DIY Disney's Bambi Valentine's Day Onesie

It's almost Valentine's Day and I thought I would re-post this adorable onesie from 2014. We have a lot of new readers who may not have seen this post and honestly, I just love it so much I wanted to share it again!

Have a very happy Valentine's Day.

We have a new little addition around the cottage these days, and I just couldn't resist whipping up a Bambi inspired Valentine onesie for her. It was so simple with the Silhouette SD and some fabric paint.

I used the baby deer shape (Design ID #5505 ), the hearts from the sheep card (Design ID #25095), and the font Coolvetica. The text is lifted from the main musical theme from Bambi, "Love Is A Song." I made sure that my design would fit a 4"x4" box, which was just right for a 0-3 month onesie. 

Once I had everything placed as I liked it, I cut out the shapes on stencil vinyl. This tutorial from the Silhouette blog was extremely helpful in getting it transferred to the fabric. From there, I painted the shirt with two coats of fabric paint and let it dry. Voila! A cute Disney themed valentine for our sweet new bundle of magic! I'm tempted to make one in an adult size for me. Happy Valentine's Day to you and your family. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Hitchhiking Ghost Windows

It's officially time to start thinking about Halloween Decor! I am running one of my favorite Halloween posts today! Enjoy!

 When it comes to Halloween, I like the tamer side of things. I think that's why I gravitate to Disney's Haunted Mansion. It's spooky and fun without traveling into horror in any way. That's my idea of Halloween. And so we tend to be the Haunted Mansion house in our neighborhood, in that we play a CD of the area music, have a fog machine, carve our pumpkins to resemble the hitchhiking ghosts, and now, we will have the same hitchhikers in our windows!

I created these Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files using photoshop. If you would like to purchase them for your own uses (scrapbooking or otherwise) you can find them in my Etsy shop. For this project, I simply imported the shapes to my Silhouette Studio software. I traced them using the trace tool and cut them out of adhesive vinyl. Remember when you are cutting out anything with words, think about reversing the image before you cut it. It depends on whether you want them to be legible to those in the house, or those on the street.

Once they are cut use the transfer paper to adhere them to the windows. I did not and wound up tearing off the middle hitchhiker's arm at the elbow. I just pieced it together again, but it was disconcerting! Now you're done! You have recreated the ghosts in the graveyard scene from the Haunted Mansion attraction! For a sharp silhouette, pull the blinds or the sheer curtains and turn on all the lights in the room so the light shines through, but the rest of the room is obscured from view. I can't wait to see how many trick-or-treaters (or their parents) recognize our grim grinning ghosts!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Trip Command Center for WDW

Today we are reviewing one of our favorite posts on how to create a command center for your next WDW trip! Enjoy this entry from fall 2014.

When we decided to go to Hilton Head for our Spring Break trip back in April, we created a command center for the trip. A place for the entire family to see our vacation plans and get excited for the trip. You can read about that trip here. (It was one of our top 10 for sure!) The command center worked so well for the last trip, I decided to do the same thing for this fall's excursion to Walt Disney World!

Here's the breakdown of what I included:

Map of Resort
We are staying at Kidani Village at the Animal Kingdom Lodge this trip. I was able to find a print this map of the resort area simply by doing a google image search for Animal Kingdom Lodge Map. I also added a few animal masks to the lamp to try and make it more festive. You can see the gorilla mask, warthog mask, and leopard mask in the Silhouette online store.

Height Chart
I used the Silhouette to cut out the height chart using the shape growth chart. I cut out the numbers and then backed them with a patterned paper. I tried to tie in the papers to the Animal Kingdom, but I also wanted to use what I had on hand. I then used the height chart from PreschoolEars to mark the heights that the kids needed to reach to be able to ride certain attractions.

Countdown 
I printed out this FREE countdown sheet from one of my favorite bloggers and IG friends: Designs by Nicolina. It's perfect for watching the days get closer to Disney!

ADRs and Fastpass+ 
I wanted to remind the kids (the older ones) of all the fun things we had planned, including the ADRs and Fastpass+ reservations. So I printed out this FREE fastpass+ planning sheet from Lovely Commotion. If you are into the planning thing, you really need to check her out. She has LOTS of Disney planning resources available on her blog!

