Hi Everyone! It’s that time of year again. Planning time for my next trip to Walt Disney World! While I am a huge fan of importing my PDFs to iBooks, I still like to carry paper with me on my trips, just in case…especially if confirmations are involved. But, there is usually a ton of paper involved. And sorting through it can be a challenge if you have a long line behind you at check in. So, a few years ago, I began making myself a WDW Planning Folder.

I have to admit, it’s a little dated now with the new Disney Parks apps (and can I just say I love them!) But this is a fun craft for me to do to occupy my time until the trip comes. And, if you are like me, still a little old school…Let’s get started together!

I used the following (but definitely feel free to do a variation that fits your own theme):

• 1 plain manila file folder with tab (8 1/2 x 11)
• Card stock (8 1/2 x 11) in color of choice (I used Cinderella Blue)~as many sheets as tabs you plan to create
• Scraps of white card stock or decorative scrapbook paper for making your own tabs (or you can use 3M Post-It Tabs)
• Alphabet rubber (or clear) stamps
• Decorative stamp for tabs (if you are not using the 3M Post-It Tabs)
• Ink that coordinates with your card stock
• Pen
• Stapler
• Walt Disney World (or other Disney Parks) confirmations, maps, dining options, and/or other ideas for your stay

Instructions:

Stamp your manila file folder with the heading you want. I chose “WDW PLANNER” for the front and “WDW” for the tab. I used an alphabet set that looks like type from a typewriter, so I off set the letters slightly.

Next, make your tabs. In the past, I have used 3M Post-It Tabs. This time, I made my own. I used what’s called a tab punch, but it is really easy to create your own out of scraps of card stock or scrapbook paper. You don’t even need to measure them, just as long as all of the tabs are cut in the same size and shape. I stamped a decorative edge with lines to my tabs, but you don’t have to do this for yours.

Write your headings on the tabs. You can write whatever you plan to do on your trip: air and rental car info., Property maps, Resort confirmations, special events (for events like MNSSHP or MVMCP), Dining Plan, dining ideas, and sample menus (use photo as a guide).

Fold one tab each over each piece of your 8 1/2 x 11 colored card stock, in graduated order (use photo as a guide) and staple to secure. Place inside of manila folder.

Take all your important print-outs and file them within the tabbed card stock within the manila folder. Bring with you to Walt Disney World. It’s totally portable and you’ll be totally organized.

Enjoy your day and plan away!

Craft Time: Varies

Fran’s Tips:

~If you are worried about the contents shifting or falling out, a decorative binder clip, clipped to the side works well for this folder.

~Dress up the front of your folder with stickers from CMs, DVC, Disney Movie Club mailers, or even leftover Disney scrapbooking stickers.

~Think about printing off some Hidden Mickey lists, activity/coloring pages or trivia for your folder. You can take these with you to the Parks for line queues or while waiting to be seated at your restaurants.

~Be sure to add your Disney’s Magical Express confirmation packet if not using a rental car.

~This folder can make a nice addition to your scrapbook if you don’t want to reuse it for your next trip.

Like so many of us, Fran Cassano’s life is sprinkled with Mickeys. From collecting Park brochures as a child, to creating ideas for her own Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, paper crafts have kept the magic of Disney a part of her everyday life. Fran invites us capture our own memories through Practically Perfect DISNEY Crafting… Break out the tools that have been gathering dust. And let’s figure out how, together!

The post Practically Perfect DISNEY Crafting: Walt Disney World Planning Folder appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

Hi Everyone! With August here, there is only one thing on my mind~Ice Cream! And the best ice cream of all is Mickey’s Premium Ice Cream Bars (or, Mickey Bar for short). We see them as icons all over the Disney Parks now~either on a Dooney purse, as a toy, an antenna topper, and starting this month, even as an air freshener. My husband and I love Mickey Bars. (SO much in fact, we served them at the Dessert Party for our wedding in Epcot). This ice cream is only available at Disney Parks and on the Disney Cruise Line, so we capture the moment we get one every time we go to Walt Disney World.

