a bit of texture. These blue spaces were also the perfect spots to add embellishment clusters.

I stamped and heat embossed cameras in white on aqua patterned paper and cut them out to be the feature embellishment in each cluster. To bring in more of that fall flavor, I die cut leaves from textured orange cardstock and golden yellow patterned paper to add to each cluster, along with bright yellow puffy stars!

I combined three different alpha sets to make my title and subtitle: I used all capitals for the main title, and lower case alpha for the subtitle, and the tiny letter tiles unify them.

Supply list:
patterned paper: Close to My Heart “Mix In” (Mar-Apr), Close to My Heart “Blue Skies,” Echo Park “Spring” (Journaling Cards –B-side is striped)
cardstock: American Crafts (white textured), The Paper Studio (orange textured)
vellum: The Paper Studio
alphas: Amercian Crafts Thickers (Daiquiri white foam), Close to My Heart (white alphabet foam stickers), Glitz Designs Teeny Alphas (white)
stamps: Shimelle “Head in the Clouds,” Hampton Arts “Vintologie”
puffy stickers: Close to My Heart “So Much Happy”
label: print-and-cut via Silhouette Cameo 3
cut files: SCT Oct 2020 freebie, Kerri Bradford Studio (“Leaves”)
font: Gill Sans Light (bold)
other: machine stitching, craft foam, ATG adhesive, Zing embossing powder (white)

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Disney pocket LO: Cinderella bounding

This was one of those layouts that almost made itself– I had so much momentum from finishing the Test Track layout that I just turned the page and kept going!

This is the reverse of that Test Track page, and I filled it with photos of my daughter and I in our Cinderella outfits. My previous ‘bounding page for this album was a layout and not a pocket page, I wanted to keep some of the same motifs (even if I’m the only one who realizes it!) With that in mind, I pulled out some white die cut leaves (the cut files are from Pinkfresh Studio) to embellish the photos.

I added flowers detail cut from the Echo Park “Beautiful Life” papers because they had the perfect colors to coordinate with our Cinderella blue!

As a subtle touch, I added cameras stamped with black ink on vellum to each of the larger clusters, and I added a little sentiment to one of my smaller clusters.

I used labels to tell the story of how this little photo shoot came about, and then added a tiny photo on a journal card at the bottom to transition into the next page, which is a full page layout about “Living with the Land.” To coordinate with that layout, I used scraps of patterned paper that match the layout at the top of the journal card, as well as aqua tissue paper layers behind two of my photos in this pocket page.

I filled the final space in the pocket page with a cut-apart card: the globe coordinated perfectly with the facing layout– and I think globes are the perfect embellishment for an EPCOT page! I added a bit of dimension to finish it off with an enamel dot and a tiny detail-cut flower.

supplies:
patterned paper: Shimelle “Never Grow Up” 6×8 paper pad, Echo Park “Beautiful Life,” Shimelle “Starshine” 6×6 and 12×12 paper pads
cardstock: American Crafts white textured
vellum: The Paper Studio
enamel dots: The Paper Studio
journal card: Becky Higgins/Project Life “Baby Edition”
cut file: Pinkfresh Studio “Botanical Branch Trio”
stamps: Hero Arts/Clearly Kelly “Kelly’s Magical” and Hampton Art “Vintologie”
journaling pen: Spectrum Noir Artliner .005
other: print-and-cut labels, tissue paper, Silhouette Cameo 3, Staz-On ink, craft foam, ATG adhesive, Becky Higgins/Project Life Design G page protector

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pocket pages: February 2019, part 5

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m running out of steam as I complete this last “main” page for the February section of my 2019 album. I’m also running out of supplies and fresh ideas to keep it interesting! So I turned to the Mini Workshop bonus challenge from Victoria Marie’s January crop, and it was perfect. I tried techniques in a couple of the categories of stash-busting ideas.

