Aug
2013

Mickey Mouse Pocket Size Flashcards for Toddlers

categories: Disney-Inspired Crafts

pocket sized flash cardsMy Toddler Never Sits Still

The grocery store, a restaurant, the craft store, the pool where my son, Gavin has swim lessons, what do these all have in common?  They are places where my daughter becomes a hand full of energy as she dramatically tries to escape her seat.  Unless I have an entire bag of Goldfish crackers, it’s a battle.  At one of Gavin’s recent swim lessons, I pulled out a stack of memory game cards that I keep in my purse for Gavin, and gave them my two-year-old daughter, Victoria.  She loved them and it had her entertained, until I had to put them away.    The paper weight was too thin, so she was bending them and the cards were too big for her to handle, so she was dropping them all over the wet floor.

This past weekend I was at Lowe’s with my family.  Victoria and I explored the paint chip section.  She thought that section was the best part of the store!  So, I let her take some home and I decided to make her a set of five mini flash cards out of the paint chips.  They are  a perfect size for her little hands and for keeping in my purse. Of course I had to sprinkle a bit of Disney on them!

Here’s how I made them.

  1. Flash card suppliesGather supplies: white heavy weight card stock; 10 paint chips (2 of each color), glue stick, scissors or a paper-cutter, Mickey Mouse craft punch, hole puncher, and a piece of ribbon.
  2. DSC_2195Trim one of each different color paint chips down to 3″ x 2.5″.  This will take off the descriptive words on the paint chips.  Also cut down the white card stock to 3″ x 2.5″.  Use the remaining duplicate colored paint chips to make your Mickey Mouse craft punches for each flash card.
  3. DSC_2198Glue the heavy weight white card stock to the back of the paint chip.  This side will be your “counting” side of each card.  Glue the Mickey craft punches to each card.
  4. DSC_2201I used the rainbow to decide the order, one Mickey for red, two Mickeys for orange, three Mickeys for yellow, four Mickeys for green and five Mickeys for blue.
  5. DSC_2212On the color side of the card use a Sharpie to write the corresponding number.
  6. DSC_2216Last, hole punch the corner of each card and string ribbon to connect them all.  Now they’re ready for your toddlers next adventure in the store!

Easy as 1,2,3…4 and 5!

 


Aug
2013

Teacher’s Simple Gift Idea {Free Printable}

categories: Disney-Inspired Crafts, Free Printables

teachers desk

Walt Disney has said so many outstanding inspirational statements during his amazing life journey.   As a gift for my son’s new teacher I thought I’d share one of those statements of inspiration.  It’s a simple gift and idea, but I believe it speaks volumes about the important role she plays in her students’ lives.

To make this gift, I purchased a 5″ x 7″ treasure box frame.  Cut a piece of red scrapbook paper down to 5″ x 7″ and printed out the quote on a standard size piece of white card stock.  I formatted the quote to be 4″ x 6″.  I finished the piece by using my Mickey Mouse craft punch for the two Mickey icons.  With the use of a simple glue stick, I was done!

If you’d like to give your child’s teacher a bit of Walt’s Wisdom, click on the link below to print out his quote.  The page size is standard 8.5″ x 11″.  The quote is outlined to fit a 5″ x 7″ frame or by cutting the inside line it will fit in a 4″ x 6″ frame.  Enjoy!

Walt Disney Quote

Do you have a favorite Walt Disney Quote that you think would be perfect for a teacher?  Please share!


Aug
2013

Back to School- Five Fun Disney Book Finds at Walt Disney World

categories: Reviews

Small World Book

This week is all about Back to School!

If your family is like our family, summer’s busy schedule of events and its beautiful sunshine calling us to do something outside, causes book reading to sometimes fall at the bottom of our list to do.   So to begin our week, let’s get back to reading!  I’m going to share with you the most engaging “Disney” books that my family has found while on vacation at Walt Disney World. Some of these books are exclusive to Walt Disney World, while others you could purchase on-line today!

Baby and Toddler

Poohs HoneypotPooh’s Honey Trouble is an adorable “Touch and Feel” book that we found in the shop at the end of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction.  Each page features a different surface to touch, such as soft, smooth, rough and the last page, my daughter’s favorite, is sticky.

