Tag: Disney’s Frozen

D.I.Y. Olaf Inspired Frozen Heart Pillow

Olaf Frozen No Sew Heart Pillow

Looking for a fun and inexpensive Frozen-Inspired Valentine’s Day craft to make with your children?

At JoAnn Fabrics this past weekend I found adorable Frozen themed fleece on sale for 40% off! With Valentine’s Day just around the corner I thought it would be cute to make a miniature (5.5″ wide x 7″ high) “Frozen” heart pillow with the kids.  After completing this one, Victoria, my three-year-old daughter, snatched it up for her Bitty Baby doll to use and Gavin, my seven-year-old son, immediately wanted to make one “all on his own.” How could he not? Don’t we all love this warm hug-loving little snowman?

I’m not the first person in the world to come up with the idea of a “no-sew” heart pillow. In fact, a quick Google search of “no sew heart pillow” will give you a ton of tutorial options to read. Regardless, I’ve included my tutorial in this post to give you some insight on how we made our pillow.

Supplies

Disney licensed material of any type is significantly more money per yard than your typical run of the mill fabric. So for this project I decided to use the licensed character fleece on one side and a generic blue on the opposite side.  In addition, if you’re planning on following my directions for this project to make more than one pillow, note that you’ll need more of the Olaf print than the blue fleece. Why? Due to the character placement on the fleece, you will end up with a pillow that doesn’t have Olaf’s face represented and instead you’ll have Olaf’s feet or a partial face. It’s important to decide what images you want shown on the pillow and measure out from there before you start cutting.

Here are the exact sizes and supplies I used for making one pillow.

  • 8″ x 7″ hand drawn heart template cut out of card stock
  • Measuring tape
  • Fabric scissors
  • Marking tool – I used a fine tip marker but a fabric pencil would have been easier.
  • 18″ x 14″ piece of fleece “Olaf Winter Snowflakes Scene by Disney for Springs Creative Products Group, LLC. (NOTE: This material is for noncommercial home use only.) Why this large? If you are choosing to make multiple pillows, I found that allotting this size piece will guarantee at least one Olaf image as a focal point for the pillow.
  • 14″ x 13″ piece of complimentary-colored solid blue fleece
  • Polyester Fiberfill

10 Simple Steps Tutorial

1. Using the heart template that you drew out of card stock, decide how you’d like the pillow to lay out. Below is an example of how I started. (However I chose to go larger as the original cookie cutter idea was way too small.)

Olaf Fabric www.mouseearsmom.com

2. Draw your heart outline onto back side of the Olaf fabric using your template.

3. Measure three inches from all sides of the heart to create an outside heart image around the originally drawn heart.  (This three-inch border will be the area that you’ll need to mark and then cut for knotting.)

4. Cut an equal size heart out of the solid blue fleece. I did this by tracing my Olaf fabric heart after I cut it out.

Materials for Frozen hearts  www.mouseearsmom.com

5. Using your measuring tape and marking tool, mark off 3/4″ to 1″ pieces around the perimeter of the heart. They will act as guide lines to follow when creating your fringe to later knot.

6. With the two pieces of fleece fabric placed on top of each other, cut three-inch strips into both layers of fleece at the same time.

www.mouseearsmom.com

7. Continue to cut three-inch strips from the outside of the heart to the center heart marking until you’ve cut the entire outside heart.

Frozen Heart Pillow www.mouseearsmom.com

8. Start knotting!  Making sure that the correct side of the fabric is facing outwards, double knot each strand from the top fleece to the bottom fleece, stopping only when there is a about four or five strands left to knot.

9. Stuff the heart with Polyester Fiberfill.

10. Double knot the remaining strands and you’re done!

Olaf's Frozen Heart Pillow www.mouseearsmom.com

Although this little Valentine heart is frozen blue, I’m sure the hug-loving snowman on the outside will warm up the heart of your child this Valentine’s Day.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

It’s Crazy What Some Disney Moms Do…

NYC 2014 003Can you see the Disney Store in this photo?  To the far left on the photo, you’ll find the Times Square Disney Store.  See the line of people?  Yes, that’s stationary people taking up the sidewalk in NYC.

NYC Disney Store

See the food cart on the sidewalk by the Sunglass Hut?  That’s where my husband and I stood Saturday, while waiting to get an “Opportunity Ticket” to purchase an Elsa costume from the Disney Store.

Before I continue, I’ll start by saying that I have a VERY understanding husband.  Gary and I went to New York City this past Friday and Saturday to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  Of course, being the Disney Mom that I am, one of the first things we did Friday was visit the Disney Store in Times Square.  We strolled right in and enjoyed the store.

NYC 2014 045

 Here’s a Tour!

NYC 2014 042

Greeting guests upon entering the store is the one and only Spiderman. He and his entire Spiderman section of merchandise are celebrating the release of Spiderman 2 in theatres.