I layered and clustered several stickers together to embellish the pocket showcasing Husband and V at school lunch…

…and that inspired me to do some more layering of stickers, patterned paper, labels, and embellishments in some other pockets.

I am thrilled to be the new owner of a hand-me-down manual die cut machine, and so I experimented with adding texture to an otherwise fairly bland red paper that became the base layer in another pocket.

Finally, I got out the Shimelle “Head in the Clouds” stamp set I had first used for my third page in this set and used the bolder floral cluster stamp on some patterned paper to create some embellishments from my scraps.

As usual, I had more to say than would simply fit in the pockets as-is, so I made another flip-up to write about my ankle follow-up appointment. I used another washi tape hinge, but I made sure to reinforce the washi with some of my regular ATG adhesive, because while this particular tape is very pretty, it is also very not-sticky!

Speaking of journaling, in a couple of places, I had enough to say that I decided to type it up. I also wanted to keep the patterned paper on display– especially that delicious floral!!– so I printed it on vellum.

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pocket page: February 2019 part 3

In snippets of time over the past couple of weeks, in between homeschooling and physical therapy, I have been putting together more of the February pocket pages for my 2019 “everyday” album. When I have to do things in such small increments of free time, I find myself especially thankful for my pre-planning system and detailed captions in the metadata of my photos.

For this page, as for the other February pages, I’m using a stash kit inspired by Victoria Marie’s January crop and the scrapbook.com January Instagram challenge. That kit is made up of some pretty old items: a BasicGrey collection kit (“Highline” from 2014), stickers from an Echo Park collection kit (“Head over Heels,” introduced at the end of 2013), and some metal embossed charms and photo corner embellishments from Making Memories that predate the previous supplies by at least several years! I really wanted to get these things onto pages and into my albums instead of languishing in my stash. However, for this page, I also tried to include some newer items to meet the “Old+New Challenge” for the Victoria Marie crop.

The challenge here for me was actually finding *new* products! I don’t buy a lot of supplies, and when I have in recent months, they have been for very specific projects–that aren’t this one! haha. I hope it’s okay that I stretched the challenge to include new-to-me items: a manual die-cut machine(!!!! I’ve been wanting one for so long, and I’m so grateful to a neighbor in our local Buy-Nothing group for giving one to me!!!!), a cloud embossing folder by Darice (that same kind neighbor also gave me some embossing folders with the machine), the Elle’s Studio “MINI Dated” stamps I purchased with the intent of using them in this album and had never opened until this last week, and a set of Shimelle “Head in the Clouds” stamps that I purchased for my Disney 2016 album but broke open for the first time to use on this layout. Does it also count that I used a new trimmer that my parents gave me for Christmas?

At the top left of this layout, I included an envelope to hold some valentine notes from my children and Husband. I wanted it to exactly fit that 4″x6″ pocket, and I wanted to use my envelope board.

After a quick internet search, I discovered that there is an app called “Envelope Generator” from American Crafts to generate the paper size and board marking for any card size (in 1/8″ increments). It doesn’t have an option to calculate backward from the finished envelope size, so I had to do quite a few tests on scrap paper to determine the parameters… but it didn’t take me too long to figure them out. Here they are (for those keeping score, this corresponds to a card size of 5 5/8″ by 3 5/8″ in the app):

For an envelope to fit in a 4″x6″ pocket:
use paper size 7.75″ square and the punch guide marking at 3.25″

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pocket page February 2019 part 2

Right on the heels of the first pocket page for February 2019 section of my 2019 “everyday” album, I completed this second one, using the same stash kit– the goal is to use up those supplies and get them into my albums!

Specifically on this layout, I used border stickers and branding strips to add borders to embellish my pockets for the “Border to Border” challenge in the Victoria Marie January 2021 virtual crop. Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but focusing on that challenge helped me to put those strips and stickers to use!

The border stickers are on the outside of flip-ups…

…and underneath, when the photo isn’t wide enough to fill the pocket.

