Disney Crafts Archives - Living a Disney LifeLiving a Disney Life

It’s been long time since I’ve worked on a Disney craft project. This one was not even planned, but happened mostly by accident. Raymond and I were out supporting our local merchants on Small Business Saturday and we happened to be in a fantastic home décor and accessory store that always has the most amazing Christmas decorations! We were there for just a quick stop to pick up a couple of ornaments for gifts and grab some extra ribbon and deco mesh (you can never have too much deco mesh, right?).

As we were making our way to the checkout counter, I stopped dead in my tracks, having spotted something unexpected and adorable! I spied a small black felt top hat, decorated festively for the holidays. As usual, I immediately said what I was thinking, “Hey! I could put ears on this!” and Raymond, in his usual way, replied, “You could.” Enough chitchat. New item added to the armfuls we were carrying, we made for the cash register.

By the time we got home, I had formulated a plan for that little top hat’s transformation into a Disney-themed tree topper. All I needed was to make use of Raymond’s mad skills with power tools. I handed him a large, sparkly, black shatter-proof ornament left over from the Halloween wreath project and told him to make me a couple of ears from it. Because I love him, I did remember to yell, “Don’t forget protective eye wear!” as he headed outside to his shop. I wish I could show and tell you exactly how Raymond managed to slice two perfect ears out of that one ornament, but I didn’t see what he did. I will tell you it involved something called a die grinder, but I have no idea what that is or does. If you decide to slice up a plastic ornament, I imagine a saw of some sort would also work.

Now, I knew that if I just glued those ears onto the hat, there would be a big gap between each ear, the hat, and the hat’s brim. I was trying to figure out a way to fill that gap with some black sheet-foam that I had on hand, when Raymond solved the problem for me by cutting the foam into tear-drops that could be used to cover the back of each ear and fill in that gap at the same time – I do love that man! So, I fired up my new glue gun, which gets really super hot in a hurry, and proceeded to glue the backs onto each ear, then glue the ears carefully onto the hat, making sure the corner part of the teardrop filled in the gap between ear, hat, and brim. I only sustained one glue-burn (on my right pinky), which is actually good – the injury count where hot glue and I are concerned is normally much higher.

So, making the tree topper proved much easier than getting it in a good position at the top of the tree! I ended up making a spiral wire around the top of the tree to perch the hat securely on, then I used my old tree topper (sprays wired together to mimic Wishes fireworks) to add some festive touches around the hat. The moral of this story? Don’t be afraid to try! When inspiration strikes, go for it. The hat was $12.99 and for the investment, Raymond’s cutting skills, and one hot glue burn, we got a pretty awesome new Disney decoration for our tree.

Do you have a Disney holiday craft to share? Let me know and I’ll put your project on our Facebook page!

Here’s another DIY Disney Christmas Ornament idea for you. Confession time: Sometimes my creativity and my actual artistic ability are at odds. In the case of this ornament, I had a good creative plan (says me) – the execution of which was negatively impacted by my lack of artistic ability…in other words, I…well….I pretty much suck at painting – even with pointy-ended bottles of sparkly paint.

But I bet YOU can paint well and that’s why I’m still sharing this project with you (though I was a little underwhelmed by my own results). You can do better and the supplies are minimum. Plus the idea is pretty neat since you can change the colors (and ornament sizes) to match your theme. For example, if you have a Disney Princess tree you could use pink, purple, gold, pastels, etc. That’s the fun thing about DIY projects – the flexibility!

I saw the inspiration for this ornament the last time I was at Disney World (May, 2012) and decided that it looked EASY and I’d give it a go. HA! Anyway, these ornaments were both fragile and not really in my budget at the time I spied them, so I took a quick picture and vowed to just crank out some gorgeous (fancy and sparkly) duplicates in the near future – that time came coincidentally as I shopped (c’mon, say it with me now) the 50% off Christmas decorations at my favorite craft store.

So I bought my supplies – a box of four white ornaments (two are shiny and two are matte/pearl), two sizes of bulk rhinestones, red and green glitter paint, and some silver glitter glue (for attaching the rhinestones).

Once situated at home with all the necessities, I started painting swirly-things. YIKES. Harder than I thought. I really wanted to make my ornaments look exactly like the originals, but it was just not going to happen for me. So I stuck with VERY basic swirls and had to be satisfied with that. Luckily, when they finally dried (oh, I was impatient and it seemed to take forever) – they looked less gloppy and uneven to me (maybe. a little.).

Once the swirls dried, I used the silver glitter glue (oh, has a more fun substance ever been invented?!) to attach the rhinestones in the classic Mickey head shape. Buying multi-colored stones in a pack was not very smart – the reds and greens weren’t as plentiful as I’d hoped. So, I got only one group per ornament. Just as well since the whole painting thing was dicey. In the end, I was happy enough to actually put them on the tree. The Fam (as usual) cheered me on and made me feel better about my expectations exceeding reality. Really, they could be so cute when done by someone with actual artistic talent – that’s where you come it. PLEASE – if you try this and end up with pretty ornaments, share a picture with me! I’ll try not to be too jealous and I’ll post the picture right here on my Disney blog.