Mousescrappers Template Challenge #135 ~ Dumbo the Flying Elephant

The template challenges at Mousescrappers have really gotten me motivated to get scrapping.  I was so excited to see the new template for this week's challenge.  Even better, I just purchased Capturing Magical Memories "See an Elephant Fly" bundle, and have been itching to use it!

In case you missed it, I shared a cute little story to go along with the main photo in this layout for the Disney Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.  You can read all about it in my post Best Buddies.

If you are looking to see more of Mary's kit (and all the other great materials she has created), head over to her Mousescrappers store.  Everything in his layout was from her kit, but I had plenty more to choose from!   Being new to digital scrapping, I was just excited to get this much on there!  Mary has an alphabet, papers and plenty of embellishments in the See an Flying Elephant theme.

Digital Scrapbooking Here I Come!

So I have always said, I will not convert to digital scrapbooking until I use up a significant amount of the paper and embellishments I have on hand.  I have more materials than I could probably use in a lifetime of scrapbooking.  We'll just call it a rookie scrapbooker mistake on my part!

I recently took part in the Mousescrappers Minnie Marathon.  Though I didn't end up completing all the projects, I did complete a few!  I thought I would share a couple today and then this week give you more details into how I created them.  But before I share them, I have to send out a huge thank you to my friend, Mary, at Capturing Magical Memories, who also just happens to be a designer for Mousescrappers as well.  I had never participated in one of these speed scraps and was completely overwhelmed (meaning, I was not nearly as prepared as I thought I was!  I'll know better for next time!).  I sent Mary a panic message to which she responded and got me back on track and excited to keep trying.

At Capturing Magical Memories, Mary shares so many great layouts for all areas of Walt Disney World.  She is very inspiring. I owe her a huge thank you for letting me ask her a million questions and she responding everytime with an invaluable tip or just words of encouragement.  So without further ado, here are my two very first digital layouts:

I will share more details this week on where I found the pieces I used, the templates and what specific challenge I was given for each one.

Have you converted to digital scrapbooking or do you prefer traditional?  I think I will end up being both!

MouseScrapper's Speed Scrap Minnie Marathon This Weekend

Since I am so far behind with my scrapbooks, I decided to join in my first speed scrap.  Well, let's just say, being a traditional scrapper (I haven't converted to digital yet!), this has been quite the start to my weekend!  There have been four challenges, of which I have completed three.  Since I haven't even completed three in the last six months, I am considering this a success . . . so far!  I will be trying my best to complete the fourth one from today and keep up with the challenges handed out tomorrow.

Have you joined in this weekend?  Even if you don't have time to join in, head over to see all the amazing layouts everyone has shared!  They are quite inspiring!

Head over and join in the 

MouseScrapper's Speed Scrap Minnie Marathon!

Even better, my friend, Mary, of Capturing Magical Memories and MCDigital Designs is one of the MouseScrapper designers.  In honor of this weekend's marathon, her entire store will be 40% off!    You can find her designs at the 
Capturing Magical Memories store at MouseScrappers.com

A Few Disney Princess Scrapbooking Finds (and a couple of good buys) at Joann Fabrics

Come link up for the Tiggerific Tuesday Blog Hop  . . . or Bounce hosted by Magical Mouse Schoolhouse, Return to Disney and Mouze Kateerz.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers.

Today over at my Disney blog, Pursuing the Magic, Mary from Capturing Magical Memories and MC Digital Designs is sharing her safari-inspired scrapbook layouts.  Her posts have really given me some inspiration to get going on my scrapbooks.  So armed with my 10% off my entire purchase coupon for President's Day, my daughters and I made our way to Joann Fabrics to get a few supplies I needed to work on our Kilimanjaro Safaris scrapbook page.  When I got there I found a couple of exciting things, which doesn't happen too often at our Joann's because it is really small and rarely stocked.  (Though they just completely redid the store, so I am hoping that means lots of new products to go with the new look!).

First, they had several of the Cuttlebug embossing folders on clearance, so I was able to pick up a few I did not have.  I actually only own two, so I am excited to add the argyle embossing folder ($2.67), as well as the complete Freshly Picked set ($8.97 for 4 embossing folders in 2 different sizes), to my collection.  Maybe it is a sign I need to buy the Freshly Picked cartridge!

Our next stop was to find paper for a princess project I am working on for the girls, but I was looking for shades of blue.  I noticed that they have replaced the Paper Company Value packs of paper (I loved these!) with Core'dinations Premium Cardstock.  Within these premium stacks they had several themed sets.  I chose "The Prince," which included 5 sheets of 5 different colors, including the shade of blue I think I need.  Even better than finding the blue that I needed, the "old" Paper Company stacks were in the clearance section for $1.97 for 50 sheets of 8.5x11 paper.  I stocked up on those - they had the color themes Neutral, Brocade and Black & White left.