I also used a lot of the tiny letter stickers in the BasicGrey collection pack to add extra words/mini titles to some of my pockets:

This long speech bubble was great for writing about my February 2019 projects.

And I used another one of those brad charms with this label!

I really like how this stash kit is making me USE things! And since it coordinates with the January 2021 scrapbook.com instagram challenge, I’ll be entering this layout there, too.

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Disney pocket LO: Hollywood Studios evening

The first of my layouts for 2021 is this pocket page for my Disney 2016 scrapbook…

When I finished the Play ‘n’ Dine pocket page, I was adding it to my album and flipped through some of the pages, and I realized that if I focus on my Hollywood Studios pages, it won’t be too long until I finish that section. So, I’m trying to concentrate my efforts for my Disney album there. Our Hollywood Studios day in 2016 wasn’t our favorite day of the trip (it was COLD and WINDY, plus there weren’t many attractions open in that park at that time), so there are fewer photos and stories than for our other park days. It will feel good to finish a whole section!

For this “Design H” pocket page, I used the same and coordinating products as the layout it faces. I had pieces of the glittery star Silhouette cut that I used as a focal point on the layout, so I brought them into this layout to tie it together. I found some scraps of the papers I used for layering on that layout and used them as the basis for the pockets.

I found letter stickers that were the perfect shade of dusty aqua on my Echo Park “Beautiful Life” sticker sheet, and I used a white pen to modify some “P” and “F” stickers to make them into “R” and “E” stickers when I ran out!

I was able to fit my very brief stories onto print-and-cut labels that I keep handy (whenever I make a print-and-cut on my Cameo, I fill in the extra space within the registration marks with these labels).

It’s not an incredibly fancy first page for 2021, but it’s another page finished in my Disney 2016 album, so that feels good! I’m also glad for another successful pocket page attempt– as I said before, I want to make an effort to improve my pocket page process–it’s one of my 2021 goals, because I have a lot of pocket pages in projects currently in-progress! In this case, I used a more detailed style than my previous pocket page, but that was because I had inspiration from the facing page that would work really well with the photos I had for this one.

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Disney pocket page: Belle insert

I mentioned before that our experience at “Enchanted Tales with Belle” was one of the most magical parts of our trip to Disney World in 2016 (see all the pages in the album so far), and so I decided to expand the story over a couple pocket pages and then have a 12×12 layout to culminate. This pocket page recounts the story of my daughter’s interaction with Belle at the end of the attraction.

As I worked on embellishing the photos and journaling cards, I discovered that the Echo Park “Beautiful Life” collection flower stickers were a great coordinate for the roses in Shimelle’s “Starshine” collection!

My daughter was feeling quite shy, so she didn’t participate in the storytelling (though she could have if she had wanted to!), but at the end, she definitely wanted to meet Belle.

She walked up to Belle and gave her a hug, and her tiara came off!

Princess Belle was so lovely– instead of me putting it back onto V’s head, she said, “Oh, let me!” and gently placed it back on my daughter’s head.

“This is beyond MAGICAL” stamps from Kelly Purkey (Clearly Kelly/Hero Arts)

After that, they twirled together and curtseyed:

It was such a sweet, incredible experience to see my 5-year-old daughter, who at the time was completely enamored with princesses (she imagined them as her constant companions), get to interact with a “real” princess for the first time.  Belle was amazing, and made this whole encounter so much better than I could have imagined!

Stay tuned for the 12×12 layout (finally! haha!)…

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pocket pages: January 2019, part 2

I showed you part 1 of the January 2019 pocket pages a couple of posts ago, and now, here’s part 2!

I kept the theme going and continued to use the Studio Calico kit + Echo Park collection pack that I used for the first spread.  I started by choosing cards and cutting 4×6 and 3×4 pieces of paper to put in each pocket with the photos, then fine-tuned each section with journaling, layering, and embellishments.