This week, under my Storyboarding Your Life subheading, I want to share a very basic layout page that is perfect for beginners. It is also a great way to introduce kids to scrapbooking. As you can see in this, and previous projects, I really like the paper piecing technique for familiar Disney icons and symbols.   It not only saves money, it also personalizes your project a little more. Remember, it does not have to “perfect”, it just has to be you.

I provided my Mickey Bar template to you as a photo. I also share other ideas for how to use it under “Fran’s Notes.” So, let get started together!

I used the following (but definitely feel free to do a variation that fits your own theme):

• 1 sheet 12×12 solid, textured scrapbook page in the color family of your choice (if you want, you can use patterned paper, but this Mickey Bar works best if it can “float” above the page without getting lost in a pattern)
• Photos with Mickey Premium Ice Cream Bars in Disney Parks or on the Disney Cruise Line
• Scissors~paper and fabric
• Craft tweezers
• Dimensional foam dots
• Glue Lines or similar adhesive (tape runners may not work for this project)
• 8 pieces of grosgrain ribbon cut 3 inches long (I’m using chocolate colored)
• Scraps of card stock in vanilla or white and kraft or light brown
• 1 half sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock in chocolate or dark brown
• 1 half sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock in sky blue
• Mickey Bar Template (with “bite” in ear)~set your printing feature to 4×6 and uncheck box that reads “fit picture to frame” before you print it out

Instructions:

Trim your 12×12 scrapbook paper to 12×9. (Save excess for future project).

Cut Mickey Bar out of chocolate card stock using the template. Free form cut “ice cream bite” layer out of scrap of vanilla or white card stock. Use photo and edge of “bar” as a guide. Next, free form cut a “stick” out of scrap of kraft card stock, rounding bottom edges. (If you happen to have a corner rounder paper punch, you can use it to do this, too). Assemble with glue lines and set aside. I used foam dots for the vanilla “bite” to add even more dimension.

Using fabric scissors, cut 8 pieces of ribbon, 3 inches long. We are going to make these ribbons into photo corners. Fold ribbon around the corners of each photo at center, securing the ends snugly with glue lines. On the photo side, this should look like a ribbon triangle at each corner. Do this on each corner of the photos you are using before you affix onto your scrapbook page. Arrange and affix photos however you like, leaving plenty of room for your Mickey Bar.

I took a photo of one of the ice cream carts at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on my last trip. Cut an oval shape out of the sky blue card stock to mirror the image of the Mickey Bar from the photo of the ice cream cart. (See the ice cream cart in the photo of all the supplies above to guide you). Affix on to page next to your photos.

Next, affix Mickey Bar onto the sky blue oval and page, as a large layered embellishment, using foam dots. A quick tip~foam dots are easier to work with if you use crafting or similar tweezers. I used a lot of foam dots for this to make the Bar look like it’s floating above the page, almost like you want to grab it ; )

I took a photo of a Mickey Bar wrapper, too. So, for this project, instead of writing captions or “journaling,” I am going to let my photos tell the story for me. I snipped the Nestle and “Mickey’s Premium Ice Cream” logo out of that photo and the “A Sneak Peek at Something Sweet” out of the photo of the DHS ice cream cart. (I saved the other portions of the photos for a later project).

I affixed the Nestle and “Mickey’s Premium Ice Cream” logo using foam dots. I cut some of the vanilla/white as a layering piece for the “Sneak Peek…” and affixed using them glue lines.

See how easy (and delicious) this basic layout was? How will you capture your own Mickey’s Premium Ice Cream memories?

Happy Crafting!

Craft Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes total (or the queue time for an E-Ticket Attraction and a stop to get a Mickey Ice Cream Bar after

Fran’s Notes:

~Now that Disney Parks is rolling out Mickey Bar air fresheners (and others), a nice way to create your own is to gently spritz your paper Mickey Bar with the Disney Store’s Magic Fragrance Room Spray. The blend of Magic’s “icy mint, rich chocolate and sea spray” always makes me think of Florida. To do this, take the Mickey Bar (only) and spray the fragrance over it, from 6 inches away avoiding any droplets that might stain the paper. The chocolate and icy aromas might remind you or the recipient of a favorite chocolate covered vanilla treat.