And who could resist this adorable serving tray with Mickey announcing our Advanced Dining Reservations! I am really excited to take our own Little Chef to Chefs de France, Epcot in hopes of meeting Remy. It is Food & Wine Festival time, so I am hopeful we will see him. I will definitely report back if we do!

Since we have a quick service dining plan, this is our only table service reservation. We have never had a bad meal at Chefs de France and I (the unabashed francophile!) am certainly looking forward to it! Stay tuned for a later post on how I made this really fun Mickey tray for less than $10!

Disney World Subway Art
I love eighteen25 for the subway art alone. I downloaded this from their website and stuck it in a frame. Instant Disney magic!

Passporter
My go to planner for any Disney trip is the PassPorter. My friends call it my Franklin Planner for Disney. If you don't have one and you have never been to Disney, this is the guidebook for you! I left it out on our command center for quick and easy reference.

We are clearly getting excited for our next big family trip this fall! Do you have a command center? If so, I'd love to know what you put in yours! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Alice In Wonderland Disney Tea Cup

I found a wonderful glass mug at the Dollar Store recently, just big enough to do a glass etching on it. And it seemed to say Alice In Wonderland to me. And so this project was born! I used my Silhouette SD to create a stencil that says "Drink Me" using the font Started By A Mouse. It reminds me of Fantasyland - where you can find some fabulous spinning tea cups!

This mug was big enough that I didn't have to finagle the stencil too much around the curves. Once the stencil was on I applied the Armor Etch with a popsicle stick and 10 minutes later, the mug was done! I really love how quickly the etching cream works. This definitely qualifies as a nap-friendly project. And it's budget friendly too! The mug cost a dollar and I already had everything else I needed. You can't beat that!

As an added bonus, I thought I'd share my favorite sleepy time tea recipe, developed right here in the cottage!

Merryweather's Night Time Tea

makes one tea bag (two infusions)

2 lemon verbena leaves, crushed

1/2 tsp. lavender

1/2 tsp. lemon balm

1/2 tsp. peppermint

1/2 tsp. ceylon tea (optional)

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Closet Divider Tags

DIY Disney Closet Tags

When I saw these shapes in the Silhouette store, I knew I would need them. I am an organizer, a planner and I prepare. And this is never more true than when we are going to Walt Disney World. When I pack, I pack in outfits. I like to know that I'll have everything I need to look put together all in one place. It all gets laid out by day, and then put together in the suitcase as one. Ziplock baggies are especially helpful in this department and come in handy if you have wet bathing suits to bring home. And I love not having to think about things like what to wear when we are at the parks.

As an aside, I highly recommend unpacking your suitcase when you arrive at your resort. There is nothing worse than trying to decipher which clothes are dirty and which are clean when you are running late to your ADR. (And we are always running late. I assure you.) Also, I always designate an empty bag or drawer for dirty clothes. That way we are not tripping over one another's ish in a tiny space.

With these tags, I can easily mark which outfits are to be worn on what days; no more arguing with the kids. Even better, I can see at a glance if I have packed enough clothing, or not. Once it's all together, it goes in a big ziplock bag, tag included. When we arrive at the resort I simply hang the entire outfit together on a hanger and pop the tag over it. Done! Everyone knows which outfit is for which day. I can even plan an outfit for a special character meal that I know will look good in the photos later on. So no matter who is helping Happy get dressed, they know what he should wear and I don't have to interrupt what I'm doing to pull out clothes. Let's foster independence where we can, shall we?

I used my basic scrapbooking supplies to create these tags; mostly using paper and ribbon. I themed them to the Classic Disney Characters, but you could do these for any set of characters that mean something to your family. I may try and do a set based on Phineas and Ferb for Doc; his clothes will be in a separate room from ours. These tags represent, Sunday - Minnie, Monday - Mickey, Tuesday - Donald, Wednesday - Goofy, Thursday - Pluto, and Friday - Daisy. I know, I don't have Saturday; won't be needing that one on this trip. Too bad. We'll just have to remedy that another time!

And for those who may need to know, the design ID numbers for these Hanger Tags are: 32018, 32017, 32016, 32015, 32014, 32012, 32011. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Road Trip Travel Clips

Happy Memorial Day Weekend Musketeers! In honor of the long road trip we have ahead of us, I'm running this great road trip idea! I hope you enjoy it and have a beautiful holiday weekend wherever you are.

Say Hello To Good Behavior!