Finally, no trip to Joann's is complete without a stop at the Disney embellishments in the scrapbook aisle.  I love this section of the store. But today, I was quite excited to find Disney princess embellishments that included Tiana, Rapunzel and Mulan.  It is always easy to find Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, so I was excited to find the Disney Princess Die Cut Cardstock.  This set includes 118 pieces (see photo) and there are two of each image.  There are 10 princesses included in this one set.  The second set I found was a Disney Princess Dimensional Stickers set, which included 5 princesses (Tiana, Rapunzel, Ariel, Snow White and Mulan).  I am just excited to see more princess being included!

 I was excited to find Mulan, Tiana
and Rapunzel included in one set

This is the first set I have seen that includes
all of the Disney Princesses

Now to get to work!  If you are looking for a little scrapbooking inspiration today, make sure you check our Mary's website Capturing Magical Memories and her Etsy shop MC Digital Designs.

Disney Scrapbook Layouts ~ It's All About Pirates

This is one of Mary's
Pirate Scrapbook Layouts

Every month on my Disney website I run a monthly series, in which I invite Disney bloggers from around the web to share their perspective on a new topic.  Today at Pursuing the Magic, Mary of Capturing Magical Memories is sharing her tips and scrapbook layouts for preserving your pirate photos and memories from Disney parks. To see her creations, head over to

In Pursuit of Pirates Part #3 ~ Getting Pirates on Those Pages

MC Digital Designs

I have been very lucky over the past year to have connected with a lot of bloggers online.  As a member of the Magical Blogorail, I have been blessed to have crossed paths with Mary of Capturing Magical Memories. Being that I am SO far behind with all my Disney scrapbooking, I have really enjoyed visiting her blog to see her original Disney scrapbook layouts.  She is very inspiring to say the least and it gets me motivated to get going on my scrapbooks.


So when Mary decided to start her own Etsy shop, I just had to share her creations with you!  To see her shop, make sure you head over to 

MC Digital Designs for Capturing Magical Memories

Her shop description is "Disney inspired digital content designed to make and preserve memories. Specializing in digital scrapbooking material and invitations."  I love her 12x12 scrapbook paper, which is themed around many of our favorite Disney characters, such as the Fab 5, Little Einsteins and Disney Princess, and well known Walt Disney World spots, such as Main Street, U.S.A and Crystal Palace.  She also has invitations, thank you notes and holiday cards to name a few of her other offerings!

To see her creations at work, make sure you are following her at Capturing Magical Memories.  He work is creative, original and very inspiring!  

After you check out her shop, let me know which is your favorite.  I happen to love the Sparkly Starry Princess paper.

My Top Five 2011 Posts

This year has had a lot of ups and downs for our family.  My poor little blog here has been sadly neglected, though I hope to change that as we head into the new year and we get a fresh start.  I have a lot of projects ready to go, now to make the time to create them and share them!

Here are my top five posts of 2011:

#5 Retired Disney Cricut Cartridges
I have finally collected all the Disney cartridges.  If you are still looking to purchase any one of these cartridges, I have still seen some available on ebay, as well as Cricut.com itself.

Disney Scrapbook Layout ~ Downtown Disney

I am a little behind on my New Year's Resolution of creating a Disney scrapbook layout each week, but I am catching up!  I have been busy with my Disney blog, Pursuing the Magic, getting ready for the next Magical Blogorail Blue loop and writing guests posts for a couple of my favorite Disney blogs, Meet the Magic and Growing Up Disney. 

Downtown Disney is one of my favorite places to visit when we are in Walt Disney World.  There are a lot of great photo opportunities, plus a lot of great shopping!  On Joey's first trip to Walt Disney World, he LOVED the stuffed animals in Once Upon a Toy.  I remember him trying so hard to get out of his stroller to get his hands on them.  When I let him loose, he went straight for a huge Pooh, which as you can see from the picture was about the same size he was.  My mom and sister-in-law Kelly were with us, since all the "boys" had gone golfing for the day.  It was a relaxing day to say the least and we enjoyed being able to peruse the shops without anyone rushing us.  Here's my 2-page Downtown Disney layout from our 2006 trip to WDW.

On Our Way to Meet Buzz Scrapbook Layout

2006 was my son, Joey's, first trip to Walt Disney World.  He was just 14 months at the time and about the best little boy you could ask for.  He rarely cried, loved to play, loved to cuddle and his favorite thing at the time was Toy Story.  If he could have talked, he would have told you that Buzz Lightyear was by far his favorite character of any story or movie.  Just the mention of the word Buzz and he would be beaming ear to ear.  So, for this particular scrapbook page I could have called it something like "Joey's 1st Ride on a Disney Bus" or "On Our Way to MGM Studios."  But when I see this picture of him sitting on a Disney bus seat with this big smile, I recall every second of that moment.  The bus was still parked at the bus depot at Port Orleans Riverside, of course, or he would have been in someone's lap.  As we waited for others to board, I asked Joey, "Are you excited to go meet Buzz Lightyear?"  I clicked a picture and here it is - smiling ear to ear!

