Disney Pixar Blog Hop- June 2016

Welcome to the Disney Pixar Blog Hop!

Disney and crafting are a magical combination, and we are so happy you joined us to day for this blog hop.  Some of the crafters participating in this event have been doing this together since 2011!  Over the years the hop has grown but one thing has always stayed the same . . . amazing crafting projects that feature your favorite characters from Disney and Pixar movies.

For 2016 we are going to have a hop every other month for the entire year!  If you missed the one of the hops we already had this year, you can still go back and see the projects.  For February click HERE and for April click HERE.  If you are on Facebook you can like the group page so that you can be the first to learn about each upcoming event.  Just click HERE to go the the Facebook page.

To make sure you don't miss any of the fun, be sure to start at Shawn's blog to see all of the projects.  Just click HERE to head over to her blog and then follow the hop line up at the bottom of the post to see everyone's projects.

For my project, I wanted to make something bright, colorful and fun for spring.  I've had the idea to make a little Tinker Bell fairy garden bouncing around in my head for a while now.  I'm so excited to finally bring it to fruition!  It was easy to make and it took less than an hour to complete.  Here's how I made it!

Materials:

Lantern
Bright Silk Flowers
Tinker Bell Figurine
Glitter
Paint Brush
Green Felt (not pictured)
Elmer's Glue
Hot Glue Gun

Scissors
Bottle Cap (if necessary- not pictured)

Steps to Make Tinker Bell's Fairy Garden Lantern:

1.) Cut Silk Flowers and Leaves Off the Bunch

First, cut a few flowers and leaves off of your silk flower bunch.  I cut off about 7-8 flowers, and 5-6 sets of leaves.  (Make sure you're cutting the plastic part of the stems, otherwise, you'll need wire cutters!)  Set the leaves and flowers aside.

2.) Glue Glitter to Tinker Bell and Fairy Wings

Next, put some glue on Tinker Bell's wings.  Spread the glue evenly using a paint brush.  Sprinkle some glitter over them to make them shine.  I used diamond dust glitter.  Optional: you can also add glitter to Tinker Bell's shoes and dress.  I found lime glitter so I made her dress sparkly.  I also added glitter to her shoe pom poms!

3.) Prepare Lantern

Please be very careful when preparing your lantern.  (Mine had small shards of glass on the inside when I opened it.)  Clean your lantern and the glass if necessary.  Then, cut a piece of green felt large enough to cover the bottom of the lantern.  Glue it into place using the hot glue gun.

4.) Glue Leaves and Flowers

Glue the leaves and flowers to your felt base.  I started by putting 4-5 leaves around the outer edge.  Then, I started adding a few flowers on top of them.

5.) Prepare Tinker Bell Figurine (if necessary)

My Tinker Bell figure came in three pieces.  I found her on eBay by searching under figurine.  (I think she's technically a cake decoration.  She came in a package of six fairies for about $10.)  Glue Tinker Bell's wings to her back and her feet to her base.

6.) Attach Tinker Bell Figurine

Glue Tinker Bell's base to your garden.  I glued her to one of the flower petals.

7.) Secure Tinker Bell Figurine (if necessary)

Unfortunately, the petal I glued Tink to wasn't very sturdy.  She kept flipping back and forth.  I found a bottle cap that was the right size to keep her still.  I glued it behind the leaves and petals.  After it was tucked in, you'd never even know it was there!

7.) Finish Flower Garden

Finally, finish gluing flowers into your garden.  You can put as many or as few as you want.  I put enough flowers in there so you can't see Tinker Bell's base, the bottle cap or where I glued the leaf stems to the felt base.  Close the door and you're done!

Isn't this cute?!?!  I absolutely love my Tinker Bell Fairy Garden Lantern!  It actually turned out better than I imagined it would.  The best part of this DIY project is that it's so easy to customize.  You can spray paint the lantern, decorate the lantern with glitter or vinyl, add a battery pack of fairy lights, and more!  And I still have five more fairies... I don't think this is my last lantern fairy garden.

I think I'm going to put Tinker Bell in my office so I can enjoy the bright colors year round.  It reminds me of our Disney Wedding.  (Our colors were lime and hot pink!)  If you make a fairy garden lantern for yourself, I'd love to see pictures!  °o°

Before you go, make sure to enter to win our prize for this hop . . .

We have a paper and sticker variety pack from Reminisce!  There was so much I could not get it all into the photo.  These papers will be perfect for your Disney crafting.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Good luck, and enjoy the rest of the hop!

The full blog hop line up is below.  

Shawn

Ellen

Tammy

Melissa

Miranda

Jenny

Spring Has Sprung!!!

Ah... spring is finally here.  The temperature midday has been in the 70's and 80's here in Southern Maine.  It's the perfect way to kick off the unofficial start of summer!  Eliot and I have been doing a lot of spring cleaning and organizing lately.  He brought my Disney flower pots out to the front porch a few weekends ago.  Now that the weather is finally starting to feel like spring, I'm thinking it's time to get some flowers for the pots!

Two years later, they're still in great shape.  I'll give them a good cleaning before adding flowers.  Otherwise, they're pretty much the same.  If you're new here, I did a tutorial on how I made my Disney flower pots.  It was my first blog tutorial and it's been a huge hit.  Little did I know... this was before I realized how big my "tiny" blog would grow.  (Back when it was "just a hobby.")  I'm incredibly proud to say my flower pot tutorial blog post has had almost 7,000 views to date.  It's also been pinned countless times over on Pinterest.  This one pin has had over 5,000 re-pins!!!  Wow!!!