Here’s a closer look at the left-hand page…

The top left pocket is another flip-up– inside are all the wristbands that we wore for our family swims this month.  Family swim was a big part of our lives for the first six months of this year, and I plan to include a collage like this for each month’s section of the album.

I also included some screenshots of the things that Husband and I watched together this month, and other little photos of random happy moments– big trucks working near the bus stop, a special Sunday school class…

This spread has more of the greenish yellow from the kits, rather than the more golden yellow of the previous spread.

The right-hand page of the spread has more random everyday-life types of photos, along with the beginning of the story of my ankle.  Little did I know in January that I would still be dealing with it now…

This pocket is actually a little paper bag with a tag slipped inside to tell the beginning of the story.  The doctor’s card is in the envelope, too, but mostly because I want to remember that he wasn’t a very good doctor.

…and the story continues in the bottom right-hand pocket, where I have another flip up; this one is about the appointment with the orthopaedic doctor.  Inside, I have his card (he is much better than the doctor I saw previously!) and a story about my son, who accompanied me to the appointment.  He was an amazing little buddy.

I am particularly proud of the bottom left-hand pocket of this side: it’s a collage of all the projects that I did in January.  It was a wonderfully productive month, and it is really neat to show off everything all in one spot.  I intend to do project round-up cards in each month’s section as we go on through the year, too.

I have two inserts to add to finish January 2019 for my album!  Stay tuned!

 

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pocket pages: January 2019, part 1

a little background… Early in the year, I was thinking about my memory-keeping projects and realized that while I have quite a few of them in-progress, not many of them are using current photos.  My kids are old enough to know that I take LOTS of photos (and they want to be in them!) but young enough that they don’t have easy access to my phone or computer to view them digitally.  I wanted to make a project that would let them see everyday photos more easily in a physical format.  They really love my Day-in-the-Life photo books, and this would be a sort of expansion of that idea.

As I considered the format of this project, using inspiration from my current favorite scrapbookers (Inkie Quill, Shimelle, Jen Schow, Ali Edwards, and others…), I decided to make it a mostly pocket-style album with both “traditional” layout and pocket inserts. The pockets will make it easier to include tiny/small/everyday stories with the flexibility of telling bigger stories as well, whether it’s in those pocket pages (as coordinating pockets), a pocket insert, or upgraded to a full-on layout.

I’m taking it month-by-month rather than week-by-week, but I’m making as many spreads as I need to tell the stories and fit the photos I want to include.  After the month is over, I sit down with my photos and my ephemera to decide what will go where.  I use empty page protectors and a set of cardstock templates in my typical photo sizes to plan everything out (You saw a glimpse into my planning process if you watched my 200 Persnickety Prints video!)

.  .  .

For January, I decided to use a combination of the remaining bits of my Studio Calico May 2012 “35 mm” kit (yes, you read that correctly… 2012!) combined with parts of the Echo Park “Times and Seasons 2” (which has a copyright date of 2013! wow…).  Even as I was starting to plan this album, the color palette of the Studio Calico kit kept coming to mind.  It was a nice surprise to see that the Echo Park collection complimented it so well.  (I’m really trying to make a concerted effort to use older products that I’ve squirreled away.)  The aquas, greys, and blacks reflect the cold weather, and the golden tones go well with the warm indoor lighting in many of these photos.  I also dove into my collection of Project Life cards for coordinating journal cards.

The first card in each month’s section with be a sort of title card, and for January, I created a cut file: a frame with a script “January” across it.

Inevitably, I have some longer stories that I want to tell, and rather than make a whole layout for this one, I made a flip-up.  I wanted to tell the story of B’s building skills with a little wooden 3-D puzzle kit.  I made sure to add a tab to signal that this part is interactive.

As I was putting these cards together, I was finding them looking a bit flat, so I started adding a bit of foam behind certain elements…

…a little bit of pleated tissue paper here and there…

..and paper layers.

I really like the dimensionality and softness that these touches added to the spread.

Stay tuned for part 2!

 

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