~You can also make the Mickey Bar out of sheets of craft foam. Just use a glue like Aleene’s Tacky Glue instead of Glue Lines (they don’t always work with the foam). You can fashion this into a holiday ornament or other decorative item.

~Snip a Mickey Bar out of fabric like felt or fleece and make your own Disney Parks themed tote bag!

~For this project I set the print function to 4×6 for the Mickey Bar template. But you can set it to whatever size you like for however you choose to create your projects with it. I make lots of small ones for different purposes. Please feel free to save this template, or any I share with you, for your future projects.

Like so many of us, Fran Cassano’s life is sprinkled with Mickeys. From collecting Park brochures as a child, to creating ideas for her own Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, paper crafts have kept the magic of Disney a part of her everyday life. Fran invites us capture our own memories through Practically Perfect DISNEY Crafting… Break out the tools that have been gathering dust. And let’s figure out how, together!

The post Practically Perfect DISNEY Crafting: Basic Mickey Bar Layout for Beginners appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.

Hi everyone! I’m Fran. My life has been sprinkled with Mickeys from the very beginning. And through the years, keeping my memories alive manifested itself in different ways.

From the time I was four years old, my family took trips to Walt Disney World every few summers. Interested in helping us find our “can’t miss” attractions, I became “in charge” of our Park maps and brochures. Through the years, those pieces of paper were always my favorite souvenirs. I had a special spot in my room for them. And collecting them became my personal Disney pastime.

As time went on, I collected not only the brochures, but also some truly beloved Disney moments. As a high school senior, I marched through Sleeping Beauty Castle performing at the 1^st Anniversary of Disneyland Paris (then Euro Disneyland and Roy E. Disney was there). On a “sisters only” Disney trip, I snuck away from our room at the Polynesian to walk over to the newly open Disney’s Wedding Pavilion. During a college internship, I experienced my first, and only, Hollywood premiere at the El Capitan Theater for Walt Disney Pictures The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The first project I had at a cable station I once worked for, featured Tim Burton’s original Frankenweenie (the 1984 short).

But my life-long bond to Disney was solidified when my husband proposed to me on Italy Isola, at the Italy Pavilion in Epcot’s World Showcase. Earlier this year, this magical spot served as the backdrop for our wedding reception, with the Sommerfest Courtyard at the Germany Pavilion as the location of our ceremony. We even took our honeymoon on the Disney Cruise Line.

So, what do all of these memories have in common besides being unique and Disney-based, like many of us have out there? Perhaps like you, I want to capture and relive each moment of them. That’s why I developed another personal Disney pastime: Themed Paper Crafting. I first got into paper crafting through scrapbooking, when my cousin gave me a pair Mickey Edging Scissors…Then came card making…And then it sort of took off from there.

If you are reading this, you probably know there is a tremendous amount of Disney crafting online, with gorgeous Pinterest boards, by really amazingly talented people. But, what if you don’t seem to have the time to begin the projects you see? Or you find the project so daunting, you don’t even want to try it? Then your photos and papers sit untouched…you’ll get to them eventually…Guess what? I’m just like you. I have the same kind of busy life and never seem to have enough hours in a day. When I see something I perceive to be a challenge when it should just be fun, I put it away for a rainy day…

Let’s figure out how to Paper Craft, together. We’re calling it Storyboarding your Life: Practically Perfect DISNEY Crafting.

We all need little bits of Disney magic in our everyday. Crafting can be a way to bring us closer to that magic. It doesn’t have to be “perfect”, it just has to be you. Crafts are not only about marking your cherished memories or embellishing gifts. They can be created for practical purposes, too. You will see how easy is to carve out just a little time each week to do one Disney Paper Craft, Scrapbooking Craft, or Food Craft.

So, break out the tools that have been gathering dust, re-frame how you see your papers, embrace the power of adhesive and glue guns, and snag all the clip art you can from the internet and your computers. We’re going to capture the magic of our Disney memories and “Plus” our crafting.  Let’s figure out how, together!

The post Disney Crafting: Welcome Our New Blog Writer! appeared first on WDW Radio - Your Walt Disney World Information Station by Lou Mongello.