✨ Double Sodas & Disney Dining: A 12x12 Disney-Inspired Carnation Café Scrapbook Layout
- This Chick Loves Paper
- Jun 22, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 23
A First-Time Dining Memory Served With Fries, Magic & Beginner Crafting Bravery
When you wake up before sunrise, dash into Disneyland during “Magic Morning,” and spend your precious early entry standing in line doing the one thing your child hates most — waiting hungry, you unlock a special level of parenting chaos.
My son doesn’t do breakfast.
He does lunch — and because we were in the Magic Kingdom, apparently that means cheeseburgers and soda before 10:00 AM. In normal life? Absolutely not. In Disneyland? Anything goes. So by the time we reached the middle of Main Street, he was seconds away from transforming into the Hangry Beast of California.
Carnation Café wasn’t open for lunch yet, but there we were, practically clinging to the door like sleep-deprived, food-deprived Disney zombies. And when they finally opened, we learned we needed a reservation. They handed us a giant, glowing pager the size of a flying saucer, and Lil Man held it like it was our ticket out of starvation.
When it finally buzzed, he sprinted to the hostess stand like it was the last chopper out of the apocalypse. And the second we sat down? He didn’t hesitate…
He ordered two sodas at once.
Free refills exist — he simply didn’t trust the waiting game anymore.
No castle. No characters. No parade.
Just a kid, wearing flashing Mickey Ears, clutching two sodas like emergency rations on Main Street.
And that absolutely deserved a scrapbook layout.
A Baby Crafter’s Beginning (Before The Blog Was Even Born)
Before we dive into design choices, here’s a scrapbook confession:
This page goes way back. It was one of the first scrapbooking layouts I ever made — long before I joined Close to My Heart, long before I understood cardstock weights, and long before I owned a single stamp set.
No tools. No dies. No inks. No collections.
Just scissors, glue, a printed menu, and a hungry child with a cheeseburger.
Unlike my modern blog posts — which now include:
full supply lists
measurements
step-by-step tutorials
Cricut breakdowns
pro tips
professional photos
…this layout existed before I ever imagined teaching my process. So today, instead of “how to,” we’re celebrating beginner instinct — the creativity that happened before knowledge ever caught up.
📌Building This 12x12 Disney-Inspired Carnation Café Scrapbook Layout
This page didn’t come with a playbook, just hunger-fueled instincts and a printed menu. Instead of walking you through measurements and product links (like I do now), we’re taking a peek at the choices that made this beginner layout work — and why it still holds up today.
🏗️ Building the Base: A Layout That Frames the Story
Every layout needs a solid foundation — especially when you’re working with beginner supplies and a hungry kid in Mickey Ears. I didn’t have themed collections or coordinating sets back then. I just knew the page needed structure, contrast, and a pop of personality, so I started layering.
I began with a 12x12 sheet of black cardstock.
Then I added a slightly smaller red-and-white polka dot sheet, leaving a clean border of black all the way around the page.
The bold frame helped everything feel intentional, even without specialty tools or embellishments.
At the time, polka dots were simply what I had on hand — but they echoed the playful spirit of Main Street, U.S.A.
If I recreated this layout today, I'd make my own Disney-inspired pattern paper!
I’d take the same idea and level it up with Stampin’ Up! cardstock in Real Red, Basic White, Basic Black, and Crushed Curry to bring in that classic Disneyland palette.
I’d punch my own polka dots for a custom backdrop, then add Crushed Curry banner strips down the center to mimic that famous Disney yellow.
For even more personality, I’d stamp a whimsical design or run those strips through a Stampin’ Up! embossing folder for subtle texture that feels playful and handmade — rather than printed.
🖤 Design Tip: You don’t need themed paper to set a theme. A strong color palette, layered framing, a punch of texture, and simple shapes can tell the story all on their own.
🍽️ Menu Magic: Turning Lunch Into a Background
Like I said, Disney colors are everywhere — bold reds, bright whites, classic black accents — and they work for a reason. They instantly bring Main Street energy into a layout, whether they come from cardstock, polka dots, or patterned papers. But for this page, I wanted one element to do more than suggest the theme. I wanted something that told the story itself.
So instead of letting patterned paper be the star, I printed the actual Carnation Café menu and used it as the centerpiece of the entire layout. Not just as decoration… as documentation. The menu isn’t filler. It’s the memory.
I cropped it intentionally so that:
CAFÉ SPECIALTIES became the headline above our photos
WALT’S FAVORITES became a footer beneath them
Our pictures don’t just sit on the page — they’re framed by what we actually ordered. The background isn’t a pattern. It’s our meal.
