Fun Find: Disney Side Week

It's time for another fun find Friday!  This week, we're focusing on a way to show your Disney Side!!!  The 24-hour celebrations at Walt Disney World and Disneyland might be over, but you can still show your Disney Side whether you're at the parks or not!  

First, let me start by saying that the Walt Disney World Facebook Page is a wealth of fun finds.  They post fun photos, graphics, holiday greetings and so much more.

If you like to change your personal cover photo on Facebook, they have a ton of designs you can choose from in their Cover Photos Album.  While they do use their cover photo for promotions or events like March Magic, they usually have a few awesome photos or graphics you can use or share!

My personal favorites are the Disney Side Week cover photos.  You can actually save six different designs- one for each week day and the weekend!  (To save on a PC: right-click photo and save.  To save on a Mac: drag photo and drop.)

They've combined our favorites characters, rides, snacks and accessories to create fun Disney graphics for each day of the week!  These are perfect if you're getting ready for a Disney trip countdown.  What better way to get excited for your upcoming trip?

Or, if you're back from a Disney trip, you could print them to use in your scrapbook!  All you have to do is print them out and use each photo for the corresponding day.

Aren't these awesome?  I love them.  In fact, I'm tempted to use some of these designs to create my own diecut alphabet letters for my Disney scrapbooks!

And, as if Disney couldn't get any more awesome, I just discovered that Disneyland's Facebook Page also has Disney Side designs tailored to Disneyland!  These designs are a little bit different than Walt Disney World's version.  You can check those designs out here.  Have fun expressing your Disney Side!!!  °o°

I've Got Mail

It's Mail Time!  (Great, now I'll be singing that Blue's Clues mail song all afternoon...)

Nowadays, everything is so easily accessible with the internet.  Emails are delivered instantly after sending them.  In the age of electronics, it's nice to get some "snail mail" every once in a while.  For me, opening an actual letter, or package, is like Christmas.

At the end of May, we had our first layout swap for the Disney Scrapbookers group I'm in on Facebook.  (You might recall my Princess Tiana themed pages that I shared a few days ago.)  I got my layout from my swap partner while Elissa and I were in Bar Harbor last week, so I finally got a chance to open my package yesterday!

When we first messaged each other, I told my partner about our Disney Wedding:  "I'd absolutely love something that I could use for my wedding album. My husband and I were married at Walt Disney World and we had a Cinderella themed wedding at the Wedding Pavilion. Then we had our reception at the Living Seas so it was kind of "Little Mermaid/Under the Sea" themed. We also had a photo shoot in the Magic Kingdom at Cinderella Castle and the Haunted Mansion."

I didn't pick a specific Disney theme because I wanted it to be a surprise.  It makes it much more like opening a Christmas present!  I opened my package and found an Ariel themed layout!  I love it!  The hearts are definitely wedding themed!  And I really like the glitter paper frames.  I tried to take a close up so you can see how shimmery it is!

My partner also included some extra Disney Princess stickers!  Yay!  I can always use extra stickers!  They're my favorite scrapbooking embellishment!

If that wasn't enough, I also got my Disney Side decal in the mail!  Woo-hoo!

It came out really cute.  I'm not sure where I'm going to put it.  I'll probably end up pinning it to the cork board in our office so both Eliot and I can enjoy it!  °o°

Disney Side BBQ Party

As you all know, this past Saturday was our "Show Your Disney Side" BBQ Party!!!

Saturday morning we were busy making final preparations: buying the food, decorating, setting up and preparing the food!  Thankfully, my parents came down for the weekend to help us out!  Eliot, Elissa, Mom, Dad and I divided and conquered.  

Eliot and Dad ran errands while Mom, Elissa and I bought the food.  Mom and I started the cooking and food prep.  Meanwhile, Elissa decorated the house with streamers and made the cupcakes.  Before we knew it, we were ready for the party to begin!

I was so excited to finally have the party with all of our friends!  The food was delicious. We had hamburgers and hot dogs from the grill.  (Thank you to BJ for manning the grill!) We also had my pasta salad, Mom's potato salad and a delicious summer salad that Katie made.  We had plenty of snacks, crackers, veggies and fruits set out in my Mickey Mouse bowls.  (That's the best way to serve food to Disney fans, right?)

