FREE printable: Mickey Mouse birthday party favor tags

Having a Mickey Mouse birthday party? I thought I'd share the printable for the party favor tag I created for my Mickey cake pops.

I printed them on an 8.5"x11" sheet of card stock and used a two-inch circular paper punch, but if you don't have a punch, they'd also work cut into squares.

These tags are free for personal, non-commercial use only. Feel free to link to this blog post, but redistributing or selling these tags is not OK.

Download: Mickey Mouse Party Favor Tags

p.s. The Walt Disney handwriting font I used is called Waltograph and is free for personal use. (It also includes the Mickey ears icon as a special character!)

How to make Mickey Mouse ears birthday party hats

As I mentioned previously, my daughter requested party hats for her birthday party. She's got a very specific prescription about what belongs at a birthday party: cake, ice cream, party hats. Lucky for me, that gave me a reason to make these cute Mickey ear hats.

These are really easy to make (I promise!), but there are a lot of steps. I put everything together assembly line style, but I estimate it took about seven minutes for each hat. You can make a whole party's worth of hats in under an hour! 

And if you're not a Disney nerd, you don't have to add the Mickey ears! You can follow just the first part of this tutorial to make pretty party hats. Let's go!

It all starts with a pack of paper party hats from the dollar store. Sure, you could probably make your own from card stock, but this saves a bunch of time.

First, unfold one of the party hats and trace it onto some cardboard to create a template. I used cardboard from a cereal box. This step might seem unnecessary; why not just trace the unfolded hat? Well, the unfolded hat is going to curl up on you over and over again. The template will lay flat and make your life easier.

(Remember to re-fold the hat you unfolded. We're going to cover the hats just as they came out of the package.)

Trace the template onto the back of pretty scrapbook paper, or even wrapping paper. Just to be safe, you want your paper to be a bit larger than the hat, so cut the paper leaving yourself about a 1/2 inch margin outside of the traced line. 

Put a piece of scotch tape over where the chin strap pokes through on the outside of the hat to secure it. This might be overkill, but once the paper is on the hat, you won't be able to fix a strap that has slipped out.

Now it's time to glue the paper to the hat. I used hot glue because it dries instantaneously. Line up the paper on the hat, then hot glue one edge along the seam of the hat and around the base of the cone. Run a final stripe of glue along the last edge and press it over the seam of the hat. There should be a bit of overlap.

You will probably have some excess paper hanging off the bottom edge. Use a scissors to trim this away.

Your party hat is done! Stop here, or keep going to make it a Mickey ears party hat.

I found this stiffened felt at Michaels for 99 cents a sheet. It's... well, stiff. It doesn't flop over like regular felt would. You could also probably use black foam core or poster board instead if you wanted to.

Find something to trace circles onto the felt. I traced the inside of a roll of painters tape, which is about three inches in diameter. (I used a white pencil so it would show up on the photos, but a regular pencil should work OK too.) You can see in the photo above how I used the straight edge of the felt to lop off the bottom part of the circle. This flat edge is where the "ear" is going to attach to the hat.

I was able to get eight ears of this size from each 9"x12" sheet of felt. Cut them out with a sharp fabric scissors.

Making sure to note the orientation of the chin strap, draw a small pencil line on one side of the hat where you'll attach the first ear. 

Use a tiny bit of hot glue to attach the first ear along the pencil line. Glue the second ear on the opposite side of the hat. (It's easier to eyeball where to put the second ear than to eyeball where to draw a second line.)

Hooray! You're done! Feel free to dance around.

p.s. Who IS this girl? Where'd my baby go?!

Disney World Magic Kingdom birthday party: Favors, Part 2

The kids weren't the only ones to get in on the party favors. I saw this tutorial about how to make Mickey Mouse cake pops a few months ago and knew they would be a perfect treat to send everyone home with.

Sort of reminiscent of those Mickey ice cream bars, no?

I made some alterations to the directions linked above. I've been using a cake pop maker (sort of like a waffle maker), and it's pretty easy to work with. I haven't made cake balls in the "rolling crumbled cake" way, so I'm not sure how hard that is. Another variations from the instructions: I used dark chocolate instead of tinting the chocolate black.

They were a little harder to make than normal round cake pops; I had to rethink my chocolate dipping techniques, but in the end, they turned out great.

Download the FREE printable favor tag!

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See full disclosure.

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See more Magic Kingdom party details!

