Disney Crafts For All Ages

 

Welcome to another Disney Friends Blog Hop! This month’s theme is anything that you can do to bring the Disney Magic into your home during this uncertain time. We focused on Disney Crafts you can make easily at home. At the end of our post, click on over to the next blog until you’ve looped back to us.

If you could look back to a few weeks ago, I don’t think you would have imagined being home with your family 24/7 for the foreseeable future. I think it’s safe to say that COVID-19 took us all by surprise and left us unprepared to become teacher, boss and entertainer extraordinaire on top of regular mom life duties. As overwhelming as it feels, we are all in this together! We have come up with a few ideas on how to keep those little people busy. We would love to see your ideas too! Tag us on Instagram @stressfreemickey.

We found out about self-isolation right as our two week Spring Break was scheduled to begin. We had the girls registered for swimming lessons every day, plus had some big plans to head to the local malls and stores to participate in their free activity offerings. All of that was canceled, so very quickly we had to shift to staying happy at home. The first week was easy, it was sunny so we did bike rides and when the kids were driving me crazy I just sent them outside. However, week #2 was significantly more challenging.

One of the things we’ve been doing is watching ALL of the Disney movies in chronological order. We started in January, and have already knocked down almost 40 movies! If you’d like to read about that, check out the post here.

Erica (kids age 12, 9 and 7)

My girls have always really loved crafts. So when Heidi suggested that we all do something at home with what we have that is Disney related I was wondering what we could do, since they’ve taken over the dining room table for colouring/painting/crafting for 2 weeks.

Out came the Perler beads! I have a love/hate relationship with these little guys… there’s nothing worse than someone spending hours on a design and then having them get bumped at the last second; or worse, when ironing them down, having them fly everywhere and it ending in tears. Thankfully we managed not to wreck them this time; only problem is, once we did 3 straight days of them, we are out of all 18,000 Perler beads with no real way to get more! You can get them on Amazon here:

 

Supplies:

• Perler beads and pegboards (something like this)
• Iron and parchment paper

This project works best for older kids, starting around age 6. You need to have patience, and be able to individually grab the beads, placing them exactly where you need them.
The challenge I gave the girls was to create designs that were Disney related… this was the only parameter I gave them.

They definitely needed more black and red, but we had fun creating none the less! Addie made simple ones, Lexie made abstract ones, and Audrey made elaborate ones. Audrey isn’t even quite done her massive, epic Lilo & Stitch scene, but it’s coming along!

Heidi (kids age 12 and 9)

Supplies:

• rocks
• paint
• paint brushes
• pencil
• sharpie

What I really wanted to try was a faux stain glass technique that I had seen. But that would have required a trip to the dollar store (Don’t do it! Stay home folks!), so back to the drawing board. We decided to do Disney painted rocks instead. This craft is good for all ages I think. It really got my creative juices flowing.

On our daily walk we kept our eyes open for flat rocks (make sure they aren’t on someone’s property). I put them in a bucket of warm soapy water with a little bleach to get the dirt off of them. Let them soak for an hour or so. To paint we used acrylic paint that I already had from the dollar store. If you don’t have any at home, you can get some on Amazon. I even saw Acrylic paint pens that would make this super easy!

     

 

My daughter and I googled “Disney painted rocks” for some inspiration. My son didn’t need any, he knew exactly what he wanted to do right away. Make sure your rocks are clean and dry. The first step is to paint the background. This may take some time to dry. I did thin coats, so I started with the first rock and then the second, and by the time I came back to the first rock it was dry. For my son’s Captain America shield I drew an outline for him in pencil first.

The Mickey Mouse rock he did freehand on his own; I think it looks great! My daughter also did an outline in pencil first for Mike and Sulley. I freehanded mine, but do what you’re comfortable with. There are no rules, just get creative and wait for the paint to dry if you are layering colours. It helped having two rocks to go between. You can also use sharpies for sharper lines if you want. When you are done, place them around the house or in your garden. Can’t wait to see your creations, tag us on Instagram @stressfreemickey. 

Elisia (kids age 4 and 2)

Supplies:

• paint (I used red and black)
• stiff paper
• cookie cutters in fun shapes
• scissors
• tape
• round objects (see photo below for reference)
• plate for paint
• sponge

Whenever I find a craft to do with my kids, I want something that is going to be relatively easy to set up and clean up, because you know that even if you spend an hour setting something up, it’s only going to keep their attention for so long. 

If you’re doing this with littles, you can do the first stage without them.

Stage One: Using stiff paper, create a Mickey shape (or whatever theme you would like to go with). Cut out the shape and gently tape it to a second stiff piece of paper.

Stage Two: Stamp away! Put the cookie cutters in the paint, and stamp onto the thick paper. Using the sponge, dab around the Mickey cut out so that you can still use it once you remove it.

Stage Three: Pull off the Mickey cut out and survey your hard work.

Another quick craft that we did was making a heart to put in the window. I live in a townhouse complex and noticed that the house across from ours had homemade hearts placed in their windows. My son asked why, and I explained that it was a way to wave “Hi” to our neighbors since we can’t really get together right now.

This craft is nice and easy. We used construction paper, scissors, tape, and stickers. You could get as creative or as simple as you want! When complete, tape to a window that can be seen by those walking by. (In my community, we have a “Heart Scavenger Hunt” with this, see if your local area is participating! We have a Facebook group for people sharing how many they have found!)

Danielle (kid age 2)

(Please note: pictures from the tie-dye activity were taken before COVID-19 social distancing regulations were put into effect.)

Not gonna lie. I may be artistic, but I am NOT crafty in the least. We have been doing a lot of colouring around here, but it doesn’t hold my daughter’s attention very long. We have a Rapunzel Play-Doh set that she has been enjoying, but that’s about it.

However, we did some tie-dye with the fam when still holding onto the hope that our Disney World trip wouldn’t be canceled. We are doing a 90’s theme day, and what 90’s look isn’t complete without some epic tie-dye! All the kids had the same shirts to dye, so we got some fantastic neon spray colours and got started!

This is a very messy process, so I recommend using some newspaper or something to cover your surface with, as well as gloves if you are going to do this. We had some dollar store tablecloths which worked wonders.

We really liked the spiral style tie-dye look, and luckily our dyes came with an explanation on how to do this! Elisia did her magic, and we were good to go!

Things we found out the hard way:

1. Thoroughly spray your material, moving the folds a little bit as you spray to really get the colours in. 
2. Let them sit in their bunch for a couple of hours before snipping off the elastic.
3. Lay them flat to dry so they don’t drip and bleed.
4. Wash them before ironing.

We all have awesome vinyls to add to our shirts, so I got to work finishing off my daughter’s Rapunzel shirt!

Overall this was a fun activity, though it wasn’t one my toddler could join in with.

The nice thing about this is it’s something they can wear for a while hopefully and enjoy!

 

Head over to the next blog post here:

Roll Call:
1. www.stressfreemickey.com
2. www.skywaytowonderland.com
3. www.coddiwomplerlisa.wordpress.com
4. www.mouseandthemagic.com
5.www.confessionsofapixietraveler.com

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Have a magical day!
Erica, Heidi, Elisia and Danielle