We have traveled to Walt Disney World in just about every way possible, although I'm still holding out for the auto train. When I was younger, we rode down in our MT Motorhome. In my opinion, there is no better way to go! Of course, I wasn't driving, so that may have something to do with that. We've gone by airplane, driven through the night, even taken a conversion van and tents. Our next trip will be in our new minivan. I'm not exactly dreading the trip; in fact, there are several things I am looking forward to about it (not the least of which is that our own Mary Poppins will be able to come with us!) But we all know that a long road trip can wear on the best of us, so I've taken some precautionary measures. When your traveling from a cottage in the Midwest to Florida, it pays to have every advantage you can get!

This was an inspired idea from Julie at Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss. I took it and Disney-fied it. I used our blog names and created a tag for each of us -- yes, even the adults. The idea here is that everyone starts with his or her clip on the visor. Good behavior = clip stays up. Bad behavior = clip comes down. (Your elementary teacher probably had a similar system.) It's up to you how you enforce this, but we give the opportunity to earn your clip going back on the visor, by being helpful, polite, etc. Just make sure everyone is clear on the rules at the start. At the next stop (gas, rest area, restaurant) whoever has a clip still on the visor gets a goodie. (This is where that Tinkerbell Treasure hunting can come in handy!) I'm all for bribery - especially in the case when 6 people are trapped in a van for 18 hours, two of whom are strapped into carseats.

One caveat, our visor was too thick for the clothespins to clip onto it. I took some elastic and made a band that fit over the visor. We clipped the clothespins to that. If you need to do the same, make sure you subtract a couple inches from the band measurement; you want it to be nice and tight against the visor. Those clips can get heavy!

I love this idea. Simple and cute! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's It's A Small World T-shirt

This was a terrific little project for our Small World fans. And a nice easy project to round out our Small World marathon of posts. I promise, this is the last one for a while. Since Minnie is rapidly outgrowing all her 0-3 month clothes, I thought another shirt would suit her well. And she needs a cute little shirt to wear while she plays in that fantastic new room of mine hers. In truth, this would be a great unisex project for a new baby.

For this T-shirt, I used the Silhouette machine and the Travel Landmark shape (Design ID #27470). I made sure to size it according the the shirt I wanted it on - for the 6 month shirt shown here, I made sure the design measured 6.25" across. I then used the text tool and the Bimini font to write the slogan. I simply cut it from the vinyl, transferred it to the shirt and painted away. Don't forget to heat set it with the iron. I have to say, I love the Silhouette brand fabric ink. It REALLY holds up well in the wash. And when it comes to baby clothes, around here they go through the washer A LOT. The inks are well worth the money.

I mixed these colors from the ones I had on hand - red, yellow, green, white & brown. I'm very pleased with the way they came out. And in true Mary Blair form, I have a little blip of paint on the windmill where the stencil lifted up. (Mary Blair believed every work of art needed an imperfection. You can check out her five-legged goat for more information on this.) It's not terribly noticeable, and as my grandmother used to say, you couldn't see it from the back of a running horse. And that's good enough for me.

I really like how quick and easy this was. A great way to wrap up our Small World festival of posts! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Disney DIY: Road Trip Pillowcase

As a kid, we made many a road trip to Walt Disney World. From our place in the Midwest, it was about 18 hours. That's a LONG time to be on the road for any kid. We were lucky to be traveling in a motorhome most of that time; my heart goes out to those who must travel in a car.

These pillowcases, looked like they would be perfect for a Disney road trip. Anything to make the magic last a little longer! I think they would also be a perfect surprise for your kiddos at the start of the trip. Of course I used my fairy wand to make them Disney-ready. I could EASILY get carried away with themeing these! As always, think about the color palettes of your kid's favorite Disney characters, licensed fabrics, iconic images. The list seems endless!  And of course, you could use a Mickey or Minnie silhouette in place of the monogram. Anyhoo, on to the tutorial.

Materials Needed for Standard Pillowcase:

24" x 43" rectangle of main fabric (Toy Story)
2.5" x 43" strip of fabric for trim (wagons)
12" x 43" rectangle of contrast fabric (orange)
2  15"x12" rectangles for pocket (yellow polka dot)
1 fat quarter for monogram (wagons)
3" piece of velcro
22" piece of cotton webbing
matching thread

I combined two tutorials to get just the look I wanted: for the case, I used this 15-minute Pillowcase Tutorial from The Cottage Home, and for the pocket and handle I mostly used this tutorial from Amazing Mae. I recommend printing them to reference as you follow these directions.

