Category Archives: Disney Collectibles

Disneyland Souvenirs – What Did We Buy?

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We can’t help ourselves.  One of us has a Disney Christmas ornament addiction and the other one is extra sentimental.  Makes us great news for the shops in Disney parks!  Our September Disneyland vacation was no exception to our well-established Disney shopping ways.  What was a bit different was that we actually had a plan and a shopping list and managed to stick to it without going overboard!  Yay us!

Disneyland Souvenirs – What Did We Buy?

Since it was our first visit to Disneyland and we only had three days, we decided to scout out the items on our list before making any purchases.  This turned out to be both a brilliant and terrible idea at the same time.  It was great to get the lay of the land and see what the various shops had to offer, but we almost missed out on one of the items on the list by waiting too long.  The Sally costume we wanted for our granddaughter was suddenly nearly impossible to find on the last day, but Raymond finally spotted one.  Crisis averted.

What was on the list?  A souvenir for our son-in-law, Grant, some more Christmas ornaments (’cause we can never have too many), the costume and a traditional, embroidered EarHat for Violet, and some special something to commemorate this trip to celebrate our 29th anniversary.  What about Megan and Joseph, you ask?  We’d already purchased their souvenirs on the West Coast Disney cruise we took before visiting Disneyland.  Megan got a Disney Cruise Line spirit jersey in a beautiful watermelon color and Joseph got a tee shirt from a fantastic brewery we visited in Astoria, Oregon.

Grant’s souvenir was so easy, we spotted it on the very first day.  Who wouldn’t love a Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Mug from the gift shop at Guardians of the Galaxy:  Mission Breakout?  We made a note to pick it up on the last day and moved on down the list.  We spotted that Sally costume early on too, but made no such helpful note.

Moving on.  The ornaments were plentiful and we found them in many locations.  Choosing just a few was way more difficult than I’d imagined.  I’m a pretty decisive person, but there were so many great one’s I didn’t have!  I mulled over my choices in several stores so I’d be ready when the time came.  See?  Mrs. Potts and Chip, Mushu and Cri-kee, Jack and Sally, and Mickey and Minnie were my final selections.

On the last day, as we made our purchases, we still needed one special something for ourselves.  Raymond and I have always loved Carl and Ellie from Up, so while I was busily debating the merits of one ornament over another and making my final choices, Raymond was looking at sketches being drawn by an artist right there in the store.  There were Carl and Ellie!  A very helpful Cast Member explained the custom framing options and we knew we’d found exactly what we were looking for.

We left our packages to be shipped home and ordered our sketch with a Grape Soda pin and our wedding date added at the bottom.  When we got home, waiting for our souvenirs did quite a bit to soften our post-Disney depression.  The anxiously awaited packages finally arrived and we were so pleased with how the framed sketch turned out.  Absolutely, it’s one of our favorite Disney purchases ever!

What’s your most favorite Disney purchase? 

Home is Where You Hang Your Ear Hat

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Disney friends, you will totally get this post.  The pull of Disney is strong!  While we’re pining for our next vacation, we often find the need to surround ourselves with a bit of Disney happiness.  These touches of Disney soothe us while we’re saving, planning, and waiting (oh, the waiting!) for that return to our favorite Disney destination.  There’s nothing to be ashamed of!  We all know that…

Home is Where You Hang Your Ear Hat

Some of us go full-on Disney décor.  Personally, I find a well placed Disney souvenir or collectible to be enough to bring back a happy memory and remind me that we’ll be back to making more memories in the Disney Bubble in the future.  When that post-Disney depression comes on strong, I take a minute to look around my house and that’s all I need to cheer me up. (Henry Jones, Jr. is always available to chase those blues away!)

Marry Poppins is in the foyer.

The poster from 2014’s Food & Wine Festival (in the living room) reminds us of our 25th anniversary trip.

Some of our favorite characters hang out in the kitchen.

Mickey keeps an eye on who’s coming and going from the top of the stairs.

Planning materials are always handy in the library (and Bay Lake Tower is there too).  Along with our overstuffed curio of Disney treasures.

Recently I changed up the contents of the built-in shelves in our living room.  They’d been full of family pictures forever.  Missing Joseph, I decided to turn those shelves into a collection of things we love and I’m super happy with the results.  More than just Disney, each shelf tells a little story.  Cardinal baseball and chicken love are also on display. (Pigasus is my spirit animal.)  It’s mostly Disney though for all the usual reasons I’ve detailed here over the years and now because Walt Disney World is where Joseph is…for another three weeks, anyway.  (I sure do miss that kid!)

I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t you snap a picture or two of your favorite Disney-at-home decorations and share them over on the Facebook page.  I’d love to see them!