Toddler and Preschool

Small World BookThis Play-a-Sound book, recommended for children 18 months and up, plays the “It’s a Small World” attraction song.  What a wonderful way to remember with your child, their first time they voyaged on the boat in It’s a Small World.  Each two-page spread shows your little reader stylized illustrations that showcase a part of our world that was featured in the attraction and the text on that page teaches them something about a specific city in this part of the world.  The book is simply adorable and kids love to push the buttons.

Early Elementary

Random House offers so many fantastic Step into Reading books featuring an extensive list of Disney branded characters that I would recommend, especially the new “Scaring Lessons” book that’s about our favorite Monster University students. We love to read these before bed time.  In addition to their books, I’d like to tell you about this activity book found exclusive to Disney Parks.

photo (35)

What’s super cool about this activity book, is that the characters from Disney Pixar’s “Cars” are wearing fun Disney Parks hats.  For example, there are two different stencils for Mater in the book.  One of Mater with Goofy ears and the other stencil is of Mater with a Pirates hat.  Not only will you child enjoy creating with this book, but parents could use it to spruce up a scrapbook page.

Ages 10 and above

Fairest of All

Fairest of All tells the untold story of The Evil Queen, before we met her in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.  Not only would a tween enjoy this book, but I know a few moms that really enjoyed reading it too!

I’d also like to recommend the Kingdom Keepers books.

kingdom keepers
Image taken from the Kingdom Keepers website.

Kingdom Keepers, also recommended for ages 10 and up, is a thrill series were five young teens protect the Disney theme parks again the Disney villains who try to take over the parks. This series has a HUGE following. I’ve only read the first book, but really enjoyed it.   If you’re not in the loop on this yet, check out the series website to learn more.   http://www.thekingdomkeepers.com/

We purchased both Fairest of All and books from the Kingdom Keepers series at Walt Disney World.  However, they are not exclusive to the parks and can be purchased in book stores or on-line.

Are there any books that you purchased for your children at Walt Disney World that you’d recommend for our kids? I’d love to hear your suggestions.

 

 


Aug
2013

“PLANES” movie review

categories: Reviews

planeslogoThere are two different ways that I can review this film, as a mom or as a Disney File, so I’ll do both.

I’ll start this review in my most important role, a mom of a Plane Enthusiast six-year-old boy.  Gavin LOVED this movie.  I can’t express in my writing how much he enjoyed the film.  In his mind, it’s better than Monsters University, better than “other” studios’ summer movie releases, and even better than Pixar’s “Cars”!    From the second the film started, he was smiling, laughing and occasionally whispering something IMPORTANT to me about the film.  The DVD is already on his Christmas List!  I don’t believe he was alone in his thoughts. The theatre was full and this was the 3 pm showing during Friday afternoon.   After the film’s ending, we went to Target to purchase a new plane.  Every single Disney Plane was sold out.  Then we went to Wal-Mart.  They also, were sold out.

Seeing the joy that he received from the film, made me love it too.  The film is overall lighthearted and adorable.  The storyline is really simple for young children to follow.  It does mention planes dying throughout the movie, which was really the only darkness related to the film. Most of the death references were in a joking context and the villain in the film is tame when it comes to Disney villains. The film moves very fast, which keeps the kids attention and the movie length is about an hour and a half.  If you have a young child, three years or older, they’ll love this film.

As a Disney Fanatic, I was disappointed, but not entirely surprised.  I knew that this film was slotted as a direct to DVD release, then after the company saw interest in the film arise, it went into the theatre.  Here’s my overall issue with the movie:  The Disney PIXAR brand has earned the top spot in animation excellence.  Again I want to emphasis, EARNED this spot.  Does Disney truly believe that showing the word DISNEY( without the word PIXAR) in front of the title “PLANES” would lead people to think, “Oh, this isn’t a Disney/Pixar film so I shouldn’t expect it to be that good?  The general public is going to believe it is a Pixar film because of how it’s been marketed so closely with “CARS”. Therefore, viewers may be highly disappointed and in turn it will put a blemish on the Disney/Pixar name.  That bothers me.  The movie wasn’t up to their standards.  The storyline was cute, but not heart capturing.  The character development wasn’t deep enough.  They didn’t spend enough time getting the audience to fall in love with the dozen characters in the film.  It felt like a cheapened version of “CARS”.  Disney animation is always fantastic.  However, after seeing Monsters University just over a month ago, it made this film’s animation appear mediocre.  In my opinion the animation came across as inconsistent.  There were a couple of moments in the film where I said, “OK, now here is the breathtaking animation that I was looking forward to seeing.”  Then they’d show a crowd shot and it was horrible to watch as the planes made the strangest “fan cheering” movements.  I believe that this film could have been spectacular, if it was only given enough time in development.  Bottom line, Disney Toon Studios will most likely be releasing many spin offs in the near future and the animation quality will be sub par to the studios traditional releases.  Hopefully the audience will realize this before Pixar is blemished.