Specifically, I followed steps 1- 7 of the 15-Minute Pillowcase. Trust the directions, they are amazing!

Because I wanted this case to be completely washable I chose to use quilting cotton for the monogram. I also wanted to hide as many rough edges, hems and seams as I could, so I chose to do the monogram at this point in the process. I ironed-on sewable interfacing from Silhouette to the fabric for the monogram. I sent it through the Silhouette to cut out a "J" in Franklin Gothic Medium Font, ironed it onto the right side of one pocket piece (12" x 16"), and zig zag stitched all around it. (If you don't have a Silhouette machine, just print out a letter in a font you like, trace it onto the wrong side of your fabric and cut it out.) Now it can go through any number of washings without that the monogram falling off.

At this point, I picked up Amazing Mae's tutorial at step 5 to make the pocket.

At step 7, I pinned one side of the velcro in the middle of the top edge of the pocket, so that the middle of the strip was 1" from the top edge and directly over the monogram. I then topstitched 1" from the top edge of the pocket with a decorative stitch sewing right over the strip of velcro. This way, the stitching for the velcro doesn't show.

From here on, I referenced Mae's tutorial, but followed these steps instead:
Fold your pillowcase, right sides together, aligning the opening edges (in my case, the orange fabric). Iron the crease (or the bottom of the pillowcase). Open the fabric and place your pocket (but don't pin) on the pillowcase where you want it. Remember, you will have a 3/4" seam allowance around all raw edges. Pin the other piece of velcro on the pillow case, aligning it with the piece already on the pocket. Remove the pocket and sew around all sides of the velcro so it is firmly on the pillowcase. Now pin your pocket back on the pillowcase, aligning the velcro pieces and topstitch around all three sides.

Take your cotton webbing (handle) and pin it along the top of the pillowcase so that is it aligned with both sides of the pocket. Pin it in place. Fold your pillowcase in half (along the pressed crease), right sides together, making sure that the webbing is tucked into the right sides and not twisted (so when you turn it right side out it will indeed be a handle). Sew around the two unfinished edges (side and bottom) of pillowcase.

And that's it! You have a pillowcase that is road-ready! Fill it up and enjoy the ride. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust.

Tinkerbell Treasures: Disney Door Hanger DIY

As I have mentioned, I LOVE giving Tinkerbell Treasures while in Disney. There is something so magical about the idea of Tink delivering a little something while you sleep. I can't resist it.

These door hangers would be so fantastic for those little giftees that need a special presentation. I like to use them on the bedroom doors in our villa. It's a sure-fire way to get the kids' day started off right. This would be an especially good way to tell the kiddos what's on the agenda for the day. You could fill them with a map of the park you are headed to (these are free and always available at the front desk), a new pair of shades, a snack, a new trading pin, a few Disney Dollars, a gift card to the arcade, the possibilities are endless. We always try to schedule a non-park day while in Walt Disney World, and this is a great way to add a little excitement to those less intense days. (I can also see them used as sleepover party favors, or birthday morning goodie bags.)

I used my Silhouette SD to make these. It was SO simple. I used design shapes 3d Door Hanger (id #21330) and House of 3: Dream Scallop Seal (id# 6821). I resized the door hanger so the box portion was as large as I could make it:

I had to then move the hanger shape to another page. After that I just cut and put it together. Easy peasy! I would recommend using the heaviest card stock you have if you plan on filling this with anything heavier than a map and some Disney Dollars. It wants to come off the handle fairly easily. You could also solve this problem by taping it together once it's on the door.

I hope you find lots of ways to use these versatile door hangers. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Pirate Onesie T-shirt

I've mentioned before that we love having plenty of T-shirts while at Disney; this is especially true for our toddler set. And I especially love coordinating the onesies with the Quick Change Trousers I've made for them.

I have been able to find packages of plain onesies at Dollar General very reasonably priced. I would look around at your favorite discount shops for the best deal. This is great budget-friendly project. And it's another quick project (for those of you who have to find your creativity during nap time). I found this Yo Ho image all ready to go in the Silhouette shop. For those interested parties, it's pirate swords, image id 9329. From there it was as easy as downloading, printing on heat transfer paper, sending it through the Silhouette, and ironing it onto a plain onesie. 