For dessert, we had the Mickey and Minnie Mouse cupcakes that Elissa made.  (The frosting and food coloring didn't play nice with us.  The frosting was as red as we could get it.)  We found the white pearls in the baking section of Wal-Mart and they were delicious.  We had planned to make chocolate covered Mickey oreos, but we ran out of time.  But we're going to try to make them sometime over the next few weeks instead!

We went to the dollar store for all of the serving supplies.  The only thing we didn't get there were the yellow plastic cups.  We found those at Wal-Mart.  The dollar store only had black and red serving items and we wanted to have some yellow!  We used Mickey Mouse glasses from the Disney Store to hold the silverware and napkins.  (Ha, I just noticed that the plates and bowls form a hidden Mickey.  That was not intentional.)

We all enjoyed the food on our deck while talking about our favorite Disney rides and memories.  We were having such a good time laughing and having fun that I completely forgot to take photos.  (It's probably just as well; it was nice to be in the moment and not feel like I was missing out being too busy taking photos!)

After talking and relaxing for a bit, we decided to play with some of our games.  We had set up our volleyball net and some toss games to play.  We took turns playing badminton since we only have two racquets.  Eliot and I played with the bean bag toss for a bit.  Eliot and Elissa made the Mickey bean bag toss for our party.  We ran out of time to paint it, but we're planning to do it once they finish the second one!

After badminton, we decided to play a game of volleyball.  I was on a team with Elissa and Dani.  Eliot and BJ were playing against us while Katie and Jenn were the line judges.  Kathleen and my Dad kept score and cheered us on.  (Daddy also took some photos for us.) It was pretty lopsided since all three of us girls played, or are currently playing, volleyball in high school.  We played two sets to 25 and Team Girls won both of them.  But the guys put in a great effort considering they never played volleyball.  And we all got a few good laughs in at some of our not-so-smooth moves.

The party started to wind down after that since it was getting later in the evening and the (party crasher) mosquitoes started to come out.  Plus, we were all going to the Color Run early the next morning and we needed some sleep!  But before everyone left, we took a group photo of all of us Showing Our Disney Side!

We also made sure that our guests all took some party favors home with them!  I made extra Mickey parts soap when I was working on that order for Eliot while he was away.

After our guests headed home, Eliot, Elissa and I took everything down pretty quickly. We knew we had another busy day ahead of us with the Color Run on Sunday! Although we were exhausted, it was definitely a great day with our friends and my parents! 

In fact, it was so much fun that we're already planning on having another "Show Your Disney Side" BBQ Party next year!  Maybe we'll make it an annual event!!!  °o°

The (Not So) Top Secret Party

Well, I think it's time for the big reveal.  Remember the "top secret" party I've referred to a few times during my blog and Disney goal updates?

Now, I can make it official!  We're hosting our own at Home Disney Side Party!

No, we didn't receive an "official" kit like a lot of other bloggers.  (I was a bit late to that party.)  But I absolutely love Disney's newest slogan to "show your Disney Side."  As you guys know, my "Disney Side" is pretty much my only side.  There's Disney all over our house, in every direction you look.  I'm always planning my "next" vacation there. And we love it so much we got married in Walt Disney World.  So, of course we wanted to be in on this whole party concept!

The reason I'm finally spilling the beans, is that we had a special guest who we wanted to surprise.  We'd been doing pretty good planning the party through a private Facebook message.  However, we realized there was no way we'd be able to hide it from her once she got here.  Instead, we had Eliot's sister Elissa open her party invitation via Skype- so we could see her reaction.  Now that she knows about the party, everyone can know!

Elissa finally got her invitation Monday night of last week- just in time before she left to visit us here in Maine!  Here's her reaction upon opening the envelope.  (Eliot's screen shots didn't work so we had to take a picture instead.)

We are having a barbecue at our house this Saturday for some of our closest friends. Eliot and I have been dying to have a barbecue since we moved in over a year ago; we just never got around to having everyone over.  Now- we set a date, invited everyone, and decided to decorate and give it a Mickey and Minnie Mouse theme!

