"We'll need a suitcase just for your ears!" - A July 2015 PTR *Complete*

Ack, thanks for the heads-up! We also had the same CP ADR that day, so I will need to revise our itinerary, too! Hopefully with the same success as you. :D

What a pain, right?? Oh well, we'll all survive it :-)
I am sad about missing out on Crystal Palace, but there will be other opportunities.
I hope you were able to easily resolve any issues the time change caused!!
 
My success in dealing with all of the craziness from earlier made me feel a creative buzz. I finally figured out what I want to do with my Magic Band! (Good thing since they'll be here in just a few days)



I have a yellow band coming, so I'll do half in blue with the red accents like Snow White's sleeves and leave the bottom yellow like her skirt. I'll turn the Mickey head into an apple, and cover the whole thing with a light layer of glitter.

I'm excited to start painting them once they arrive!
 
What a pain, right?? Oh well, we'll all survive it :-)
I am sad about missing out on Crystal Palace, but there will be other opportunities.
I hope you were able to easily resolve any issues the time change caused!!

Although now I'm thinking that since that's our last day, I may keep our CP ADR, as we have FPs starting at 9am, so we could still get into the park before it opens, right?
 


Although now I'm thinking that since that's our last day, I may keep our CP ADR, as we have FPs starting at 9am, so we could still get into the park before it opens, right?

If it's your last day and your FPs start at 9, you could probably go ahead and keep it. I'd imagine they'll let people with early ADRs in at around the normal time of 7:45 or 7:50ish, so you wouldn't have to rush over to CP through a crowd of people.

We plan to tour Frontierland without FPs for the morning, so keeping our CP breakfast on our last day won't work for us, unfortunately. I feel like you might be in an ok situation though, which is great!!
 
If it's your last day and your FPs start at 9, you could probably go ahead and keep it. I'd imagine they'll let people with early ADRs in at around the normal time of 7:45 or 7:50ish, so you wouldn't have to rush over to CP through a crowd of people.

We plan to tour Frontierland without FPs for the morning, so keeping our CP breakfast on our last day won't work for us, unfortunately. I feel like you might be in an ok situation though, which is great!!

As long as we can get in before they unleash the crowds after rope drop, I'm good! :thumbsup2
And at least we'll still be able to meet in person at Tusker on Saturday morning! :wave:
 
Hello again, everyone!!

Yesterday was exciting.

I tracked all of our impending packages, and both our Disney Store order AND our Magic Bands were due to arrive.

First, our Disney Store stuff came: a t-shirt for L and Oswald ears for X.





I didn't unwrap the ears because X is still at camp. I wanted him to find the box on his bed when he gets home on Saturday.

Our regular mail comes late in the afternoon, so when DH came home from work he brought it in, and right on top was our box of THESE:



To say I was excited is a huge understatement.

Chapter Twelve...in which I get a paint fume headache

I made L's band and my band at the same time, but this will be just about L's. I'll do another post about mine later. I started working on these before noon today and finished at 3:00.

Leyton requested a Jack Skellington band. As you might recall, I did a practice run on our old bands. Even though those turned out ok, I was actually terrified of messing things up, since this was the REAL band.

Material List:
-gray magic band
-Pure ICE Bottom Line base coat
-NYC long wearing nail enamel in 119 Black Lace Creme
-NYC long wearing nail enamel in 134 French White Tip
-Glo-it glow in the dark paint by DecoArt
-FolkArt extreme glitter acrylic paint in black
-Clear gloss acrylic sealer by Plaid

I started out with the gray band, and used painters tape to cover the edges of the band. I am only painting on the colored part of the band, not the removable edges.
I coated it with the base coat and let it dry:



You can see by the light hitting it that it now has a glossy shine. Next I painted it with the black nail polish. I ended up using two coats.



