Bugles Snacks as Traffic Cones for Playtime

Hey everyone! Here's you fun thrifty tip for today. Let's your kids play with their food!

Bugles make fun traffic cones when they play with cars with. They can be the finish line for a race or something to drive around. Whatever you do with them, they are fun to eat and play with.

#ad #Disneyside Cars Theme Party

I was chosen to host a #Disneyside party with a Cars theme. Considering I have a preschool son as one of my kids, this is a pretty exciting party. He couldn't wait to dig in the box and see what we all have. You can see the unveiling in the video below. This is a picture of everything and my excited son.

I wanted to give you a close up picture of different items in the box. This is picture of all the Cars themed items.

This is a picture of all the "other" Disney and Mickey items. I had seen an idea where a mom had laminated the chore charts. I didn't have a laminator, but thought that was a great idea,

These are all the other non-Disney items we had to try out or review or share at our party.

Since I am a crafty mom, we had some fun being crafty with our food and well, with crafts. I had a Mickey metal cookie cutter, so I was able to use black and red pony beads to make this Mickey Magnet (just glue a magnet to the back). You melt the pony beads in the oven while inside a metal cookie cutter.

We had some "Cars" snacks of apple slices and grapes. I have also see this done with Orange slices and blueberries.

We decided to make Popcorn Krispies and form them in our Mickey pan, They are basically the same thing as making Rice Krispie bars, but we used air popped popcorn. Preschoolers has a lot of fun pouring popcorn in the air popper and watching them pop. You would have thought I did something magic when you watched them over the popcorn maker.

We also did a fun Cars Paper plate craft project that they thought was a lot of fun.

Don't you just love this idea to use Nacho Cheese Bugles as traffic cones. So much fun! It's a toy and a snack!

10 Tips to a More Successful Disney Trip

1) Carry in a cooler with beverages and food, they allow carry-ins. It will save you a lot of money. 

2) Rent a stroller, even if your kids are too big to ride in it because about halfway through the day they will want to ride in it and you have some place to store your coolers. The money you pay on a stroller to cart around your cooler and tired kids will save you money from having to stop and buy food & snacks all over the place. 

 3) Discuss in advance of going what you want to use your Fast Passes on - See some of the Disney Characters and Disney Park Rides we chose to go on.

 4) Do get a treat while you are there & I suggest the Dole Whip place. It's a pretty big serving size and reasonably priced for Disney

5) Buy trinkets & souvenirs BEFORE you go there. Dollar Tree sells lots of Disney items. You will save money and hopefully your kids will already understand you already bought them souvenirs. Or Make Your Own Disney Souvenirs.

6) Decide if multiple days and Disney parks fits how your family liked to travel. We decided one day at Disney was enough for us and spent a lot of time at various Florida State Parks and the beach, which fit our interest more.

7) Get them excited about the trip and come up with a fun way. I made a Disney Mad-Lids for my daughter and Surprise Paint for my son. I think my kids liked watching their  Disney reveal videos even more than finding it out.

8) Save the shows for the later part of the day when people get tired of walking and standing, although you will have to walk/stand to get in to the shows. 

9) Check out the weather in advance look at the radar. Choose a day that looks like it is rain-free, be flexible if you can. But bring an umbrella even if their is a small chance, you can store it in the stroller.

10) Bring along sunscreen and sunglasses. You are outside in the sun all day and will fry if you don't and it can be quite expensive to buy it there.

Olaf Loom Knit Hat

If you have already learned the e-wrap stitch, that is really all you need to know how to do to make this Olaf from Frozen hat. The facial features are all felt pieces that I have cut out and hand stitched on. The twigs on the top and the bottom are all braided pieces of yarn that are tie off at the ends.

The yarn types used was:
White Bernet Baby Blanket Yarn - 2 skeins
Walnut Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky Yarn (leftover, you don't need a lot but thick,chunky yarn will make thicker twigs.)

I e-wrapped with 2 strands of white yarn until I had created a hat that was 8 1/2 inches long and cast off. I then attached the felt pieces I cut out and "twigs" I braided by hand stitching them in place. The nose is three-dimensional and stuffed with a small amount of batting.

Fitness Friday: Race Signs

These are all signs I made using my #Disneyside Posters to have fun support posters when my friend Caitlin and myself went to a local half marathon to support friends running it. We had a really good time and are already making plans to have even more fun as cheerleaders and supporters.