 

Disney’s Pocahontas – Percy Bank

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Recently, my friend and Disney Exchange Podcast cohost, Nick, decided to divest himself of some of his amazing Disneyana collection via eBay. He was telling Dave and me about some of his auction items and when he mentioned Percy (the dog from Pocahontas), I actually started listening was all ears!  I love Percy!  Turns out, my Percy fandom may be unusual because Nick’s Percy bank didn’t sell.  A few days later, it arrived on my doorstep!  Nick’s an excellent friend and now I’m the proud owner of this adorable Percy!

Disney’s Pocahontas – Percy Bank

For many parents, there’s a Disney movie or two that gets watched an extraordinarily enormous number of times. For our family, the first of these movies was Pocahontas.  Released in 1995 when Megan was almost five and Joseph a newborn, its importance in our household was both serious and lengthy.  When released to video, Pocahontas became one of the most-watched Disney movies in Green family history.

Megan had the full Pocahontas costume complete with fancy armband and necklace. She wore it almost daily until it unfortunately became too small.  Megan’s hair was long like Pocahontas’ and she became Pocahontas every time we watched the movie.  Dozens of times, probably, which back then certainly felt like hundreds.  We sang every song with gusto and enjoyed Pocahontas-themed snacks.

And this leads me to why the character of Percy is near and dear to my heart.

Photo courtesy of magazinesandbooks.com

It was the Sweet Tarts. Back in the ’90s, you could buy a long tube of Sweet Tart candies shaped like characters from Pocahontas.  Megan was a sweet and caring little girl who loved to share, so when she asked me if I wanted a piece of candy and I said yes, she wanted to know precisely which character I wanted most.  I chose the green Percy Sweet Tart and am certain I effusively praised its deliciousness.  When the candies were gone, Megan turned to me and held out her closed fist.  I held out my hand and into it she dropped a small pile of green Percys, having saved every one of them for me.  The sweet and happy memory of the green Percys has stuck with me over the years.  Every time I see Percy I think about the sweet, funny, and loving little Pocahontas that lived with us back then.

So now I have this Percy.  And I love him.  Megan will absolutely love him too and I know Percy will have a place of honor in the nursery we’re decorating for the July arrival of our family’s newest Disney fan.

Thanks, Nick.  Like your friendship, Percy will always be cherished.

DIY Disney Christmas Ornaments From Pins

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It’s been a while since I’ve had time to be crafty, but an idea popped into my head a while back and it wouldn’t go away.  Creative thoughts flowing, I formulated a plan that was, of course, both easy and cheap.  ‘Cause you know, with DIY stuff, that’s how I roll.

DIY Disney Christmas Ornaments From Pins

It started a few weeks ago when I found, tucked away, yet another bag of Disney pins purchased on a trip to Disney World some time ago.  As I was stuffing lovingly adding these rediscovered treasures into our “Disney pin drawer”, I thought it was a terrible shame that we keep our pin collection tucked away.  Couldn’t I find a way to display at least a few favorites somehow?  What better place than on our Disney Christmas tree!

I’ve got mad skills with a hot glue gun and I’m a ribbon hoarder.  I’m also cheap.  Starting there, I purchased two additional items and I was ready to go!  You artistic types that like to measure stuff will love this project.  I didn’t measure anything and I’m not all that artistic and I made some pretty cute ornaments.  Joseph took one look at them and called them banners, so we’ll go with that.  Let’s make some Disney pin banners!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Disney pins and/or buttons
  • Ribbon in different colors and widths
  • Wooden sticks either plain or painted
  • Wire (I found colored wire at my local discount store)
  • Extras like buttons or flowers for embellishments

Here’s what you do:

Choose pins and ribbon that will compliment each other.  I selected pins based on the ribbon colors I already had.  You could pick out your favorite pins and buy ribbon to match, but then you wouldn’t have the fun of using leftover ribbon in an awesome way.  I bought a pack of sticks and spray-painted them silver because…yep, you guessed it, that’s the color paint I found in my laundry room cabinet.  You don’t have to paint the sticks at all if you don’t want to.  I punched holes in an empty k-cup box, stood the sticks up in the holes, sprayed them, waited for the paint to dry, turned them over and painted them again.

Combine ribbons anyway you want to or not at all.  For some pins, I hot-glued ribbons together side-by-side to make them wider.  For others I glued layers of ribbons together to make a more interesting background.  (If it looks like there’s hot glue everywhere in these pictures it’s only because there was!)  Fold the ribbon over, hot-glue it to the stick and pin on the pin – the beauty of this project is that the pin comes right back off if you want to do something else with it in the future.  I added some buttons to Mickey’s banner and a rose to Mulan’s for fun, but that’s only because I already had that stuff.

Finally, add something to hang the banner up with.  I used inexpensive colored wire and I just wrapped the wire around the ends of the stick and added a little twist at the top to hold the ornament hook.  Tah-Dah!!!  Easy-peasy!  If you have kids, this might be a fun project while they’re out of school for the holidays.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you decide to make this project or a variation thereof, please share pictures here or over on Facebook.  I’d love to see what you make!