Scrapbooking Disney

Disney was having their special birthday promotion that year giving a free day's admission on your birthday, and since we were pass holders they gave me a gift card for $79, the cost of a day pass ticket. So I got my scrapbook on my birthday, compliments of Disney.

I browsed the scrapbooking section at the Emporium, drooling over all the goodies. There were so many great books to choose from, it was hard to pick. I almost picked the "4 parks" book because I am splitting our album into 4 parks, but the kids loved the shiny red on this one, and the red lining with all the character faces on it.

Plus, this one had one thing none others had (at least not the day I went)-- it mixed old and new characters. Micky, Cinderella, Dumbo, etc. with Woody & Buzz, Lightnig McQueen and Simba.

So I've got my book, and scrapbooking central stands 6 feet tall in my living room-- that is, I have an old computer armiore that I converted into my "art studio," which is filled with mostly my paper crafting supplies. So I'm ready to go.

I made this page as a demonstration for a scrapbooking "How To" article I wrote. It didn't have to be on Disney specifically, but since it was the week after we first went, I had the pics and the inspiration. As my daughter put it, "It's not your usual style." I know that, but I liked it so I put it in our regular family album. I did a hybrid of computer and hand-crafted elements.

The scan isn't perfect-- the "fans" around the pictures got a little bit squashed and there is some blur/shadow from the texture. But you can see it clearly enough.

How I Did It

SuppliesI mostly used paper and embellishments from pad I already had on hand called COLORBOK Punch-Out Pack (Treasure Brights). I started with a piece of 12 X 12 inch deep red cardstock with a subtle swirly mottled pattern. I use Photoshop Elements for my photo editing.


1 I opened a blank document and began to print out some lyrics to Disney movie songs about dreams & wishes, such as, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," from Cinderella, "When You Wish Upon a Star," from Pinocchio, and "Once Upon a Dream," from Sleeping Beauty. I used Blackladder ITC 36pt font in an earthy pink color and made extra spaces between the words. I printed it out on a sheet of off white paper and it looked something like this. I love doing things like this for custom-made background paper, and I love using poetry and songs.

I tore down the edge and across the bottom for a rustic look. I put the song sheet on top of the red print so only about 1/4 of the red cardstock was showing.

2Back to the computer to alter photos. I started with a collage for a page banner. I opened a long, blank document and pasted several different photos along it. I faded the colors and put a grain filter over them to give them a vintage photo feel.

I used the text tool to write across it "Walt Disney World; Where Dreams Come True." I ended up with something like this, though I added a couple more photos to the edges of the banner for the final project so it would go across the entire page:

3I took a photo of Main Street in the Magic Kingdom and adjusted it for a vintage feel again. I made it a little more red in hue by raising the "temperature," then faded the color saturation, and put the grain filter on it and gave it a faded edge frame.

I took a picture of my son with the horse and carriage lady on Main Street and used the cookie cutter feature to cut it out with a brushstroke style crop shape. I pasted this onto the Main Street photo, so basically the plain photo of Main Street made into a vintage look becomes a mat for my more modern photo of my son.

I used the text tool to write "First trip down "Main Street" across the bottom, playing with fonts and colors until I was satisfied. It looked kind of like a post card.

4Next I took a picture of Mickey & Minnie dancing. I reddened, faded, grained, faded the edge with the same process. Then I took two pictures, one of me & Minnie and one of my son hugging Mickey, and I used the cookie cutter to cut them out with faded edges crop shapes and pasted them onto the Mickey & Minnie photo. I used the text tool to write on it, "a chance to reacquaint with New Old Friends." I got to thinking how these would make really cute post cards, but I digress.

5I printed the digitally matted photos and pasted them onto the right side of the page, overlapping the lyrics and the red cardstock.

On the left side of the page, I used some punched out phrases from the COLORBOK pack. They had the faded edges (which was why I faded the edges of the photos) and that earthy pink-peachy color (which is why I chose the font color I did). they also had the same subtly swirly/mottled pattern of the red paper. They said, "Hope," "Believe," and "Dream Big." I also added a tag (same color & faded edges) that said, "Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams-- Amos Bronson Acott."

6It was still missing something, it was sort of plain looking. And I noticed in my photos there was some blue in them, so I picked some plain, blue, faded edged punched squares from the COLORBOK pack. I tilted them so they were diamonds.

Still feeling it needed something... a little texture perhaps... so I took a sheet of plain peachy/pink swirly/mottled cardstock from the COLORBOK pack, cut out two 4 inch circles. I cut from one edge into the center of the circle and fan-folded them to create those fan-like decorations along side the pics. I put the blue diamonds on top and used a regular brass page fastener to hold them down.

Then I added the blue diamond and the page fasterner to the top of the poem tag. And as a finishing touch, two red squares to match the red cardstock backbround, but I folded them a bit in one corner so they have a bow-like look.

As another demonstration I threw together this quick scrapbook page, featuring my 8 year old son and some of the characters he met. I can't tell you how much he enjoys meeting characters.

1 I opened a blank 8-x-10 document (horizontal) in Photoshop. Under "Styles and Effects," I chose layer styles --> glass buttons --> blue.

I used the text tool to write, "Me and my friends at..." across the top in comic sans, and "Walt Disney World" in the center in Edwardian Script. This is my background page. I minimized it for the moment.

2I opened a separate document, 6-x-4 inches, for each photo. Under "Styles and Effects," I chose Effects --> Textures --> Psychedelic Strings. I made one of these mats for each photo. I opened my photos, cropped them and adjusted colors as necessary. Then I copied and pasted each photo onto a psychedelic string mat, leaving a thick border around it.

I used Layer Styles---> Text Effects ---> Confetti and wrote the character's name across (or down) each mat. I pasted the photos onto the blue glass background and arranged them to look as though they were randomly thrown onto the page.

3I opened a blank document and clicked on the "Gradient" tool. I made a funky color blend with the same colors used in the psychedelic strings: pink, yellow and turquoise.

I cut out a neat zig-zagging frame with the cookie cutter tool, chose a neat zig-zag frame, and cut it with ctrl+c. I then went back to the main document and pasted that frame around each image, and around each psychedelic string mat. The outcome was this:

I didn't actually print this but it made cute background wallpaper for my desktop.

I was thinking of using this image as our "intro" page to the Magic Kingdom section of the book, but decided against it because it's not hand-crafted enough. Instead I printed it as an 8X10 and put it in a frame to display it.

1I opened a blank file. I went to "Style and Effects," chose Effects --> Textures--> Rusted Metal. I adjusted the color of the rust to make it look like glittering gold. I used a cookie-cutter frame to cut out the fancy border in the gold.

I opened another blank image in a dark blue shade and pasted the gold frame onto it. I adjusted the size of the gold frame.

2 I opened an image of the castle with a few firework bursts surrounding it, which had been altered at the bottom to make it look as though it were sitting in a forest. I copied and pasted the image of the castle centered in the frame. I used the text tool to write the words in white across the bottom, arching them slightly, saying, "The Magic Kingdom."

3I opened a photo of each member of the family that I liked and made any basic color and contrast enhancements to the images that were necessary.

I clicked on the cookie-cutter tool and chose a crop shape that was shaped in a big star burst. I used the star burst to cookie cut a close- up of each family member. I copied and pasted each of our faces around the castle, making us look like our faces are in firework bursts.