Planes Fire and RescueThe sequel to PLANES, “Planes: Fire & Rescue”, is already in development, with a theatre premiere date of July18, 2014.  My hope is that when they start the “TRAINS” films that they take a little more time and release them under Disney Pixar, instead of Disney Toon Studios.

Regardless of my disappointment, my purse will still be opening to purchased licensed products with Dusty stickers all over it.  He is adorable…

 


Aug
2013

How to make PLANES cupcakes

categories: Disney-Inspired Party Planning, Disney-Inspired Treats

Planes cupcakesZero Turbulence Decorating Tutorial Courtesy of Sweet Diehl’s

What an exciting day it is for the Mouse Ears Mom Blog!  Today is not only the official theatre premiere of Disney’s “PLANES”, but I also get to welcome Mouse Ears Mom’s first guest contributor, Steph Diehl of Sweet Diehl’s !

I’ve worked with Steph on several occasions where she was able to custom design cupcakes for my children’s themed parties.  She’s surpassed my expectations every time!  The “PLANES” Inspired cupcakes that we are sharing with you today were co-created by Steph and myself.  She made the amazing cupcakes and icing.  I made the plane chocolate pieces that were placed on top.

Below is Steph’s wonderful tutorial for you to make your own “PLANES” cupcakes, including photos that she took while making them.

start1. Here’s what you’ll need: cupcakes, of your choice, a large pastry bag (a zip lock bag will work), blue food dye, butter cream icing and scissors.

 

 

mixcolour2. Step two, place a comfortable amount of butter cream into the large bag and squeeze some blue food dye into the bag as well. The more food dye you put into the butter cream the darker the icing color will be. Use your hand to mix the icing and the dye together inside the bag to achieve your desired color.

 

largetip3.Step three. Cut a slightly large hole into the tip of the bag. If you have icing tips, you may use a large round tip for this.

 

 

sky4. Step four. Position the now open tip over one of the cupcakes, start at the top an apply even pressure with your hand and make a basic upper case G motion to cover the top of the cupcake with the icing.

 

5. Step five. Next place more butter cream into a small bag, you do not have to colour this one at all, since this will be for the clouds.

smalltip6. Step six. Cut a small hole into the tip of this smaller bag. If you have an icing tip I would use a small round tip for this.

 

 

clouds7. Step seven. Last step, very lightly squeeze the bag and make little dots onto the blue ‘sky’ of the cupcakes, to look like clouds. Then ta da! Your sky is complete.

Isn’t the finished sky with clouds simply adorable?finished

Once your sky with clouds is complete it’s time to make the airplanes.

To make the airplanes, I used a candy mold.  Each airplane is 1-3/4 inches by 1-3/4 inches and I purchased the airplane candy mold on-line.  Just Google airplane mold and you’ll find it.  I wanted to make a few Dusty inspired planes, so I used orange and white chocolate melts.  Melt both of your chocolate colors in separate containers.  I find it easier to work with squeeze bottles, but you could also scoop the melted chocolate into plastic bags and then cut the tips cut off.

DSC_2172Pipe a strip of orange melted chocolate in the body and tail of the candy mold.  Very shortly after, add the white chocolate to the remaining part of each mold.  If the orange chocolate has hardened, it’s possible that you won’t have a seamless piece, so try to work fast.

 

After filling the rest of the candy mold with white chocolate, let them sit to harden for about ten minutes.  Once they are solid, the airplanes will very easily pop out of the mold.  If they’re not popping with a slight twist of the candy mold, then they’re not ready to come out yet.

Airplane chocolateThis is my miniature version of Cropduster Dusty.

 For the final step, place the chocolate piece on top of the decorated cupcake sky.  Here is our final piece.

DSC_2215Thank you again to Steph Diehl for providing us with a simple tutorial on how to make her adorable sky with clouds cupcakes!  To see more of Steph’s creations you can find her on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Diehls/138845126143748

 If you’d like to see more Planes party ideas, here is the link to the post about my son’s birthday party.  It includes everything from our themed food menu, to the themed treats, to the fun activities and thank you gifts.

Airplanes Birthday Party