Friday Musings #38

There's nothing I love more than a good Disney/boy band mashup. 

"The way I see it, you can sit around here and mope... or you can start a boy band."

So fantastic.

We Are Here to Change the World

One year I was at MGM Studios in Walt Disney World when a screaming crowd ran by the store my friend Megan and I were in. Megan looked at me and said "Grab your camera, I bet it's somebody famous!" So we ran outside and who did we see but the King of Pop - Michael Jackson. I was standing TEN feet from MJ. I grew up watching his music video marathons on MTV (you know, when they used to play music videos). Black or White and Will You Be There were two of my favorite songs. (I loved Free Willy.) This was a very exciting moment for me. He was surrounded by Disney security, but still let a few of his fans in and shook their hands. Megan and I didn't get that close, but we do like to tell people how we rode Star Tours with him. (Okay, so we were in different cars - but that's just a technicality.) After that I loved MJ even more - and man could he dance.

I was in London with my sister when I heard the news that Michael Jackson had died. It just seemed unreal. I remember two very tall British men walking past on the street and telling us. It probably wasn't until the next morning when our hostel was blasting Black or White at breakfast that it really sunk in. Every bar we went to was playing Man in the Mirror (which I'm ashamed to say didn't even register on my favorite MJ songs until that weekend.) It's hard to believe it's already been 4 years. RIP buddy. We'll always have Star Tours. 

Disney Magnets

I got back from my RI/ME trip about 2 weeks ago. Then I was crazy busy catching up with work and making some crafts for the Reddit Exchanges I was in. I made these magnets for the Disney Exchange. My sister made some with family pictures for my mom a few years ago and I have wanted to make them ever since. They make a great gift and you can customize them anyway you want!

These are all the tools I started out with. I bought 2 different sizes of clear flat marbles from Michaels. They were only about $3 each (so this is also a relatively cheap gift!). Then I found a bunch of different Disney photos I liked and sized them to fit to the marbles. If you'd like to make the same ones I did here is a pdf of the stills I used. My giftee is also a Doctor Who fan so I made a few magnets with the Karen Hallion Disney mash-ups.

Next I put some glue on the pictures and placed a marble on top. If you're making these - use any clear glue. I bought this Dimensional Magic Mod Podge which I read the label like 10 times and couldn't figure out what "Dimensional Magic" meant. It wasn't until AFTER I had glued all the marbles to the pictures that I realized it's meant to dry on top of things to give it texture and NOT to actually glue things together. Oh well, it still worked thankfully!

You really have to be picky about which marbles you use. A lot of them have cracks or ripples in them and distort the picture. I'd say about 1/3 of each of my packs weren't usable.

I let the glued marbles dry for a day and then used an exacto knife to cut them out.

Once they were all cut out, I placed a magnet behind and tah-dah! Home made magnets!!

Friday Musings #32

I thought this was an appropriate follow up to my Disney race posts. I don't know how I haven't heard of Jon Cozart before now, but OMG this kid is talented. It seems he loves things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and DISNEY so I'm pretty sure that makes us BFFs!

Disney Princess Half: The Costumes

There were tons of great costumes at the race. A LOT of princesses, parent/kid combos, dudes dressed up as princes (and princesses). My favorite is definitely this Doctor Who/Disney cross-over I spotted at the 5K. She handmade it all (I NEED TO FIND THE TARDIS FABRIC!). The tshirt is iron on pictures of Doctor Who/Disney.

She also had a little Pascal (which I totally should have gotten for my costume!) with a sonic screw driver. 

One of my favorite things was seeing parents running with their children. (This was more the Family 5K than the half) 

Since I was running in these, all the pictures are the backs of people unfortunately, but you still get the idea. 

This picture is probably illegal to put up - but I just had to show how awesome this guys costume was! I took the crappy one from the back. FULL RED SUIT! in 80 degree weather!! Running 13 miles in that costume is what I call true love...or insanity.

One of my favorite memories from the Half was around mile 1. I ran past two men probably in their 30s wearing the floor length Snow White and Cinderella dresses. Lots of women were running past chuckling. Some yelled "Aren't you going to be hot!?" This was their response:

Snow White: The worst part about these costumes is the thong!
Cinderella: At least we didn't have to wear our heels.Snow White: What!?! You didn't tell me that! I'm wearing mine!

Seriously - comedy gold mine! I wanted to stay next to them the whole race! But alas, I got sidetracked by Capt. Jack Sparrow. It will be a little weird running the Rock n' Roll half this weekend and not seeing 99% of people in costume, but I'm still pretty excited for all of the GREEN. 

Cottles in Wonderland

The Disney trip was AWESOME. So many things to post about. I'll start with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party since Halloween is quickly heading further and further into the past.

The costumes we saw there were great! A lot of Disney themed ones of course - but also some random ones - one woman had a dress and matching wings that all lit up.

One of the best parts is you get to trick-or-treat around the Magic Kingdom!! They even hand out decent candy. Sure you get a lot of tootsie rolls, and some bottle caps, but ALSO - twix, snickers, and peanut butter cups!

And where else can you DANCE WITH WOODY?? All in all it was a fantastic night of dressing up. We did sign a few autographs until we were told to stop. Sorry little kids!! A few more pictures after the jump!

Friday Musings #24

I still have a few things left to pack, but tomorrow I begin the 12 hour drive to Orlando, Florida! Woot!! Along with my whole family, I'll be going to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, EPCOT for the International Food & Wine Festival, and of course, HARRY POTTER WORLD.

Can one ever have too much Butterbeer? Back in a week with lots of pictures!

Grimm Grinning Ghosts

A week from today I will be in the Happiest Place on Earth... DISNEY WORLD!!! My absolute favorite time of year to go too - Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party AND the International Food & Wine Festival. My family went 2 years ago and we all dressed up as Wizard of Oz. (Above we met up with some random other dressed up people - you can see everyone really goes all out!)

Half the fun of going for Halloween is seeing every body's costumes. This Bert & Mary Poppins was one of my favorites - even has the umbrella! We had tons of people ask to take pictures with us. In fact, for the first hour we were in the park, we had a line of little children lining up to ask for our autographs! Chelsea and I were getting creative by the end. I started drawing little broom sticks in my signature.

Mrs. Potts and Chip! 

This year we're going as Alice in Wonderland characters. And I get to be Alice!! No more green paint rubbing off on everything :D

I can't wait to see cute little kids dressed up this year. Seriously - SO CUTE.

We'll definitely get some good pictures out of our trip. What are you all dressing up as for Halloween??