Disney World Magic Kingdom birthday party: Decorations

When I tasked myself with creating a Magic Kingdom party, I realized there were so many different ways I could tackle it. I decided to make it less about the attractions (though I did include references to some favorites) and more about the general feeling of the park. The greenery, the castle, the Mickey ears... with a dash of Fantasyland thrown in.

I've been working on all of these handmade details in secret, so I'm so glad to finally be able to share them with all of you! Let's go!

This is part of a quote from a longer speech Walt Disney gave at the dedication of Disneyland, and I thought it was a fitting way to welcome our guests at the door.

If you've ever been to Disney World, you know Disney has a thing for topiaries. Unquestionably, I needed one at my Magic Kingdom party. I made it from artificial boxwood balls I found at Jo-Ann in the floral department. They look super real! I guess they are typically used as a base for flower arrangements or something, but when I looked at them, I saw Mickey Mouse topiary. I used wooden chopsticks to connect the ears and the head. I didn't use any glue because I wanted to be able to disassemble it, but you could certainly make a more permanent one with wire or glue.

I took a photo of the castle to the Fedex office and had them make an oversize black and white print after seeing the idea on Little Green Notebook. It's just on plain paper, but it only cost 75 cents a square foot. This two foot by three foot poster was $4.50! I mounted it on foam core from the dollar store.

I made the fireworks by twisting metallic pipe cleaners (or "tinsel stems" as they are called on the package).

I cheated a bit and used cake mixes for the cupcakes. The last time I made cupcakes from scratch, no one even seemed to care, so I wasn't going to put extra pressure on myself.

I doctored up some store-bought icing with this "recipe" because I wanted to dip the cupcakes. And I will never frost cupcakes with a knife again! So speedy!

For the chocolate Mickey ears, I piped melted chocolate onto parchment paper. It took some practice, but I figured it out and once the chocolates were dry, they slid right off the parchment.

These aren't Disney related, but they were a must. My mom continued the tradition we started last year with the 2 cookies and made 3s this year. Love these cookies!

The "tablecloth" was actually a two-yard piece of fabric. I figured I would probably reuse it for some project before I'd use the same tablecloth again. I folded under and pressed the cut ends. No sewing necessary! Then I layered it on top of a duvet cover I picked up on clearance at Target. I bought it a few months ago with the intention of poaching the fabric for a future quilting project, but as long as I had it laying around, I was going to use it here first.

I printed up some vintage (and faux-vintage) Disney posters and taped them on top of some of our existing artwork. The Fantasyland one above was actually from a straight-on photo I took at Disney World, if you can believe it.

The vintage-inspired Space Mountain poster is from 2008, and a hi-res version is generously available from the designer for free! I printed it on 8.5"x11" card stock and tiled the pages. You can sort of tell from the photo above, but from far away it wasn't too noticeable.

I found the "it's a small world" poster via Google images. (It was posted on so many sites, I'm not sure what the true source is.)

I made this Fantasyland-esque pennant banner from ribbon and sheets of eco-felt (made from recycled plastic bottles). It's really inexpensive, around 30 cents for each 9"x12" sheet and is as easy to work with as paper. No hemming and no fraying! It only took about two hours for the whole thing, start to finish. I sewed mine, but you could certainly use fabric glue or hot glue if you don't have a sewing machine.

I had an idea to do scalloped crepe paper streamers, but it was complicated and I completely ran out of time to execute it. Instead, I hung up long lengths of crepe paper with painters tape, sort of creating a canopy effect.

"it's a small world" is one of Elise's favorite Disney attractions. It's my favorite too. I love almost everything about it, especially the exterior design. I knew I had to incorporate the ride into the party somehow. And re-creating the exterior was the simplest way I could think to do it.

This foam core model took me longer to create than I care to admit, but it only cost me $2. So there's that. I used gold, black and pearl craft paints I had on hand and a black Sharpie marker for some of the details. I cheated on the facial features; I printed a photo, cut them out and just glued them on. I tried my best to make an accurate representation (I'm lucky I've taken so many photos of it on our trips!), though I made a few changes here and there. Elise recognized it immediately without prompting, so I guess I pulled it off.

Here's a separate post about the the party favors you see above, but this was the only photo I snagged of the Mickey Mouse ear party hats I made. I probably wouldn't have made them at all, except there was a special request from the birthday girl for party hats. And how could I deny this girl?

Here's a separate post about how to create the Mickey ears party hats!

Elise's other favorite attraction at the Magic Kingdom is the Tiki Room. It's her favorite song and she asks my husband to sing it every night before bed. She's obsessed. I had to make her a Tiki Room.

This isn't at all an accurate replica, more like a creative interpretation. All of the birds are from craft stores or the dollar store, ranging in price from 50 cents to $3 for the parrot. I made swings for the fake birds with twigs from the backyard and some jute twine.

The font I used for the signage is called Ed Interlock and is free. It's not the authentic Tiki Room font, but it's similar enough to get the effect.

The tiki gods were from the Dollar Tree! I guess decorations for a Luau? They are super smiley, but they were 8 for $1. At that price, it wasn't worth my time to make my own.

It's only been a few days since the party, so we still have most of the decorations up. Elise keeps telling me that everything I made is "beautiful," so it was worth all the effort.