I'll be sure to post updates from our party planning.  Hopefully we'll have a few tutorial worthy projects completed by the time the party rolls around!

This is going to be way too much fun!!!  I can't wait!!!  °o°

Memorial Day Weekend

As most of you know, Memorial Day weekend kicked off with the 24-Hour "Rock Your Disney Side" Party on Friday at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland.  While I wasn't able to attend the actual event in person, I was certainly there in spirit!  Instead, I rocked my Disney Side proudly at home by wearing my 2013 WDW logo shirt, my Disney Bride earrings and my Mickey Mouse necklace.

Photo Source Magic Kingdom & Disney Side logo: Disney Parks Blog

Eliot and I went up to Bar Harbor to visit my parents and brother for the weekend.  We drove up Friday night.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch any of the Electrical Parade or Wishes fireworks on the live video feed from the Magic Kingdom.  However, we did stop at a PetSmart on the way home to stretch our legs.  The store had a ton of Disney pet items.  We've been discussing getting some fish, so these tank decorations were tempting.  And we both really want to get a puppy eventually.  Of course any puppy of ours will have plenty of it's own Disney toys and accessories!

Shortly after arriving at my parents' house, I was accosted by a tiny Olaf.  He wanted some warm hugs and seemed pretty frantic to get them.  Eeyore, Duffy and Olaf became fast friends and spent the whole weekend together.  (More on that later...)

On Saturday, we relaxed at home for most of the day.  I worked on a few Happily Ever Hatter things online, then painted parts for one of our new welcome signs.  Mom also had me paint some butterflies for her.

Later in the day, we decided to go mini golfing.  Pirates Cove is one of my favorite things to do while visiting home.  Eliot and I absolutely love mini golf.  Plus, I love pirates, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the movies.  (Seriously, what's not to love?)  Jeremy, Eliot and I all got a hole-in-one.  Poor Daddy wasn't so lucky.  And we didn't win any free game tokens, but we had a great time!  I even took a photo with (kind of) Captain Hook! (He's definitely not Hook from OUAT anyways...)

Eliot and I then headed into Bar Harbor to meet up with Katie for dinner.  After that, we walked around town for a while and checked out some of the stores.  Bar Harbor was definitely busy for Memorial Day weekend!

Upon our return home, we were greeted by three munchkins "camping out" in the living room.  Mom had found an old play tent that I'd had when I was little.  Jeremy proceeded to put Eeyore, Duffy and Olaf in it.  Apparently, Jeremy went to great lengths to try to get Eeyore in the hammock, but he was just too big for it and kept falling off.  (There's hilarious photos as proof of this.  But Eeyore just looks like he's drunk in them.)

Sunday morning Eliot got up early to do a training run in Acadia National Park on the carriage paths.  He had a 13.1 mile half marathon route mapped out.  I had him text me every few miles so we'd know where he was. When he was at 8 miles, Dad, Jeremy and I headed over to do a 3 mile walk around Witch Hole.  The weather was sunny but the air was still pretty cool. Eliot ended up meeting us on the back half of our loop.  It's certainly good to be back outside training again!

While home, I also worked on my Mickey and Minnie bathroom curtain designs and measurements for Nana.  I had to double check a few of the measurements for our bathroom.  I also wanted to make the diagrams easier to read because the first ones were rushed and pretty confusing.  I'm so excited to see them when they're done!

While going through a few of our 4th of July decorations, Dad found a small American flag.  Dad "gave" it to Eeyore and we decided to take a picture of him with it.  Jeremy brought a few of his plush down and we took a collective Disney friend Memorial Day picture with all of them.  (I really miss having a dog to dress up and take photos of... our poor future puppy will have no idea what to do with us.)

It was a pretty quiet Memorial Day.  We had an indoor barbecue since the weather was kind of gross, then Jeremy headed out.  Eliot and I stayed a while longer so we could visit with Nana and Papa for a little bit.  Around 6:00 we packed up the car and headed home! 

It was a great weekend!  °o°