Next I took a detail brush from a nail art kit and marked off the sides of Jack's head. My hands were not feeling steady. I don't know if it was the paint fumes or nerves, LOL!! Then I filled it in with the actual nail polish brush from the bottle. When working with nail polish it is MUCH easier to use the actual brush. I ended up using three coats of the white polish:



It looks lumpy in the picture because it's wet. It doesn't look like that in person. After the white dried, I did two coats of glow in the dark paint. When THOSE coats of paint dried, I went over the black nail polish with the acrylic extreme glitter black paint. When it dried, I carefully did Jack's face. I used a pencil on the white/glow paint head to try to mark out lines for the eyes. It worked ok for the right eye, but I COULD NOT get the left eye to look right. I dipped a Q-tip in water and rubbed the pencil off from that side. I decided to go ahead and paint in the right eye since it was lined up correctly and just go from there. I used the detail brush to outline the pencil marks and fill in the eye. I still couldn't bring myself to go for the left eye, so I did the nose and mouth. After that I knew I had no choice. Jack needed another eye. I took the detail brush and just went for it, starting small and adding more paint around the edges. Eventually, my confidence grew and I was able to outline a good shape and fill it in.



(I was using the old practice band for reference...it was helpful!!)When that all dried, I added another coat of black glitter to the edges and to the eyes. When the whole thing finished drying, I took it outside and sprayed it with the acrylic sealer. Here is the finished product:





And here it is glowing. Ya'll, it's hard to get a good picture of something glowing, let me tell you.





It actually looks very cool in person!!

So there ya go...L's completed band. He loves it and I am VERY pleased with the way it turned out.

Coming Soon...my Snow White themed band and our departure day plans.
 


I'm terrified I'll destroy our bands so I'm thinking of doing one of those overlays. I found one place with Doctor Who ones!
 
Wow, all I can say is you are a very good mom (and artist)! Very impressive! :worship:

Oh, you are very kind. I'm pretty confident in my basic pencil sketching skills, but the painting is HARD.

I'm terrified I'll destroy our bands so I'm thinking of doing one of those overlays. I found one place with Doctor Who ones!

I thought about doing those too! I really like them. I have a silhouette machine, and even thought of making my own vinyl decals...I still might play around with it for DH's band. I"m terrified of destroying ours too!! If I hadn't had the kids' old bands from last year to practice on, I don't think I'd have tackled the new ones with character designs.
L would LOVE the Doctor Who ones, by the way. He wants me to paint his bedroom door like the Tardis, and his lanyard for Universal is Doctor Who. He talks about it constantly and drives his brother NUTS. And drives ALL of us nuts with his Sonic Screwdriver. Oy, that thing is annoying!!

After how long the painting took, there's a good chance that on future trips I go back to what I did last year, just plain nail polish and glitter!
I couldn' t believe how long it took just for the two bands I have finished.
 
Another update...I'm on a roll!!

Yesterday, before coming home and painting, I had to do some shopping for vacation clothes. This was no fun at all because I've gained weight since last summer :sad:
Last year at this time I was running every day. This year...I am not. So, none of my shorts fit (well, to be fair, I CAN get them on...but they are VERY TIGHT). I have gained enough for my old ones to be tight, but the size up are a little big. I can't win. So I now have a collection of semi-baggy running shorts, because I refuse to buy a size up in non elastic waist shorts. I just won't. It will be a skirt/sundress/running shorts vacation ::yes::

I have no time for vanity at Disney World.

Also, our lanyards for Universal/IOA came yesterday! I got the kind with pouches to keep our tickets/UEPs in. This photo is from my instagram account:



Mine is the Harry Potter (obsessed!), X's is Pokemon, Star Wars for DH, and Doctor Who for L.
I love the Golden Snitch attached to mine :love:

Now for...

Chapter Thirteen...in which the Fairest of them All gets ugly

Before I get to the magic band though, here's our plan for departure day:

------------------------------------------
Tuesday, departure day

resort hopping or a few rides at MK

ME to airport

layover in Atlanta

home


Departure day. Boo.


My least favorite day. We don’t have to catch the Tragical Depress until around 1:00ish, so we have quite a bit of time in the morning to get up and organized.


We’ll drop our checked bags off at airline check-in, and either take the bus to MK or take our time and maybe do a little resort hopping...breakfast at the G.Flo, pineapple/vanilla swirl Dole Whip at the Poly, then back to hang out at the resort and wait for our ME bus to take us to the airport.


We fly out of MCO to Atlanta for a layover, then we should be home by 10pm.


I assume we’ll walk in the door and collapse.


-----------------------------------------

We'll still have a ticket left to use this day, so I imagine we'll go SOMEWHERE this morning and get a couple of last rides in. What a sad day.

Blah.

Moving on to my magic band!!
Let me start by saying, this band gave me fits. I could not decide what I wanted to do, and then the other night, inspiration hit and I posted the sketch I made of my design. It didn't all go as planned.