Not only was this a great outfit for our little one in the Magic Kingdom at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (a seriously easy "costume" to pack), it would be perfect for Disney's Pirate Adventure. Don't forget about these children's activities hosted throughout the resorts. They are the perfect thing for a non-park day. Your little one can experience a bit of themed magic and you can take an hour or so for yourself. Now that's what I call a win-win! To hear what other veteran Disney Mom's think of these children's activities, take a listen to this PassPorter podcast about child care in Walt Disney World. There are some great bits of advice in there.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust.

Toy Story DIY Birthday Party Report

We had a rootin' tootin' good time at our party! I had a blast creating this party for Little Chef! There were so many amazing ideas on Pinterest (my party idea pinboard can be seen here)! Little Chef and I took some time looking at all the ideas and he told me what he wanted to do and I filled in the rest with my ideas. Here's what we did:

The Photo Booth

I love the fun photo booths I see at special events! I'm a big time picture taker and its a way to dress up and have fun without everyone looking at you like your crazy! This one was super easy to construct. I found an empty wall, covered it with light blue wrapping paper and taped it down with painters tape. I then cut out the toy story cloud with my Silhouette. I cut 5 of the small and 5 of the large clouds and adhered them with scotch tape. I then used a couple of hats I found through Amazon, and these adorable (and free!) cut-outs from Merriment Design for the props. Easy and lots of fun!

Snacks

Little ones don't need a lot of snacks during the party if you schedule it before lunch. We went with cheese crunches (ala Al in Toy Story 2) and "snakes in a boot" - my own idea. I used plastic boot shot glasses and organic gummy worms. Two worms fit exactly in one boot! And they were the hit of the party! I loved hearing kids and adults alike say they needed another snake in their boot!

Decor

This was so easy. I used the barrel of monkeys design from the Silhouette shop and cut dozens of them from primary colored card stock scraps. And since I used to be a paper scrapbooker, I had a whole bunch of Memory Makers snaps to use up. I just attached the hand of one monkey to the other with the snaps and it was done. You could easily use brads, but the backs might show.

Little Chef also fell in love with some directional arrows to all the fictional places in the Toy Story movies that we had seen on Pinterest. I just downloaded some images I found on the internet and cut arrows from them. The arrow shape was already in my Silhouette library! I used painters tape to adhere them to the wall for the party.

And you've already seen the Luxo Ball Boxes that held all the goodies! To this I added loads of balloons. I bought a helium tank at the party store and in 30 minutes I had 40 balloons blown up and tied down all over the house. They made everything just a little more festive. And of course, we set up our Toy Story toys around the house as well, ready for a play date with destiny!

Activities

I cut out these rocket shapes from card stock using my Silhouette. I gathered up some craft supplies in the dollar bins from the local craft store, put out the glue and crayons and let the kids go for it! It was really fun. And then they played in the photo booth and with the toys we already had out and the ones we unwrapped. It was just enough for these 4 year olds.

I can't say enough how much fun this was to put together and how much fun the kids had! I'd love to see what you do for your Toy Story party! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Pixar Toy Story Birthday | Luxo Ball Party Favor Boxes

I had a hard time deciding what we would do for goody bags for the Toy Story birthday party. I thought about making lunch sacks with the Pizza Planet logo on them, but that wasn't really what I had in mind. Pinterest is chock full of ideas, but they just weren't as exciting as I hoped. Then, I stumbled upon this 3D bowling ball box in the Silhouette design store and I had a great idea! I wanted to turn it into the famous Luxo ball from Pixar!

How did I do it? Here's the skinny:

1. I downloaded the 3D Bowling Ball Box shape ID 57679, and used a generic star shape that was already in my library.

2. Once opened in Silhouette software I resized the box to be as big as my Portrait will allow, 16.5" x 25.15" on the full design. Then I separated (or ungrouped) the pieces of the design in order to cut them out in different colors of card stock, base blue and lid yellow.

3. I sized the star shape to the lid (4.865"x4.635") and cut it out of red card stock.

4. I created the names on each one by using the Gill Sans Ultra Bold font and adjusting the kerning (or character spacing) until I had the look I wanted. I then used the offset function to create the red background for each name. Each name was approximately 1" tall.