Invitations	Decorations

Activities	Favors, Part 1

Disney World Magic Kingdom birthday party: Favors, Part 1

I love party favors. I know some people think they don't matter, but I love being able to send everyone home with a little something.

Kid's favors have a reputation of being junk, so I wanted to create something non-disposable. And when I ran across this coin purse tutorial, I knew it was what I wanted to do.

I'm telling you these are not hard to make. I know some of you won't believe me, and you'll be freaked out by the zipper. It's a lot of steps and a little bit of thinking inside-out, but they are easy. I think each one probably took about 20-30 minutes.

I thought this nesting doll fabric from Jo-Ann was vaguely "it's a small world"-ish, yes? No? Either way, it's super cute. But it required some extra thought to figure out how to cut the print. No headless nesting dolls, please.

I fudged the dimensions a little from the tutorial linked above and used two pieces of fabric at 6.5"x9" each.

For the boys, I was initially going to use a train fabric to represent the Disney World Railroad, but everything I located was either too ugly, too themed (Thomas/Dinosaur Train/Chuggington -- man, there are a lot of train shows), or more than I wanted to spend ($16/yd.). Don't tell those train-loving little boys!

I finally ran across this Mickey Mouse fabric at Hobby Lobby. I was sort of surprised it was so simple and understated given that most licensed character fabrics are so gaudy.

I used all stash/scrap fabrics for the linings and the straps, and the fabric for the outside layer cost something like 60 cents per pouch. (And the Mickey fabric was more like 40 cents per pouch!) It's such a very small amount of fabric that is required.

I bought the zippers from zipit on etsy and would definitely order from them again. I think they cost something like 60 cents each shipped! And they come in a zillion colors.

But what would a goody bag be without some requisite junk trinkets? I was proud to stay relatively on-theme without getting too caught up in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse machine.

The ice cream cone shaped bubbles were 3 for $1 from Dollar Tree. The glow bracelets were 15 for $1 from Michael's. The star glitter bouncy balls were 25 cents each from Party City. (They are also available at Target for the same price, 8 for $2.) And the Mickey Mouse stickers were 8 sheets for 99 cents at Party City.

For the favor bags, I wanted to use some plain brown paper lunch bags I had instead of buying new ones. I thought I would dress them up by printing directly on the bags.

I wish I could say that this was a great idea, but in actuality, it was pretty frustrating. Thank goodness I only wanted to print six bags; more and I would have completely abandoned the idea altogether.

After experimenting on my own, I finally decided to look for help and found this tutorial explaining how to tape down the edges. That helped, but I still had some problems. For every one bag that printed (more or less) correctly, two misprinted or got jammed up in the printer.

And the "good" ones still have some smears on them. I think it sort of added to the look. (At least that's what I'm telling myself. My non-designy husband agreed.)

I have an HP printer that sucks the paper in from the front and flips it around inside the printer (those with HPs know what I'm talking about), and that probably didn't help. Maybe if you have a printer that feeds paper in straight through, you might have a better success rate.

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09/02/2013: By request, I've made the "souvenir" favor bag into a free printable template. The name field can be personalized or deleted and left blank. Customize a few for your Disney party guests! Template is designed to print on plain lunchbags (5 1/8" x 10 5/8" size).

Download Walt Disney World Souvenirs Party Favor Bag Template >>

Click on the link above, then save the file to your computer by selecting File > Download.
(You won't be able to customize the form within your web browser.)

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See more Magic Kingdom party details!

Invitations	Decorations

Activities	Favors, Part 2

2 Quick and easy semi-handmade tiny gifts for kids

I was going to use the phrase "stocking stuffers" in the title, but that just seems kind of weird on February 1. Anyhoo, I'm tying up the last of these handmade gifts and didn't want to forget these two.

Not everything I make takes a thousand hours or requires a clever idea. Sometimes superfast and semi-handmade is the way to go. Semi-handmade meaning store-bought items simply assembled together.

Disney bottle cap magnets

These "bottle caps" were actually stickers found in the scrapbooking section at Jo-Ann. I removed the sticker backs and added magnets. Yeah, that's all I did, and my daughter thinks they're awesome.

I know not everyone's into Mickey Mouse, but I'm sure there are other three-dimensional stickers or like items just waiting to be transformed into magnets or something else. Keep your eyes open!

