Look around and you’ll see fairy tales cropping up everywhere! From big-screen flicks to grown-up fiction and popular television shows like Once Upon a Time, fairy tales aren’t just for kids anymore. These time-tested stories of love, evil, and magic now find new life in a variety of forms and formats.
With all this happily-ever-after inspiration, maybe it’s time to add some fairy-tale magic to a layout or two! Even if you don’t have a little prince or princess at your house, you can incorporate this hot trend in a page today. Try one or several of these storybook-inspired ideas on your next layout:
Use wood-grain textures and patterns to add an old-world vibe. Here are a few resources to get you started:
- CU Woodgrain by Lauren Grier
- More than 350 Free and Premium Wood Grain Textures
Feature old-time woodcuts, intricate brushes, and vintage illustrations. If you don’t have some already in your stash, check out these sources for story book images:
- Dover Children’s Book Illustrations clip-art book and CD
- Kate Greenaway Illustrations clip-art book and CD
Or, turn one of your photos into a vintage woodcut image using this tutorial:
Incorporate fonts with a story-book feel. Use gothic fonts like Burton’s Nightmare, Black Family, Cardinal, or Middle Saxony Text for titles. For journaling, try old-school serif fonts like Mary Jane, Goudy Bookletter 1911, or Old Style to mimic antique book typography. Why not add a fairy-tale touch with a fancy initial capital letter at the beginning of your journaling? Lutin Paniquangoisse and Mysterious Voyage are great places to start. Find more initial fonts here at dafont.com.
Choose a fairy-tale inspired color scheme. I like the high-contrast look of a palette using deep reds, black, white, and grey. This combination reminds me of vintage black-and-white illustrations found in old story books with pops of hand-painted color. Choose your favorite story and pull colors from important characters and objects mentioned.
Holiday {hues} from designseeds.com
Add a few creatures to your page. Fairy-tale characters often have animal friends, interact with creatures, or fight terrible beasts. Consider including birds, squirrels, dragons, horses, bears, or wolves as page accents.
Don’t forget to throw in a few fairy-tale elements! Dig through your stash for apples, pixie dust sparkles, spinning wheels, swords, treasure chests, gems, and mushrooms. You’ll be surprised at just how many story-style elements you already have!
Enlist old books or papers to get a story-book feel to your design. Utilize open-book elements as frames for photos or places for journaling. Take an ordinary photo or background paper into the realm of the Brothers Grimm by adding aged paper textures. Here are just a couple of sources for numerous vintage paper textures:
- An Open Book by Christina Renee
- 100 Free Old Paper Textures
- Free Hi-Res Old Paper Textures
Incorporate frames and mirrors. Intricate picture frames and mirror elements bring a vintage feel to a page and echo time-worn tales of princesses locked in towers and magic mirrors.
Make your own story-book world. Your software has the capability of creating a whole new fairy-tale world by merging stock photos. With a little Photoshop magic, you can create your very own story worthy scene. Here’s just one tutorial to get your started:
Inspired by a couple of recent episodes from one of my favorite TV series, Once Upon a Time (watch the past season’s episodes online), I created a layout with my own take on fairy-tale flair.
Fairy Tale Dress by lavendar
Whether you use just one fairy-tale technique or are inspired to create a whole layout full of them, try adding a little story-book magic to your next page.
And, do you know of some fantastic fairy-tale themed kits? Add them to this post in the forum!
This is so cool! And I love your layout and that photo, so precious! Thanks for sharing
Thanks for this info because it details what is needed and whereto go. I am stretching beyond my restrictive zone and so thankful for this post.
Thank you,very cool.Love the layout .