Busy, Busy!

Not so much me, as it is Disney Scrapping. I'm getting a handle on it and have been designing a few of my own pages. I'm mixing them in with pages from a 'professional' designer and I'm having trouble telling the two apart. That's good. I think.

Disney style is extremely busy and detailed. It's rather Victorian, in the 'too much is not enough' style. There isn't a lot of whitespace on a page. Disney is color, pattern, layers, brights, textures and action. Wow! I have to be careful, or you can't find the photos in all the stuff on the page. And that's even true with the 'professional' pages.

Here's what I've found:

• Mattes are useful, in solid, bright colors that call your attention to the photo.
• The colors on the page must work using the color wheel to accent the photos. A bright red page calls for green photos.
• Inking edges on mattes can add to either the confusion or to the ability of the matte to call attention to the photo. Ink with caution.
  
• Printed mattes will work, if the print is an overall one and if it is small. Tone on tone prints work well.
• Combining a light page with dark photos, or a dark page with bright photos helps to call attention to the photos.
  
• It's OK to cut photos into shapes on these pages. Usually, I avoid this. Just circles, no mouse-eared cuts, please.
  
• Many stickers should be stuck down to white cardstock, then cut out and glued into place on patterned backgrounds. The stickers are translucent and the background will show through.
  
• Stamping is good. Embossing is better.

With all the details, Disney pages are very time consuming. Just as you think you are done, there's something else you have yet to complete and it will be something with multiple steps. Disney scrapping calls for every technique I know and every tool I've got, from heat guns for embossing, to eyelet setters, to my craft knife and cutting mat.