That's it! It was easy to assemble, although time consuming. I spent one day's nap-time cutting and another day's nap-time assembling. And it used a fair amount of paper! I needed 3, 8.5"x11" sheets of card stock for each lid and each base. And it was TOTALLY worth it! I love the look of these and it's not just another goody bag like every other birthday party!

Most of my readers will probably know that the short film, Luxo Jr., was one of the two shorts that really catapulted Pixar into computer animation leadership, in as much as it relates to animated films. Here it is:




This Luxo ball shows up in all the Toy Story films and shorts and many other Pixar films. It's exactly the sort of thing Pixar likes to do. So when I realized I could use it at the party, I knew I needed to! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Pixar's Toy Story Inspired Gift Tags with Silhouette

We are about to have the Rootin-ist, Tootin-ist party this 4-year-old has ever seen! Pixar's Toy Story has become an obsession in the cottage. There are days when we frequently view the Toy Story trilogy in a day. We are, in fact, still watching the Toy Story That Time Forgot (thank heaven for DVRs!) and calling it "the new Toy Story". That said, there will be some Toy Story toys joining our toy box soon. Wrapping them has been fun, knowing Little Chef is going to be so excited to see them.

I've been having some fun with gift tags too, using my Silhouette machine. I rounded up some of the shapes from the silhouette store that reminded me of Toy Story. Here's a list (with links!) of the designs I used for the gift tags:



Cowboy Hats (ID 30733)
Sheriff Badge (ID 29056)
*Dinosaur (ID 6784)
*3D Army Envelope (ID 58554)
Rocket Ship (ID 16622)

Some of them needed an offset (background), so I used the little offset operation at the bottom of the screen to quickly create the background shape. (It's the one that looks like a bullseye.) I put an asterisk next to the design shapes for which I needed that function. In all it was a quick and easy way to add a little Toy Story magic to our gifts. I'll be posting more great Toy Story ideas this month that we used for our party. So stay tuned! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Hitchhiking Ghosts Window Decals

Today I am re-running my favorite Halloween decor idea for you! Enjoy!

When it comes to Halloween, I like the tamer side of things. I think that's why I gravitate to Disney's Haunted Mansion. It's spooky and fun without traveling into horror in any way. That's my idea of Halloween. And so we tend to be the Haunted Mansion house in our neighborhood, in that we play a CD of the area music, have a fog machine, carve our pumpkins to resemble the hitchhiking ghosts, and now, we will have the same hitchhikers in our windows!

I created these Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files using photoshop. If you would like to purchase them for your own uses (scrapbooking or otherwise) you can find them in my Etsy shop. For this project, I simply imported the shapes to my Silhouette Studio software. I traced them using the trace tool and cut them out of adhesive vinyl. Remember when you are cutting out anything with words, think about reversing the image before you cut it. It depends on whether you want them to be legible to those in the house, or those on the street.

Once they are cut use the transfer paper to adhere them to the windows. I did not and wound up tearing off the middle hitchhiker's arm at the elbow. I just pieced it together again, but it was disconcerting! Now you're done! You have recreated the ghosts in the graveyard scene from the Haunted Mansion attraction! For a sharp silhouette, pull the blinds or the sheer curtains and turn on all the lights in the room so the light shines through, but the rest of the room is obscured from view. I can't wait to see how many trick-or-treaters (or their parents) recognize our grim grinning ghosts!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Trip Command Center for WDW

When we decided to go to Hilton Head for our Spring Break trip back in April, we created a command center for the trip. A place for the entire family to see our vacation plans and get excited for the trip. You can read about that trip here. (It was one of our top 10 for sure!) The command center worked so well for the last trip, I decided to do the same thing for this fall's excursion to Walt Disney World!

Here's the breakdown of what I included:

Map of Resort
We are staying at Kidani Village at the Animal Kingdom Lodge this trip. I was able to find a print this map of the resort area simply by doing a google image search for Animal Kingdom Lodge Map. I also added a few animal masks to the lamp to try and make it more festive. You can see the gorilla mask, warthog mask, and leopard mask in the Silhouette online store.

Height Chart
I used the Silhouette to cut out the height chart using the shape growth chart. I cut out the numbers and then backed them with a patterned paper. I tried to tie in the papers to the Animal Kingdom, but I also wanted to use what I had on hand. I then used the height chart from PreschoolEars to mark the heights that the kids needed to reach to be able to ride certain attractions.

