Project Mouse - Leading Up To the Magic

Oh my goodness. Here we go again! Sahlin Studio and I have an all-new series of Project Mouse cards to release today. Are you ready???

Leading Up To the Magic

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When does a Disney vacation really begin? For me, it happens long before I ever walk through a turnstile. That "magic before the trip" is what today's release is all about. All of today's products are here to help you record, document, and even MAKE memories leading up to the magic. And of course, they are all made to coordinate with "Project Mouse: Bundle No. 1"!

(Krista & I have more freebies for you too at the end of this post so make sure you read all the way to the end!)

Ok - lets get to the products!!!

"Project Mouse: Bundle No. 2 - Leading Up To The Magic"



Each pack is sold separately too:

"Project Mouse: Reveal/Countdown"




"Project Mouse: Planning"




"Project Mouse: On Our Way"




"Project Mouse: We're Here!"

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I was so excited to dive in and use these card packs for myself!! As you know, I'm conducting a little "experiment" by trying to scrap my entire Sept 2012 Disneyland trip Pocket Style - and Project Mouse is DEFINITELY getting me there. Today's packs gave me the tools, inpiration and push I needed to scrap a big milestone that happened on this trip. Scarlett's FIRST plane ride:


Krista is still making serious ground on her hybrid pocket style album. I love that she's creating magic with her entire family BEFORE her trip even takes place - and documenting it all!




Is that fun, or what? LOVE her pages.

My Britt Girls scrapped such a WIDE variety of page themes and styles using the new Bundle 2 cards:

by Wendy


by Stacy


by Shantell



by Natasha


by Melissa



by Melinda


by Kelsy


by Julie


by Jan



by Fonnetta


by Denise



by Christie





by Chelle


by Alexis


by Justine

Make sure YOU come share your Project Mouse creations with us in the Project Mouse Flickr Group!! (And in my gallery of course too!)

Despite the Project Mouse madness - I haven't forgotten about Show Offs! Here is today's slideshow FULL of awesome layouts featuring Britt-ish Designs products:

If you were a Show Off this week, watch your email inboxes. You are all getting a free paper pack of your choice as your gift this week.

(find out more about Show Offs here)

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One last thing before I go - there's the matter of those freebies I mentioned before! I created this little set of tags and pointers. You might have mentioned them in my Britt Girls' pages. They are FREE for your personal-use only.


[CLICK IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD]
Krista Sahlin has a free set of cards for you today. Be sure to stop by her blog to snag it.

I hope you are all enjoying Project Mouse. I LOVE seeing those pocket style pages (both Disney and non-Disney alike) around digi-land! Keep up the amazing work and have a magical weekend (hopefully full of scrapping)!

Project Mouse Page Breakdown

Hello Scrappers!! I'm so excited about the response Project Mouse is getting. It sounds like many of you are ready to dive into Pocket Style scrapbooking and document your memories - both Disney and non-Disney alike. I want to thank everyone for their support of Project Mouse on its debut and tell you - you are going to LOVE what's coming next!! Definitely stay tuned.

Today I thought I'd give you a page breakdown about how I put together a Project Mouse layout.


I know when I first started trying out this style I found myself a little stuck on just how to "make it work" as my pal Tim Gunn says. Maybe this will help!

Here's the page I scrapped tonight:


I actually timed myself because I was curious how long I currently take to put together a Project Mouse style page. If you remember - one of my goals in creating pages this way was to see if its really as quick and efficient as I think it is!

Goals of my experiment:
1) To see if I like Pocket Style enough for an entire album.
2) To see how much I miss creating and then looking at traditional pages in my trip album.
-->  3) To see how long it takes, and if pocket-style is really as quick and efficient as I think it is.

Once I had picked out my photos, I set the timer and went to work.

I edited my photos (brightened them up and ran an action on them), decided on my arrangement and got my page laid out. I was already to this point only 11 minutes in!!


The rest of the page took another 40 minutes. So 50 minutes total. Not too shabby, BUT I know I could have been much faster. I got hung up on my title and a couple other dumb things. Plus, I have to keep in mind I'm still getting the hang of pocket style scrapping. The more I do it, the faster I'll get. Also, journaling takes time. Writing it, getting it placed right, etc. So if you're not big into journaling, your pages can probably be done MUCH quicker.

Ok - let's get to the BREAKDOWN!!

Supplies used:

• "Project Mouse: Bundle No. 1" by Britt-ish Designs & Sahlin Studio
• Alpha from "Just Plain Fun" kit by Britt-ish Designs
• staples from "Miss Kitty" kit by Britt-ish Designs
  
• Mickey button from "The Big Cheese" freebie (aka the add-on to "Miss Kitty") (download is still active)

 As you can see, this particular layout has 8 sections or "pockets". I didn't use a template or anything like that. I just used the basic 3x4 and 4x6 cards and arranged them until I was happy. I had 1 photo that I REALLY loved that I knew I wanted to be nice and big, so I took up 2 4x6 spots for it. This is one of the things I love about doing DIGITAL pocket style, you can create whatever arrangement works for your photos instead of being limited to the page protectors.