Thrifty Thursday: Create Your Own Mickey Mouse Hair Accessories

How about one more Disney post this week! I made my kids their own Mickey and Minnie Ears on a headband for our recent Disney World Trip. I did look at how much the ears would cost me while I was there and there was many, many varieties of ears to choose from and it was going to cost a minimum of $15 per ear set and going up in price from there. A lot of souvenirs were not in our budget at Disney since just once day there costs $400 in admission for our family. My kids were just as happy with their homemade ears as they would have been with ones we bought there and I spent $1.50 to make them each a pair and 2 pairs to giveaway at our #Disneyside party. I do want to note that I saw so many ears being worn by parents because kids didn't want to wear them anymore or riding in the bottoms of strollers.

To start off I just cute pairs of ears our of felt by making this shape. This way when you fold if over the headband it can be easily secured together and matched up.

Then I placed a piece of hot glue in the center and glue the center to the headband first, then I placed hot glue on one of the insides of the ears and pressed them in to place. Repeat this with each ear. I didn't make my ears too big, so they didn't flop over. I bought a 4-pack these headbands at the Dollar Tree and 2 pieces of felt for 50-cents for both from JoAnn Fabrics.

For my daughter Minnie ears I used some red ribbon with white polka dots. I tie a bow on the top of the headband between the ears. I did put a bit of hot glue in the center too.

This was a fun and cute little barrette I made for my daughter. I bought the barrettes at Dollar Tree, but the buttons and ribbon were from my stash. Just a bit of hot glue in the right places and I had this cute little  barrette.

One last barrette I made for my daughter was this ribbon one of Minnie Mouse. These were created using alligator clips, ribbon and hot glue from my stash, so I didn't spend any additional money to make these for her.

Try It Tuesday: Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

Making Mickey Mouse Cupcakes are simple and all you need is red frosting (you really need to buy a canister of this because if you try to make your own you will use up all your red food coloring and still just have dark pink frosting), cake mix (make your own if you choose), cupcake liners, marbles, white chocolate chips and mini Oreos.

I made a whole tray of them, actually I made more than this, but the tray didn't fit any more than this.

So, here is the trick to how you create the top of the head with the ear. Put the liners in place first, then press in a marble, then scoop in the batter. If you don't do it in that order you might put in too much batter and then it will bake over the top of your cupcake. Only fill the liners 2/3 full, if you notice the one that is filled higher there, well that one baked over the top of the marble and then I had to make the shape of the ears after the fact. So, it's important to just fill them 2/3 full.

Then frost with red frosting, put the mini Oreos on top for the ears and the white chocolate chips on the bottom to look like the buttons on Mickey's pants.

#Disneyside Party in Our Home

I want to disclose right away that any Disney items you see pictured here including the plates, cups, balloons, decorations, bingo, many of the prizes, table cloth, cupcake liners, etc. were sent to me to help promote Disney Side Celebrations.

If you have been following my blog a bit this month you have been watching me show my #Disneyside by going on a family trip to Walt Disney World and I shared with you pictures of going to the Magic Kingdom and all of Disney Characters we met. Well, we took it further than than and showed our #Disneyside  at home and had a party and invited a bunch of friends.

We played bingo and learned quite a bit about all the parks, characters and special Disney places. The kids loved it and it was very helpful that each card drawn appeared on every bingo card so all these young kids felt like they were participating the whole time because they were!

Our friends that came over went home with so many wonderful prizes to help them show their own #Disneyside including posters, stickers, and blank photo cards & envelopes from HP. I also included other things prizes and samples I had to pass out and to use as prizes for the Disney Trivia game we played (the adults.)

It was so fun to get the house all decorated up with Mickey and Friends. We decorated up both the dining room (where the adults ate our fancy salads I made) and the kids at the kitchen table which was decorated above it too and they ate traditional kid fare of Mac and cheese and baby carrots. And we all had some bread too and these fun Mickey cupcakes I made.

 Below you can see one of the Mickey cupcakes I made and I am going to have another #Disneyside post tell you just how to create these Mickey Mouse Cupcakes. So, come back on Tuesday for Try It Tuesday!

If you like all the Disney decorations I was sent, you  might be able to find them at your local Hallmark Store because they all had Hallmark store labels on them.

If you are thinking of throwing a party and showing your Disney Side, be sure to check out the website Disney Side Celebrations for lots of party ideas, recipes, themes and so much more!

Wordless Wednesday: Disney Characters #Disneyside

We continue to show our #DISNEYSIDE with our recent trip to Walt Disney World by sharing with you all the characters we had pictures with. Be sure to also read my post from last week with other pictures of the Magic Kingdom.

Wordless Wednesday: Walt Disney World #Disneyside

We recently took the kids to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. In case you missed how we told them, check out my post Fun Ways to Tell Kids About a Trip to Disney.

Let the adventure begin as we show our #DISNEYSIDE

I will be posting a separate Wordless Wednesday Post of the kids with Walt Disney Characters, so look for that next week!