NYC 2014 049

Continuing through the store, I found Tinkerbell merchandise inspired by “The Pirate Fairy” film, a huge selection of character plush, and a “Muppets Most Wanted” merchandise wall bay filled with plush, t-shirts and more.

NYC 2014 052

The Times Square Disney Store has two floors.  The entire right side of the first floor is dedicated to Princesses.  Toys, swim wear and Princess clothing fill the wall bays and floor fixtures.

NYC 2014 041

Let’s head upstairs!

NYC 2014 031

 A magical Pixie Dust road leads guests throughout the different departments.

NYC 2014 032

An adorable infants department

NYC 2014 020The boys departments included Disney brands- Marvel, Star Wars, Planes and Cars.

iphone 2014 182

iphone 2014 184

Not pictured here, the second floor also includes a small adult department and a Princess sleepwear department.

At the end of the Pixie Dust road is a beautiful Princess castle.

NYC 2014 028

Within this pretty castle is Disney Princess dresses, crowns and shoes for just about every Disney princess you can think of!  Except one…

It’s pretty obvious that there was a Disney brand that was missing.  There wasn’t a single Frozen product available in the store on Friday.  If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts, you know that my daughter is a bit obsessed with the movie.  I didn’t expect to find anything, but one could hope, right?  Well, lucky me, Saturday morning the Disney Store offers an “Opportunity Drawing” to purchase Queen Elsa’s costume dress.  AND cast members told me that there would be additional “Frozen” themed product for sale that morning!   How could a mom, who’s stayed away from her kids overnight for the first time, miss this opportunity?  Fast forward to Saturday…

NYC 2014 011Well, honestly, after seeing this line at store opening, I thought this Disney Mom was going to miss the opportunity.  My husband said, “There is NO WAY I’m standing in that line.”  I couldn’t be upset but I was a bit disappointed.  Then for some reason, he said, “I’ll wait, but we better make it in the store before that drawing.” Luckily we made it in just in time!

This is how the Disney Store is handling the Frozen “crisis”.  At store openings on Saturdays, guests are allowed to enter the store, ten at a time.  To enter the “Opportunity Drawing” to purchase an Elsa dress, guests are asked to go to the second floor where they are allowed to wait in another line to fill out one ticket with their name, phone number and dress size that they would like to purchase.  At 11:15 am, a cast member announces the ticket numbers that have won the chance to purchase a dress.  At that time, you enter another line to purchase the dress.  Not all the guests stay for the raffle.  A Disney cast member will call your cell phone number after the raffle and you have until 1 am to pick up the dress.

iphone 2014 206 Here’s a photo of the crazy moms and dads waiting to hear their number called.  You better believe there was cheering when numbers were called!

While some guests were waiting to hear their number called on the second floor, on the first floor was a line from the back of the store to the front.  This line was to purchase whatever Frozen merchandise the store received in their shipment.  Guests were allowed to purchase two of each item, but you don’t know what items are left to purchase until you reach the register.

iphone 2014 205

By the time it was my turn to purchase, the guest in front of me had purchased the last Olaf Plush and the other plush characters were gone too.  But I was able to purchase a singing Anna doll and an Elsa crown.

The Disney Store in Times Square received 600 Elsa costumes that morning.  Lucky for us almost half of those dresses were size 5/6!

Elsa Dress

The next morning, this crazy Disney Mom couldn’t have asked for a better Mother’s Day smile!  I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day too!

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s Build an Olaf Snowman Puppet!

olaf play 001Do you love Olaf as much as we do?

My kids are pretty obsessed with Disney’s Frozen’s adorably silly little snowman named Olaf.  This weekend I stumbled across a Disney Frozen Activities page that had a really cool “Build a Snowman” activity sheet.  I printed it out for the kids and we made this simple puppet in a matter of minutes.  Here’s how!

First stop by http://www.catchingupwithkate.com/free-disneys-frozen-olaf-printables/

Print out the “Build a Snowman” activity sheet.  If you’re looking for other Frozen fun visit http://movies.disney.com/frozen/downloads/activities .  There are a bunch of other fun coloring and activity sheets on this page too.  However, for this little project you will only need the Olaf printout.   Since I printed it out on basic copy paper, I chose to laminate the sheet to make it a bit sturdier.

Olaf 0042. Once printed cut out all of Olaf’s parts.

3. Next, put him together by using a hole puncher and brads.

Olaf 018

Olaf 006

4. Once together, flip him over and add the puppet stick.  I used a wooden skewer and taped down the pointed side.  Olaf 011That’s it!  Super simple and my kids had a blast playing with him.  Now it’s time to get our dance party on and pretend it’s “In Summer!”  If you’re surround by two feet of snow, like us, just watching Olaf’s YouTube video is enough to warm your heart.

We’re Sending Warm Hugs to You!

Olaf 014