Sadly, I haven't seen photos of flower pots readers have made using my tutorial- until now!!!  A nice lady named Linda emailed me a few weeks ago with photos.  Linda came across my blog recently.  She saw my post and had to make some flower pots for herself.  I love what she did!  Linda's got cute little Dwarfs to go with her Snow White flower pot.  She made Mickey and Minnie.  She also created Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter flower pots!  Thank you for sending me photos Linda!  They look awesome!

If you'd like to make your own, check out my Painted Flower Pot Tutorial!!!  °o°

DIY Project: Painted Flowerpots

Materials:

Terra Cotta Flowerpots (any size you’d like, I used 6" diameter pots)

Terra Cotta Saucers for Pots (optional)

Acrylic Paints

Paint Brushes

Pencil

Wax Paper or Newspaper (to cover your work area)

Clear Sealant Spray (I used Matte, but Glossy works too!)

Stencils (optional)

Scotch Tape (optional)

Sketch Your Ideas

First, I sketched out a loose idea of what I wanted my flowerpots to look like. When I made the sketches, I was quickly jotting down ideas and I forgot that you could also get the little saucer for underneath!  When I bought my flowerpots I decided to get those as well, so I had I adjust my designs slightly.  But I liked them better in the end!

My quick flowerpot sketches.

Base Coats

Paint your flowerpots in the base color.  The base color will be whatever color is most prominent on your flowerpot.  For example, Mickey and Minnie are red, Pluto is yellow and Donald is blue.  I decided to try to include more colors of each character by painting the lip of the flowerpot a different color than the bottom part of it.  I also used the saucer to incorporate the colors of some of the characters feet!  The sky is the limit!

Working on the base coats.

Touch Ups

After you’ve applied a few base coats and you are satisfied with the paint coverage, you can go back and touch up anywhere that you accidentally overlapped colors, had paint splatters or had any other mistakes.

My work area before starting on the details.

Design the Details

Now you can draw the details in pencil over your base coat.  I hand drew the lines for Pluto’s green color.  I also hand drew the ovals for Mickey’s buttons.  I used my circle stencils to draw Minnie’s polka dots since I wanted to make sure that they were more uniform throughout the whole flowerpot. 

For Donald’s collar details, I used Scotch tape to tape off the area that I wanted to paint yellow.  I knew that I’d need quite a few coats to make it show up over the blue so I decided that would be the best way to keep the paint consistent.  I also used this method for the line between Goofy’s orange “shirt” and his blue “pants.”  Make sure that you put the tape everywhere that you need to cover and press down hard on it to make sure that it’s adhered to the pot.  Otherwise, paint will creep into the crevices and you’ll have to do lots of touch ups.

Note: If you’re using the tape to separate two areas that are horizontal like Goofy’s shirt and pants, you will need to use small sections of tape to ensure that the line you’re creating will be as straight as possible.  The outside of the flowerpot is tapered so using one long piece of tape will not line up correctly.  I had a hard time doing this for Pluto’s collar so I decided I’d put my interior design drawing skills to use and I freehand drew the collar lines.

Drawing and taping out the design of the details.

Paint the Details

If you’re painting freehand, slowly paint along the lines that you’ve drawn.  I found that it’s easiest to paint along the outside lines and then fill in the outline with color.  If you’re freehand painting a line, slowly rotate the flowerpot keeping your brush level.  (I freehand painted the black line of Goofy’s hat since it was an afterthought.)

If you’re using the tape method, paint within your taped area or along the line of tape.  Once the paint is thoroughly dry, take the tape off and you should have a straight line.  Make sure that the paint is fully dry.  I’d recommend letting it dry overnight.  If you take it off too soon, some wet paint might sneak through the crevices in the paint and mess your lines up.

Painting the details using both methods.

Touch Ups

After you’ve painted all of your details, you can go back and fix any mistakes.  I had to fix a few places where my hand went a little crazy on freehand painting Goofy’s hat.  I also found out that part of my Donald base coat of blue paint peeled off when I pulled the Scotch tape off of it.  I had to go back and carefully re-paint around Donald’s collar details.  Luckily, his bow hid a lot of the peeled part.

Peeled paint on Donald and paint that snuck through the tape on Goofy.

Spray with Sealant

Once you are absolutely sure that you’re satisfied with your paint job, it’s time to go outside and seal the paint!  Acrylic paint is water based so you’re going to need to seal it to make sure that the elements and watering your plants won’t mess up your hard work!

Make sure that you are outside or in a well-ventilated area since sealant is toxic and pretty smelly.  I sprayed my pots out in our driveway.  Follow the directions on your sealant.  Most sealants will have you spray 2-3 thin coats.  Make sure that you cover the inside and outside of the pot, as well as your saucers if you painted those.

Sealing the acrylic paint in with sealant spray.

Admire All of Your Hard Work

Once your sealant is dry, you’re all done with your flowerpots!  Now go get some flowers for your new flowerpots!  J

I hope that you enjoyed my tutorial!  If you decide to make some flowerpots of your own, please feel free to share pictures!  mydisneylifeblog@gmail.com  J

Painted Flowerpots

I’ve been dying to show you my latest crafty project!  I wanted something that was Disney inspired for our front porch steps.  I thought making Fab Five painted flowerpots would be fun!  However, I’m a little OCD and I had to make sure the steps were even so I added Daisy.  Poor Daisy always gets left behind!  I had to include her.

I’ve been slowly working on these the past few weeks.  (Since we’ve been so busy the past month, they’ve been mostly abandoned on our dining room table.) 

I finally picked up where I left off this week!  After a few touch ups, and adding the details, they’re finally done!   J

So… what do you think?

Check back tomorrow for a tutorial on how I made them!