1) My title card: "While We Wait". I wasted too much time fiddling with my title. I tried to use a font and create sort of a graphic looking title, but it just wasn't working! Grrr. Then I remembered seeing a ton of my Britt Girls use the alpha from my kit "Just Plain Fun" on their Project Mouse pages. Turned out perfect. Added a Mickey head button for accent and a couple staples. I'm addicted to using staples. At the last minute I added some white paint splatters using some free paint splatter brushes I downloaded online. I don't even remember exactly where, I've had them for so long. Oh and & I should mention I also rounded all my corners using the free corner rounding action that's included in our card packs.

2) Just a photo with a word strip and sequins from the Project Mouse embellishments pack. Simple enough!

3) One of my FAVORITE photos from the entire trip. I don't know why, but its just so sweet to me. So I made it nice and big (this is from my PHONE can you believe that? It was plenty big enough right off my phone. I thought a big graphic word overlay would look cute on it, so I added "COUSINS" with the tracking (aka the space between the letters) set to -75. Then I quickly added a heart shape (used the Photoshop custom shape tool). The heart and text were white, but I turned the blending mode to "Soft Light" for a more subtle look. I added a hexagon journaler hanging off the side of the page so it looks sort of like a tab and made a simple date strip in yellow because I realized right side of the page didn't have any pops of yellow and it felt unbalanced.

4) A cropped photo with a flower, word strip, and washi tape from the Project Mouse: Embellishments pack. Easy peasy.

5) I love this card from the Quote Cards Pack. I thought a page about waiting was a perfect time to use it. More white paint splatter brush work. I think I used the splatters to give the overall look of the page a less of a stiff boring feel.

6) One of two journaling cards. This is actually a 4x6 card from the Project Mouse: Basics Card Pack. It's easily cropped to a 3x4 size! Perfect. I'm trying to keep my handwriting font consistent througout my Project Mouse book for this trip. And I had the idea on my first page to make the text blue so it looks like I handwrote it all with a blue ink pen. I sort of love how this looks! The font I'm using is Pea Lauren America. I picked it because I like it AND it sort of looks like my own handwriting! Only cuter.

7) Another photo put into a 3x4 rounded corner spot. Tiny bit of paint splatter in the corner.

8) Another journaling card from the basics pack. Used a little arrow to point to the photo I was talking about. Added a washi tape up top and a bow for a cute girly touch.

DONE!! That's it! Just like that I've recorded some vacation stories, details, photos and memories. I'm still getting the hang of the look and feel I like for my Project Mouse pages.  But the more I play, the more I'll nail down the style I want.

I hope this helped you get some ideas when putting together your own Project Mouse pages. Be sure to come share your creations with us at the Project Mouse Flickr Group. There's already a tons of awesome layouts to browse through there. Bookmark it as a place to look for ideas and inspiration!

must-read blog

Ok, I know you're all going to think I'm biased because I'm a part of the site, but the Capturing Magic blog is quickly making its way to the top of my must-read blog list.


There are so many amazing articles written by fellow Disney moms (and a dad), photographers, scrappers, and just plain Disney NUTS all from the amazing Capturing Magic Team! A fabulous new post pops up almost every day that I'm inspired by!

Some of my favorite articles recently:

"How to Carry Your DSLR to Disneyland" by Katrina (all Katrina's articles are amazing)

"Capturing the Cast Members" by Steph

A Photo Scavenger Hunt: Getting Teens Involved In Capturing Memories" by Kim

"Personalize Your Disney Home Movies" by Krista

Of course the Capturing Magic podcast that I get to co-host is still going strong. I hope lots of you are listening and enjoy it! Our latest episode (out yesterday) is all about the recent Photo Walk through Disneyland that Steph got to do with Katrina. Katrina is full of amazing photography tips, she's such a knowledgable and talented photographer.


I definitely recommend listening to this episode if you've ever wanted to take more magical, beautiful photos on your Disney vacations. You'll find all our links and show notes on the Capturing Magic blog too.

I hope this post doesn't come across as too much of a lame "plug". I really am passionate about this blog and think everyone should read it! Put it in your RSS reader and give it a try. I think you'll really enjoy it and have more success creating and documenting your magical Disney memories.

Wordless Wednesday

What?!! The last time I did a Wordless Wednesday post was last September??! Is that possible? Well, I'm LONG overdue!

Here are some photos from Scarlett's first trip to Disneyland (Nov 2011). Meeting Jessie for the first time. (Jessie is Josh's favorite character, so of course this was a BIG moment!)

(click any image to enlarge)











You can see more Wordless Wednesdays from other Disney folks by clicking this graphic.



Oh & sorry about the little copyright watermark. I hope its not too intrusive in your enjoyment of the photos. Any pictures of Scarlett I post from here on out will have to have a watermark. I recently had an online baby-related company steal a photo off my blog and use it to promote their memorial day sale. It was a pretty horrifying & infuriating situation. We still want to share our lives (and our beautiful baby) with you. We'll just watermark our photos so people will have no problem identifying where these photos come from.

Anyway - have a WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!!