Countdown 
I printed out this FREE countdown sheet from one of my favorite bloggers and IG friends: Designs by Nicolina. It's perfect for watching the days get closer to Disney!

ADRs & Fastpass+ 
I wanted to remind the kids (the older ones) of all the fun things we had planned, including the ADRs and Fastpass+ reservations. So I printed out this FREE fastpass+ planning sheet from Lovely Commotion. If you are into the planning thing, you really need to check her out. She has LOTS of Disney planning resources available on her blog!

And who could resist this adorable serving tray with Mickey announcing our Advanced Dining Reservations! I am really excited to take our own Little Chef to Chefs de France, Epcot in hopes of meeting Remy. It is Food & Wine Festival time, so I am hopeful we will see him. I will definitely report back if we do!

Since we have a quick service dining plan, this is our only table service reservation. We have never had a bad meal at Chefs de France and I (the unabashed francophile!) am certainly looking forward to it! Stay tuned for a later post on how I made this really fun Mickey tray for less than $10!

Disney World Subway Art
I love eighteen25 for the subway art alone. I downloaded this from their website and stuck it in a frame. Instant Disney magic!

Passporter
My go to planner for any Disney trip is the PassPorter. My friends call it my Franklin Planner for Disney. If you don't have one and you have never been to Disney, this is the guidebook for you! I left it out on our command center for quick and easy reference.

We are clearly getting excited for our next big family trip this fall! Do you have a command center? If so, I'd love to know what you put in yours! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Princess Sliding Gift Box | TInkerbell Treasures

This adorable box would be the perfect thing to house an invitation to Be Our Guest, or even a sweet Belle themed jewelry item. It was so easy to do and would be fairly simple to take with you to the Disney Resorts for a Tinkerbell Treasure.

The box itself measures 6 x 2.25", and perhaps for the first time ever I simply cut it out on the silhouette portrait without doing a thing to alter it! I used yellow and red card stock to resemble Belle's dress and the red rose in Beast's castle.

If you would like to make it, you can find the design for this sliding 3-d rose box in the Silhouette online store. And best of all, if you find making these 3-d projects a little intimidating, Jamie Lane Designs has a full tutorial on how to put it together on her blog!

I would love to know how you use this if you decide to. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Mickey Laundry Hamper Labels

This little project was supposed to be a quick and dirty nap-time project. In fact, it was a bit more time consuming than that. These hampers have been around a long time, and while I was sewing on yet another replacement strap, I remembered that I'd always wanted to mark them light and dark. And the idea of using a simple Mickey popped into my head. So a new project was inevitable!

I was able to whip up the Silhouette design in no time. If you'd like to download these silhouette files, you can do so right here: Mickey Dark Laundry Label, Mickey Light Laundry Label. Don't be surprised when you open them and the text is mirrored. Remember you need to do that so it will print the right way when you iron it on.

Getting the heat transfer material to adhere to the duck cloth, that was not so simple. I'm not exactly sure what happened with it, if it was old (it was) or if my iron couldn't get hot enough. I tried several variations of heat temps and cloth fabric on top; I even turned it inside out to iron these on. I spent about 30 minutes trying to get the first label to adhere. It was firmly adhered on the top part of the Mickey, and absolutely not on the rest. I finally decided to peel it off the transfer paper myself - stretching it a bit - and then adhering it without the transfer paper, but still using a cloth between it and the iron. That worked, but it's slightly wrinkled and warped in places. The second label did better, as I used the highest possible setting on my iron. I still had to pull out the center of the "g" myself and adhere it separately. I can't say I'd be very anxious to use this material on anything that would get any sort of wear and tear - or go through the laundry. But for this project, I can live with the imperfections. I'll just think of Mary Blair every time I use them, and her purposely imperfect 5-legged goat!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Popsicle Stick Magnet Puzzles

I first saw this idea on the Silhouette America Blog. It captured my attention as we are getting ready to road trip to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort for spring break and I am always on the lookout for car-friendly activities. I especially like anything that will work on a magnet board (i.e. cookie sheet from the dollar store)! And this was easily converted. With two toddlers, keeping it fresh is the name of the game! Well, that and snacks. Lots and lots of snacks.