When I scrapbook, I cannot put a picture to paper that I didn't take myself.  I find scrapbooking a way to display the emotions of the day or those special moments that for whatever reason you remember every small detail of what happened.  This is one of those pictures.  Most people would probably look at it and think a little boy with a big smile.  I see a little boy anticipating his first trip to infinity and beyond to meet someone he loved . . . . Buzz Lightyear.  Of course, the other picture is of Joey and his other buddy, Grampa!

Disney Scrapbook Layout ~ On Our Way

I'm very excited to say that we are in week two of my New Year's Resolution of creating one Disney scrapbook layout every week and I am keeping up! Ok, so pretty easy to keep up just two weeks in, we'll see what I am doing around week 6!  If you missed my first one, I posted my Port Orleans Riverside 2-page layout.  It is one of my simplest layouts, but it does my pictures justice.

For this week, the page I created is from pictures we took before leaving for the airport.  I remember that day because it was -8 degrees that morning and freezing.  My parents had driven down from New Hampshire to our home in Massachusetts.  We were flying out of Logan and all driving in together.  New Hampshire had a tremendous winter storm just days before and my parents had been out of electricity for almost three days.  They were on the verge of canceling the trip because with the frigid temperatures at that time, they couldn't leave their house without heat and not knowing when the electricity would come back on.  Luckily, late afternoon the day before we were to leave, their electricity came back on.  Disney magic already at work!  My husband and I were very relieved because this was Joey's first trip to WDW and we would hate for them to miss it.  Plus, my brother and sister in law were already in Disney waiting for us to arrive. 

Port Orleans Riverside Scrapbook Page

In celebration of our 2011 Disney trip, I've decided to hold to my New Year's resolution to create one 2-page Disney scrapbook layout per week.  My son, Joey, was just 14 months for his first trip to WDW in 2006.  Since we will be staying at Port Orleans Riverside in October, and I just paid my deposit, I figured I would use my excitement to inspire this scrapbook page.  I have most of the 2006 scrapbook done, but this was one page I just couldn't seem to put together.  It has been a while since we visited POR, so before beginning, I took to the internet for a little inspiration.  What I came across not only inspired my scrapbook layout, but also exponentially increased my excitement for staying at POR!  All Ears (one of my favorite unofficial Disney sites) posted a video of the resort: Port Orleans Riverside for AllEars

For the background paper I used sheets from DCWV paper stack Old World.  I had searched and searched through all my Disney paper and just couldn't find anything to fit this theme.  While working on another scrapbook project, I found this paper and it seemed to be just what I needed.  When I tried to use frames for the pictures, it just didn't work, so this is one of the few layouts I have done without them.  The picture of the resort is actually the postcard in our packet of information we received when we checked in.  The little Mickeys are embellishments I came across some time ago. 


What is your favorite Disney resort scrapbook page?  Leave a link or a comment below.  I would love to see it!

Disney Scrapbooks ~ Here I Come!

One of my favorite ways to look back at my family's Disney trips is to scrapbook them.  I create one scrapbook per trip.  I also have another Disney scrapbook that is a timeline from my 1st trip as a teen in 1986 to my most recent trip in 2010 as a mom of 3.  Now I say have, but really all I have done is the plan for it.  I have been waiting to get my hands on the Sandylion Disney Mega Pack of paper before beginning.  I already have all the Disney Cricut cartridges, except the two new ones (see my post New Disney Cricut Catridges! for more details), which I hope to acquire soon.  So I was quite excited when not only did my parents give me the Disney pack of paper for Christmas, but also the 2010 Disney Parks Scrapbook.  I am all ready to get started. 

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to complete one Disney 2-page scrapbook layout each week.  If I stick to that plan, my 2006 one, which was Joey's 1st trip, should be completed in just a couple of weeks since I am basically almost done with that.  Then, on to my 2008 trip scrapbook, which was Hayley and Emily's first trip.  Then, onto my 2010 trip.  That sounds like a lot but really, I have them all planned out and somewhat started.  I just need to make the time for myself to do it.  Plus, I don't know about you, but I find I work on a lot of different scrapbook projects at once.  Right now I have about 5 projects started.  It gives me the opportunity to work on whatever I am most inspired to do at that moment. 

Keep checking back to see some of my layouts!  If you have any Disney layouts you'd like to share, leave me a link in the comments below.  I would love to see them ~ I am always looking for inspiration!