DIY Disney Christmas Ornaments From Pins

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!

 

My Disney Pin Addiction

General Dis Pics 12.26 009I haven’t posted about pin trading in quite some time.  You’d think this meant that my interest in collecting Disney pins had waned, wouldn’t you?  The exact opposite is true, actually, I’m slightly ashamed that after all this time, my love for Disney pin collecting is a strong as ever.

It started long ago and innocently enough.  What a fun way for our whole family to buy a few relatively inexpensive souvenirs and interact with Cast Members for pin trading.  Those first few pins lead to pin lanyards – a gateway to entire pin sets.  Before long, I was hooked.

My Disney Pin Addiction

ME!  The woman who discouraged her children from collecting Pokémon cards and Beanie Babies.  We were buying more and more for trading and collecting!  I bought expensive pin sets and traded them all away.  Pins I couldn’t live without joined the ranks of the growing legion of pins in our pin binder.  The binder filled up.  Still, the number of pins kept growing.General Dis Pics 11.13 093

It’s not like Walt Disney World makes resistance easy; pin kiosks are everywhere.  Free-standing kiosks in every park, specialty pin shops, pin boards everywhere.  Worse, when I signed up online for runDisney events, pins to commemorate each event could be purchased during the race registration process.  Of course, I had to have them.Princess-Half-Marathon-Pin-2015

It was bad enough that special pins were available for the Disney Magic’s inaugural cruise through the fjords of Norway (no way could I pass those up), but a special evening event for pin trading with the ship’s officers was part of the itinerary!  Anna-and-Elsa-PinWe skipped dessert to make this event on time.  Annnnd…it was worth it!  Awesome, unusual pins to choose from and fresh lanyards for the Cast Members were distributed at regular intervals.  Before long we’d made new friends and collected quite a few more pins to treasure.

As I understand it, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.RM-Jessica-Pin

I’m admitting nothing.  I have a few Disney pins.  I might, from time to time, pick up a few more here and there.  I can stop anytime I want to.

What Disney items do you collect?

Disney Pins: Cinderella Castle Pin Print

It was bound to happen sooner or later.  As I was perusing Disney Musings Blog for a Saturdays With Nick selection, one of the items in Nick’s Disneyana collection looked familiar!  Black fame, white mat, combination of background picture and Disney pins!  I have that picture!  I remember where I got mine – and it wasn’t at Walt Disney World.  I got my picture from a friend at work who was having a garage sale, knew I loved Disney, and offered me the picture for what she paid for it.  I could tell she was somewhat reluctant to part with it and wanted the picture to go to a good home, so to speak.  So, for $15, I had my Cinderella Castle Pin Print delivered to me at my office.  Here’s Nick’s story…RM-Disney-Pin-Print-Cinderella-Mickey

Disney Pins: Cinderella Castle Pin Print

From: Nick

Off the Wall: Cinderella Castle Pin Print. I got this framed pin set from Walt Disney World a few years ago. I believe it was $14.95, with a $25 purchase at The World of Disney Store, in Downtown Disney. A wide selection of favorite Disney characters are illustrated here, with a few being represented in pin form.

 Pluto popping up in the foreground.

Tinker Bell over the castle.

Mickey Mouse shares center stage…

…with the castle’s namesake, Cinderella.

A pretty nice collectible at an affordable price!

See more of Nick’s Disneyana collection and follow the Disney travel adventures of Nick, Barbie and friends on your favorite social media sites:  Disney Musings Blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, On Instagram, On Pinterest.

More Disney Pin Ponderings

Minnie Mouse Chalkboard PinYou don’t have to be a Disney pin trader or even a pin collector to appreciate what great souvenirs the right pins can be.  Commemorating a special milestone, a beloved ride or attraction, a favorite character – is easy and relatively economical with Disney pins!

We do like to pin trade – as entertainment versus serious hobby.  We love searching out pin boards and books at out of the way locations.  We also like meeting and visiting with Cast Members as we peruse their pin collections.  Mostly, more than anything, each of us loves to find a pin or two that we…gosh, “connect with” is such a weird choice of words here…find meaningful, I guess, would be more what I mean.Disney Pin - Mickey Mouse Animation

I can’t speak for the rest of The Fam, but I can browse rows and rows of pins in stores and spin those pin display racks for a long time and still walk away empty handed.  Then, once or twice during each Walt Disney World visit, I’ll see a pin that just grabs my interest!  Maybe it’s a particularly cute version of a classic character that I’ve never seen before.  Maybe it’s a double pin set (Doug and Mr. Fredrickson, for example) that is too cute to resist.  Maybe, pins with a certain year on them – seriously, I normally don’t care, but this year was an important year in MY life, so having a pin with the year on it meant more to me.  You get the idea.  I love it when I find a pin I’m sure Raymond, Megan, or Joseph would LOVE and I can buy it on the sly and surprise them with Disney's Hollywood Studios 25th Anniversary Pinit later – sometimes, on rare occasions, I can curb my enthusiasm enough to hold on to a pin until Christmas and slip it into someone’s stocking.

If you’ve never visited the Disney Pins Blog, it’s a really fun place to hang out – even for us casual pin traders/collectors.  I particularly love looking at the upcoming releases of Disney Cast Member pins – I formulate plans for how I may score one or two (or five) on an upcoming trip.

Pins come in singles, doubles, collections, mystery sets, and more.  Currently, though, according to the Disney Pins Blog, the color-coded pricing of general pin stock is as follows:

  • GREEN = $7.95
  • RED = $8.95
  • BLUE = $9.95
  • YELLOW = $11.95
  • PINK = $13.95

Think about it – if you’re looking for an easy to carry souvenir, a keepsake, a memento – for a maximum of $13.95, you can take home something durable – a lasting, timeless piece of your Walt Disney World vacation to remind you, in the years ahead, of a very happy and special time.

For my tips on getting started with pin trading, read this.  For an explanation of Chaser Pins, check here.  Want to make pin collecting into an adventure?  Read this.

Do YOU love Disney pins?  What’s your favorite pin?  What pin do you want to get next?