🎨 Pro Tip: When using menus, tickets, maps, or receipts, treat them like storytelling tools. Crop them so labels, headers, and names anchor your photos — let the ephemera narrate the page for you.
🏒 Hockey Puck Food Tray: A Hidden Detail with a Personal Twist
Since my son plays hockey, I added a little secret detail to this layout that still makes me laugh.
I grabbed a hockey image from Design Space, used it as a serving tray. I tucked it right into a food embellishment cluster. Yes, the tray holding the burger & fries is actually a hockey puck in disguise!
The best part? Mickey isn’t just standing there looking cute; he’s holding the tray like he’s serving lunch on Main Street, U.S.A. It’s subtle, it’s clever, & it’s our story tucked into Disney magic.
This tiny detail belongs to us. A nod to a kid who loves hockey almost as much as cheeseburgers.
🔧 Cricut Tip: Don’t just decorate your layouts — personalize them. A simple edit, resize, or remix can turn any image into a story that only your album could tell.
🏰 Recreating the Carnation Café Sign From Scratch
Every restaurant has a personality, and Carnation Café deserves to headline the page. I snapped a photo of the sign outside the restaurant and recreated it using fonts and layers in Cricut Design Space. Then I did a Print Then Cut and turned it into the title of the layout — giving the page a real-world anchor with theme-park authenticity.
🪧 Sign Tip: Real signs make perfect titles. Snap it. Crop it. Recreate it. Let the place speak for itself.
🧵 Layout Wrap-Up: A Page Built by Hunger, Humor, and Beginner Magic
And just like that, one hungry morning on Main Street turned into a scrapbook layout built from sheer beginner instinct. A printed menu became custom background paper. Polka dots and banners stepped in for the trademark style. A hockey puck became a food tray. And a restaurant sign became a Cricut title.
There were no stamps. There were no dies & no inks.
Just scissors, glue, and a story worth preserving.
The page works because the design supports the memory, not the other way around. That’s the heart of scrapbooking: you don’t need to know everything to create something meaningful. You just have to start.
🌟 Explore More: Disney Memories & Glow-Up Layouts!
This beginner page walked so my newer Disney layouts could fly down Main Street with full toolkits, custom Cricut builds, dimensional clusters, embossing folders, and foam-tape drama that deserves its own parade.
Want to see how much magic can happen after a few years of crafting and a whole lot of paper obsession?
✨ Browse my Disney-inspired layouts featuring churros, character meet-and-greets, ride photos, snack breaks, hidden Mickey details, and all the magical moments worth scrapbooking.
Crafting glow-ups are real… and they even sparkle like Pixie Dust.
📣Share Your Magical Memories (Soda Optional 😉)
Have you ever scrapbooked a Disney dining experience?
Maybe a Mickey waffle you photographed like a newborn, a character breakfast that still makes you laugh, or a meal at Carnation Café, Plaza Inn, Blue Bayou, Lamplight Lounge, or anywhere the Mouse serves carbs and happiness?
🍽️ Share your layouts in the Members Gallery!
Food-focused pages, Cricut titles, beginner spreads, seasoned designs, menus, receipts — we want them all. Around here, we celebrate memories that taste like magic, not just layouts that look perfect.
💗 Final Thoughts: Magic Served With Fries
Disney isn’t memorable only because of castles or characters. Sometimes the magic is served on a plate — with ice-cold soda, ketchup packets, laughter, relief, and two cheeseburgers that saved the day.
This 12x12 Disney-inspired Carnation Café layout exists because the little moments deserve the big pages — the ones where your child smiles again, your feet rest, and the food becomes the fireworks.
Print the menu. Capture the grin. Recreate the sign one layer at a time.
Because albums aren’t just for princesses and parades... they’re for cheeseburgers, soda cups, and the memories that fed the magic.
✨ Craft loudly. Eat happily. And scrapbook the delicious parts.
April, This Chick Loves Paper
🛒 Grab Your Supplies & Get Crafting!
All photos and projects are subject to copyright © ThisChickLovesPaper.com
Images © Stampin’ Up!®
Images © Close To My Heart®
The content in this blog is the sole responsibility of April Raine – This Chick Loves Paper as a Stampin’ Up!® Independent Demonstrator. The use of and content of classes, services, or products offered is not endorsed by Stampin’ Up!®
Create a 12x12 Disney-inspired Carnation Café scrapbook layout using a printed menu, Cricut embellishments, custom sign titles, and personalized storytelling. Capture dining memories with beginner magic, humor, and Main Street flair with This Chick Loves Paper.
Comments