Materials:
-yellow magic band
-FolkArt extreme glitter acrylic in new chick yellow
-apple barrel acrylic in bright blue
-Sally Hansen hard as nails in sturdy sapphire
-Pure ICE Bottom Line base coat
-Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art stylo, fine point in red 380
-NYC long wearing nail enamel in 116 Broadway Burgundy Frost
-FolkArt acrylic in lime green (leaf)
-Anita's acrylic in burnt umber (stem)

Again I started by taping off the edges:



then I applied the base coat. After that dried, I taped off a line just above the Mickey Head and applied the yellow glitter acrylic. It dried, then I moved the tape line and added the blue acrylic. I ended up using two coats.



The blue paint was a matte finish, so when it dried I added a coat of the sapphire nail polish for shine and a little sparkle



When I removed the tape between the blue and yellow sections, my line was not perfectly straight. I was just going to fix it with some blue, but I thought, hey, I have this red nail art pen, I'll just draw a straight line!

Well...when I had practiced with the pen, it was great. But trying to draw a straight line this time was a disaster. I widened the line. Still a mess. The color wasn't right. Ugh. So I got out the burgundy frost polish (which is a much prettier sparkly color than the nail pen anyway. In fact, it's one of my favorite nail colors that I own, and I use it on my toes a lot!) and a flat edged stiff nail art brush from that kit I bought, and carefully dabbed on the polish bit by bit. Not fun.

Then it was apple time. I used the nail pen to outline the large circle of the Mickey head and colored it in. Again, not the shade of red I wanted, so I went over it VERY CAREFULLY with the burgundy frost color, using the brush from the bottle.

I took the detail brush, dipped it into the green acrylic, and drew the most perfect leaf ever. I was so proud of the leaf that I almost cried. Then I almost cried again when I realized it was in the wrong place and there was no way I could add a stem and make it look normal. I tried to remove it, but it just smeared, and I was so afraid to mess up my hard work, that I just turned the whole right Mickey ear into a leaf, and drew a quick stem out the top of his head. Whatever works. At this point, I was so tired of this stupid band and ready to be done!!



I added another coat of yellow glitter, did some touch ups to the blue, took it outside and sprayed it with sealer.




(You can see my notes and material list in the picture, haha. I was thorough!)
The sparkle doesn't show up well in the photos, but it has good shine in person!

My original design had the red accents of Snow's sleeves on the blue portion of the band, but I couldn't bring myself to do it and risk messing up what I had, so this is it! This simple design turned out to be a much bigger headache than L's Jack band. I kind of wanted to throw it out the window in the end!


I hope DH and X go easy on me with their designs...I would not be sad if X changes his mind from Stitch to something simpler, but I don't think I'll get that lucky.
He will be home from camp tomorrow and I am so ready to see his face!!

Thanks for sticking with me!!

Another update coming soon!!

 
L would LOVE the Doctor Who ones, by the way. He wants me to paint his bedroom door like the Tardis, and his lanyard for Universal is Doctor Who. He talks about it constantly and drives his brother NUTS. And drives ALL of us nuts with his Sonic Screwdriver. Oy, that thing is annoying!!

My 11 year old loves Doctor Who. For the longest time she had a theory that Santa was a Time Lord because he was able to deliver all the presents in one night...so obviously his sleigh is his Tardis!:D
I love those lanyards. Dh is used to Disneyland so he can't wrap his head around not needing one, he would love the Star Wars one but I keep telling him he has nothing to put in it because there are no room keys or park passes!
 
I've been meaning to post for a few days but I've been busy finishing up the school year - field day, class parties, etc. :) Anyway, first of all I LOVE the original Parent Trap! So much so that I will not watch the remake with Lindsay Lohan :sad2: I went to catholic grammar school and the 1st Friday of every month we watched a Disney movie. Parent Trap was it many times over the 6 years I was there.
My other favorite movies besides Disney are horror movies :thumbsup2 Too bad you aren't in NY, we could see all the new ones when they come out lol! DH will go with me but most of my friends don't like them. I love the original Friday the 13th too, but my favorite is the original Nightmare on Elm St. It doesn't hurt that Johnny Depp is in it :rolleyes1

Ugh, I wish I was crafty enough to decorate our MB's. Love yours! I think your Snow White one look just fine the way you did it! I need to get us some lanyards for Universal......
Your trip is SO CLOSE!!! I'm excited for you guys!!
 