This is possibly one of the easiest crafts I've done. I first found pictures of Disney characters my kids are fond of by searching Google images. I then printed them out on regular copy paper. I even used one of my own pictures of Cinderella's Castle! The possibilities are endless here. You could use pictures of family members, the states you are traveling through, favorite rides at the parks, you name it! I think it's a fun and easy way to generate a little interest and excitement about the final destination while trapped in the car.

Once I had everything printed I used my tape runner to make the entire back of the picture sticky. I imagine you could use craft glue too, but I didn't want to deal with goop and bubbles. I then placed my popsicle sticks on the sticky paper and used an exacto knife to cut around them. It was just that simple! I'm not too worried about them getting torn up. I figure we can use them in the car, use them on the fridge in the villa, and then use them in the car again. If they last longer than that, bonus! If not, and the kids fall in love with them, I can always make more. After all, they were fast to assemble. I was able to whip up two of these in about 20 minutes. Simple and sweet!

May all your road trips be short, and until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Love Bug T-shirt Belated Valentine & Silhouette Tutorial

I grew up with Disney, watching all the live-action movies on our VCR and laughing along with the very old fashioned humor. I have very fond memories of that. And this T-shirt is a reference to just that. My sister and I must have spent hours in front of that TV giggling at Herbie the Love Bug. I don't know why it was such great fun; it was probably my sister that made it so funny. We had a knack for that.  Well, that and Buddy Hackett. Who wouldn't love that guy? Whatever the case, that lovable VW comes back with this cute T-shirt.

I made this using my Silhouette machine, some adhesive/stencil vinyl, and some fabric paint. It was simple to do and I love an original design! I altered the car shape a little for this shirt and I wanted to share with you how I did that, so for those of you following along at home, here's a tutorial for altering a shape using the Shilhouette software.

First, I used Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold for the font - it was close to the original movie font and already installed on my machine. I then used the echo park car shape for Herbie. I enlarged it to 7.075 inches. To enlarge it while preventing distortion, hold the shift key and then drag your shape to enlarge it.

Now I had to do a little editing to get it just right. First, I altered the lines on the hood to make them bigger so they would stand out on the t-shirt. To do this I first selected the shape and ungrouped the layer. This allows you to select just parts of a design and alter them. It looks like this on your screen:

I then selected the lines on the hood and used the same process to ungroup them. They should now be two separate lines. Move them apart just a little bit - one or two clicks of the arrow keys (on your keyboard) to the right or left. Once I had them separated, I selected both of them by clicking on one, holding the shift key down, and selecting the other. You should now have both of them in the bounding box. I then used the offset tool to enlarge them to .07 inches. Like this:

Once that was completed, I selected the original line and deleted it, so just the fat line was left. Like this:

I then used the circle tool to draw a circle 1.32" big. To get a perfect circle, hold down the shift key while you drag out the circle shape. I positioned it on top of the lines the I just altered, and then selected both lines and the circle; I went to the Modify menu and selected "subtract all." This is important if you want to use this as a stencil. This way you are not cutting lines through your circle.

Once I had that done, I added the number 53 to the circle in the same font and sized it to where it looked good. Lastly, I used a heart from another design I had (elephants) and placed it in the window. That's it! I sent it to my Silhouette and cut it out.

If you try this let me know! I'd love to know how it works for you. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Valentine's Day Onesie

It's almost Valentine's Day and I thought I would re-post this adorable onesie. We have a lot of new readers who may not have seen this post and honestly, I just love it so much I wanted to share it again! Have a very happy Valentine's Day.

We have a new little addition around the cottage these days, and I just couldn't resist whipping up a Bambi inspired Valentine onesie for her. It was so simple with the Silhouette SD and some fabric paint.

I used the baby deer shape (Design ID #5505 ), the hearts from the sheep card (Design ID #25095), and the font Coolvetica. The text is lifted from the main musical theme from Bambi, "Love Is A Song." I made sure that my design would fit a 4"x4" box, which was just right for a 0-3 month onesie. 

Once I had everything placed as I liked it, I cut out the shapes on stencil vinyl. This tutorial from the Silhouette blog was extremely helpful in getting it transferred to the fabric. From there, I painted the shirt with two coats of fabric paint and let it dry. Voila! A cute Disney themed valentine for our sweet new bundle of magic! I'm tempted to make one in an adult size for me. Happy Valentine's Day to you and your family. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!