Mickey Checkers

We are back from our surprise Disney World Vacation and what fun we had!!! I intended to post this last Mickey themed craft while on vacation but we were so busy having fun that, that didn't happen, so you get to see it now. It is a variation of the tic-tac-toe on the go game I posted a while back but instead of the game board being on the back of the game pouch, I had to make a separate fold-able game board because the checker board was just to big to fit onto the back of the pouch.

The game board was made by cutting out 1 inch squares of freezer paper using my favorite crafting tool the Silhouette Craft Cutter and then laying them out in the checker board pattern. I then ironed the freezer paper squares down on to a red fabric square which measured about 8 1/2 by 8 1/2 and used fabric paint to paint in the checker board. Once the paint was dry, I peeled off the freezer paper and where the freezer paper was the red fabric showed through leaving a perfect checker board. I then cut another piece of fabric the same size as the checker board and sewed them together and finished it off with a cute little fabric border.

For the game pieces I bought unfinished wood stars at Jo-ann's and painted them with acrylic paint. When they were dry, I added little Mickey and Friends stickers to one side of the stars and painted over the whole star with Modge Podge to seal.

The pouch or envelope to hold the whole thing was made by following this tutorial with one change, I didn't use the plastic on the front and back like in the tutorial, instead I used the plastic only on the front and used fabric on the back. The checker board is then folded and put inside the pouch along with the game pieces just waiting to be played with.

Mickey and Friends Autograph T-shirt

We are in Florida right now visiting Mickey and his friends. We surprised our kids with the trip, not telling them about it until the day we left, such a great surprise. At Disney World, collecting all the character's autographs is a big part of the experience but I didn't want to be bogged down with carrying around autograph books for each of my kids so I thought, why not make an autograph t-shirt that way they could wear their shirt while at Disney World and also afterwards as a reminder of what a fun time they had and as an added bonus, we don't have to worry about setting down the autograph books and loosing them, kind of hard to lose the shirt off your back though it can be done, just ask my hubby about that (thank you by the way.)

Here is a quick how to on how I made them. I started out with a blank t-shirt I found on sale at Jo-ann's, they were on sale 5 for $10.00 so I picked up a few.

I then used my favorite tool, the Silhouette Craft Cutter to cut out the graphics. What I love about the Silhouette is that it will cut out any true type font and I can download a ton of them for free which is how I got the Disney font on mine. I just googled Disney font, saved it to my fonts file and then opened up my Silhouette program and like magic, there is was. For the Micky silhouette, I found a picture of Mickey's head, saved it to my computer and then opened it up in my Silhouette program. Once here, I selected the trace image tool, highlighted the image and again like magic, Mickey's head was traced and ready to cut.

After I had designed my t-shirt just the way I wanted I sent it to be cut. You could either cut it out of iron on vinyl or use freezer paper and fabric paint to make these. I was out of vinyl so freezer paper it was. A little tip because it took me forever to find the freezer paper at the grocery store, mine carries it in with the canning supplies, I know some have it with the wax paper and aluminum foil but mine does not.

Once it was cut and  my freezer paper stencil was ironed on, I used a sponge and painted over my stencil. Make sure that you put something on the inside of your shirt so the paint doesn't bleed through, I used cardboard from and empty cereal box. Let this dry for 24 hours and then heat set it with an iron. I then let my "em-agination" run wild with my daughter's t-shirt and "Minnie-fied" it, (I know this isn't a real word but who cares) adding some felt flowers and rhinestones over one of the ears. So cute! My son's is pretty cute also but a little boring if you ask me.

I'll post pictures of the autograph tee's when we get back and hopefully they are all filled up with lots of autographs!

Mickey Bows

We are hanging out with the mouse this week, "Mickey Mouse" that is. We totally surprised our kids with the trip, they had no idea we were going until we picked them up from school yesterday to go to the airport, so much fun. I however had so much to do to get ready which included making a few Mickey Mouse themed items which I will feature over the next week. First up "Mickey Bows" to find out the general directions visit this post from last week. The only thing I did different was to use a red button in the center which makes the corkscrew ribbon fan out a little more. I attached them to the barrette form the exact same way as in the directions. One great tip to get your "em-agination" flowing is to use a sticker inside of the button to achieve a specific theme. The button I used was a plain old cheap button but to give it a little more flair and a true "Mickey" theme, I put a Mickey sticker right in the center of the button and used a little modge podge to hold it in place. "Em-agine" the possibilities you could come up with, flowers, animals, cartoon characters, if you can find a sticker, you can make a what-ever themed bow.