Scrapbook Ideas for Stories About Dress-up and Disguises

Do you have stories about dress up? Stories of you or friend and family putting on a costume and even a new persona with that costume.

Check out our team’s stories of dress-up and masquerades in their lives.
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Sian Fair says, “I don’t actually have a photo of me, aged about ten, dressed up in my costume for the Girl Guide Thinking Day celebrations, so it has taken me until now to tell the story, which I was recently reminded of by the dresses I spotted for sale in a Berlin department store. ”

“I took the idea of a dressing-up box and cut patterned paper clothes to embellish my page. I added a figure of a girl to replace the girl who is missing from the photo and I came up with a title to support the dressing up box and to hint at the idea in the story that I was doing something slightly out of character for me.”

 

Karen-Poirier Brode says, “This page is about my surprise at finding costumes among my clothing during a recent closet purging. I kept a few outfits for fun: my Grinch jockey’s from my Fisk-a-rapper outfit, my turn-of-the-20th-century dresses, my Hanbok from Korea, and my cowgirl vest.”

“I’m glad I scrapbook to keep memories of these and other outfits I’ve worn through the years. I believe the sentiments and the girly elements, as well as the dress forms, clothes, hanger motif and embellishments, reflect the fun of fancy dress. Fussy-cutting page elements and playing with the rich dimension of flowers, veneers, chipboard, alphas, buttons, beads and sequins are reasons I still like to do paper layouts. It’s playing ‘dress-up’ with my layouts.”

 

Kelly Sroka says, “My children are teenagers now and too old to trick-or-treat. However, they still enjoying dressing up for Halloween. This year, the kids dressed up to help with the annual Trunk-or-Treat at our church. They served food, played games with the little kids, and gave out candy. My oldest loves creepy video games so he dressed up as a character from a game. My daughter loves simplicity, so she wore her favorite black cloak and sunglasses. My youngest’s favorite Halloween show is The Great Pumpkin, and he wore a homemade ghost costume like Charlie Brown’s (which everyone loved!)”

“Instead of using traditional Halloween papers and embellishments, I went with bright papers with patterns that reminded me of a fair. Our church event is held during the day. Many of the games and rides have a more carnival feel than Halloween theme. So I began with a bold striped patterned paper for the background to echo the colors in the photographs. Then I chose coordinating papers that support the theme of the page–one with a ferris wheel design and another with fun pink flamingos. I added the plainer yellow paper to contrast with the busyness of the page. I added subtle embellishments around the page to lead the eye but not compete with the photographs or patterned papers. The whole page has a playful feel that is reminiscent of the fun the kids had that day!”

 

Lynn Grieveson says, “This is a fairly liberal interpretation of ‘dress ups and disguises’ but it’s a story I really wanted to tell. It’s all about my daughter’s love of Dr Who and how it has led to her developing a particular style of dressing which is more dress-ups than just clothes, and which means we end up having conversations around her two favourite jackets which go like this: What are you wearing? Donna Noble or Christopher Ecclestone?… “Donna Noble – but I can’t find her! ….“Don’t tell me you’ve lost Donna Noble! … Don’t worry I’ve found her, she was under the bed with Christopher Ecclestone.”

“It was easy to connect the story and the design. I wanted a blended, non-linear style for the design to evoke the TV show and movie posters. I added just a few Dr-Who-themed elements. It doesn’t have to be a completely themed layout. The photos were taken in Spain, so I blended in a ‘Barcelona’ shop sign from a photo along the top and recolored it blue so it looked a bit like the outside of the Tardis. It puts the photos in context just for me (even though the theme of the layout is about the clothes and not where we we were).”

 

Cynthia T. says, “We used to travel to see my family a lot more often when my daughter was in secondary school. Our only option was British Holiday times, which is winter in South America. We get lots of invites for lunch, tea, dinners, but our friends Marta and Gabriel thought about a way to get lots more of us together, and they threw a fancy dress party. It was not only a great time, but one of the very last times we saw Marta’s mum, as she passed away a couple of years later and we weren’t able to travel. These people are more than family, with more than 40 years of friendship. I have thought many times on making a book for Marta, Gabriel and the kids, and this was such a memorable event with people of all ages, entire families dressing up so happily.”

“The middle photos are of my daughter and myself. We usually pick Disney or anything to do with musical theater or film, as this is what we love the most. The photos on the right are of Homer and Morticia from the Adams Family. Below that is Phantom of the Opera, and there are many more.  There was no inhibition, and everyone was enjoying the party. With us Latinos most are not reluctant to dress up. In Brazil and Argentina Carnival is loved.”

“I used dress and accessory-type elements. The clock represents that the pages are of past times. I included big clusters with bright colors big flowers to give the happy and fun feeling, to balance the fact that most of us in the first page are wearing black!”