Simple ribbon hair bow clips

Some of the bows in Elise's massive collection were stained or otherwise damaged, so I decided to give them new life. I stripped the old ribbon off so I could reuse the clips. (You can find new "blank" hair clips at the craft store.) The ribbon I used was a clearance find from the dollar section at Target. I think I paid 50 cents. To make one of these tiny bows, I probably used 14" of ribbon or so. (Yes, the length required is deceiving.)

I used hot glue and slowly adhered the ribbon around the clip, patterning them after the simple bows Elise already owns. She's not a huge girly girl, so we're not yet into giant head-engulfing bows.

I know hot glue is messy, but there really is no replacement for it here. I've found fabric and craft glues don't hold up long-term for toddler bows.

So that's the last of my handmade Christmas gifts from 2011 (and all by the first of February). I'll have a round up on Friday of all the gifts because I'm thorough like that.

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This is part of my 2011 Handmade Gift Challenge.

Construction-themed birthday party!

Today I am featuring a guest post from my real life friend and college roommate Jodi.

Jodi always jokes about how the second-born child gets the short end of the stick, but I don't think she's giving herself enough credit. She put together this fantastic construction-themed party for her son's second birthday with loads of creative handmade details. Everything was so cute I asked if I could share it with you.

Jodi doesn't have a public blog, so please leave your love or questions in the comments below!

Without further ado, let's get to the photos! I'll let Jodi do the talking from here.

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Thanks Erin! Being the second-born and having an early January birthday myself, I know how much it stinks to have your birthday and Christmas so close together. That is why I felt terrible when my own second-born child’s birthday ended up falling just five days after Christmas. My goal was to throw him a great party without a single Christmas decoration in sight!

Like most 2 year old boys, my son, Henry, loves anything with wheels, but he has a particular fondness of construction vehicles. So, that seemed like a logical party theme. I printed up the invites on white cardstock and them mounted on a heavier brown piece using some cute construction vehicle clip art I found online.

Unlike my daughter who has a summer birthday, we don’t typically spend much time outside during my son’s winter parties. Therefore, I like the idea of setting the theme at the front door using a few outside decorations.

I borrowed the large Tonka truck and the cones from a friend.

I came across this idea for the wreath, but wrapping the extension cord was a little trickier and more time consuming than I thought it would be. So, I only used one cord and let some of the straw wreath ($4 at Hobby Lobby) show through. I cut the number 2 from foam core board and then used Mod Podge to adhere scrapbooking paper to it. The painted dump truck came from Jo-Ann Fabrics and is hot glued onto the 2.

The decorations inside were much more fun! I followed Erin’s directions to make the streamers to hang above the table.

I really wanted to stick with the brown, yellow, orange and black colors as much as possible to tie the party together, and this made a big impact! I got a huge roll of caution tape from Home Depot for about $7 to use as the base streamer.

The birthday boy’s attire consisted of this appliquéd dump truck t-shirt found on Etsy ($13.50), a construction worker vest (Oriental Trading, $4), and borrowed safety goggles.

A few of the guests even came in construction attire as well!

I’m a sucker for Oreo Balls and thought they would look cute in one of my son’s dump trucks loaded in the back like rocks. I talked my husband into making some for the party, and they were gone in a flash.

The cake was made by my husband’s aunt and it turned out great! She was the one who originally shared this cake with me, and I knew I wanted to have something similar for Henry’s party.

She graciously offered to make it, and I was thrilled to pass on the task to her. She even created the black and yellow slanted striped inside!

I think this name banner may have been my favorite part of the party, although it got a little lost in the mix given its somewhat more muted colors. I used scrapbooking paper in the yellow, orange, brown, and black hues to cut out the triangles for the banner. The letters in his name were cut from white cardstock. 

Then, I raided my dad’s stash of odds and ends and glued a variety of nuts, bolts, screws, washers and the like to the banner. The triangles are attached with washers and twine.

I was able to get some copies of old plans from a commercial real estate agent for free to use on some of the surfaces where I set out the food and where the guests ate. It was a great addition for no cost at all!

I was able to find little sticker sheets and construction scenes (Oriental Trading $10 per dozen) to use as favors and decided they would look great rolled up with the leftover plans and tied with raffia.

The little partygoers also received a personalized construction hat (Oriental Trading, $4 per dozen) and aprons from Home Depot (77 cents each).

See? I told you it was fantastic! Thanks for sharing it with us, Jodi!

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