Ok, the other questions. Everything was done in PSE4. I used some papers & elements on these that are free from my blog:
Seebee's Freebies Blogspot. (Look for anything that says "Dream Trip".And I keep everything that I've ever posted available on my blog, so you may have to hunt back a bit for some things.) That includes the Goofy Stamp, the paper used on the hat page, and the sparkle frames on the hat page.
Because PSE doesn't use paths, I had to cheat a bit to get text in a semicircle. Most of the line of dialog was written, then the Warp Text was used with the Arc function. For instace, "Eight Days At Disney" was typed & then arranged, using an arc of 100 to give a half circle. Then, "World" was typed separately and Arc was used...but probably only around 30 or so. You just want it to bend enough to follow the curve established by the beginning of the line of dialog. Both pieces of the line of dialog were lined up and merged together once they were aligned perfectly. Then because I was using PSE4 and you can't control glow colors, I had to do another workaround to get a white glow. You duplicate the text layer, apply the glow to the bottom layer, and then you can manipulate the bottom layer with Hue/Saturation without disturbing the color of the text. I probably also duplicated the layer with the glow to make it stand out more.
It's a bit of work, isn't it?
I think Adobe just needs to include paths next time. At least I believe they added the ability to change drop shadow colors (and probably glows, but I am not sure) in PSE5.
The sparkles were created with a couple of brushes, one I found on the web that allows commercial use, and one created by me in PSE. That particular sparkle paper is part of a pack I sell at Digitals; info is on my blog.
My favorite texture for paper is included in PS/PSE, and it's easy to do. Get a color for your background. Then, create a Pattern Adjustment Layer above that colored layer in the layers palette by clicking the little half white/half black circle and choosing "Pattern...". When the Pattern Fill box pops up, it will probably default to a pattern you don't want. Click the little down facing arrow, and then when that box opens to show the rest of the patterns in that set, click the little right facing arrow. From the list of pattern names that appears, choose "Artist Surfaces". And the very first pattern in that set, called "Dark Coarse Weave" (you can see the name if you hover your pointer over the tiny thumbnail), is what I use a lot. For a 12 x 12 inch, 300 ppi page, you'll need to increase the scale percentage up to about 250%. Click OK, and now change that adjustment layer's blend mode from Normal to Overlay, Soft Light, or any of the ones around there. Adjust the opacity of that layer down to make the pattern more subtle. That's it! It took more time to write than it would take to do it, especially after you get used to doing that.
Hope that helps some.
Some people print at home with a wide format printer, others use a standard printer-friendly 8 x 8 inch size, and there are options for printing in stores & from websites, as well. And now there are lots of places that do photobooks, too.
I like the look and feel of a real scrapbook album for things like this where the pages are not completely coordinated. I like Storybooks/Photobooks to have more of a polished, coordinated look by using the same color structure throughout. That's all personal opinion, though.