I've been meaning to post for a few days but I've been busy finishing up the school year - field day, class parties, etc. :) Anyway, first of all I LOVE the original Parent Trap! So much so that I will not watch the remake with Lindsay Lohan :sad2: I went to catholic grammar school and the 1st Friday of every month we watched a Disney movie. Parent Trap was it many times over the 6 years I was there.
My other favorite movies besides Disney are horror movies :thumbsup2 Too bad you aren't in NY, we could see all the new ones when they come out lol! DH will go with me but most of my friends don't like them. I love the original Friday the 13th too, but my favorite is the original Nightmare on Elm St. It doesn't hurt that Johnny Depp is in it :rolleyes1

Ugh, I wish I was crafty enough to decorate our MB's. Love yours! I think your Snow White one look just fine the way you did it! I need to get us some lanyards for Universal......
Your trip is SO CLOSE!!! I'm excited for you guys!!

The Parent Trap is the BEST!! Maureen O'Hara is just gorgeous and perfect, and Hayley Mills is fabulous and just right for the roles of Sharon and Susan. I love it so much!

If I was in NY I'd definitely go with you to see horror movies. I really want to see The Gallows, and DH will go with me, but I feel like he will make fun of me, LOL.
My favorite is the original Halloween, and I have a soft spot for Scream and the Paranormal Activity movies.

I got our lanyards online at Hot Topic. They had a lot of different ones to choose from.

These magic bands are killing me! I finished DH's magic band today...it's Yoda's lightsaber. I'll do a post about it soon. Right now I'm looking at "how to draw Stitch" stuff online, trying to see if I can come up with a better design for X's band than the one I did for practice earlier in the report. I'm terrified i'm going to mess it up. I have a Stitch mental block or something, he's so hard to draw for me, and I can draw almost anything if I'm looking at a picture of it. I don't know why I'm having such a hard transition from pencil sketching to painting, but it's much harder than I thought it'd be! Thanks for the kind words about the Snow band. I keep thinking about adding the red to the sleeves, but I know I should just leave it alone. I'm just not sure I'll be satisfied with it.

Yes, the trip is close!! I'm super excited but if the next three weeks drag by the way this one has, I'll age 100 years between now and then, LOL!!
 
Chapter Fourteen...in which we feel the force

All of our magic bands are now complete. I turned DH's band into Yoda's lightsaber, and X kept firm on his Stitch band.

Here they are step by step.
First up, the lightsaber.

Materials:
-green magic band
-Pure ICE Bottom Line base coat
-NYC longwearing nail enamel in Black Lace Creme
-FolkArt metallic acrylic in 662 Silver Sterling
-FolkArt acrylic in lime green
-Glo-It glow in the dark paint by DecoArt

I started by taping off the edges of the green band and putting on the base coat.



I know that the hilts of the individual lightsabers look different, so I did a google search to make sure I painted this accurately, and drew out a rough sketch so I knew what colors went where.



I taped off the part where the black would go, and used the nail polish to fill it in.



let it dry then removed the tape



Then it was time for the silver. I didn't want to tape anything off for this, I just used the stiff flat brush to move the paint to the edges. The silver paint was a nightmare, and I do not recommend it at all. It took 4 coats, it was VERY slow to dry. I had to take the hairdryer to it after every coat. In the next picture you can see how much green showed through after the first coat:



While the first coat of silver dried, I mixed the lime green paint with the glow paint, and took it back and forth into the dark to test it out. I finally got it to an acceptable glow and put down the first layer.



The brush was too stiff and made those ugly lines in the green. I ran upstairs and found a softer brush, and it worked much better. The glow paint does change the texture of the paint, so it never got perfectly smooth.

After all four coats of silver were on and dry, I made a tape template for the black sections on the bottom of the hilt. Obviously I couldn't make them very big since I was working with a narrow space, but I did what I could.



I slopped on the black nail polish:



let it dry then removed the tape:



a coat of acrylic sealer and here is the final product:




Up next...Stitch band
 
Chapter Fifteen...in which I capture 626

X came home from camp this afternoon. Our state has been dealing with heavy rains coming up from Texas because of Tropical Storm/Depression/Whatever Bill, so everything in his bag was damp and smelled horrific. Scarier than Jason Voorhees by far.

I was so glad to see his face!

He confirmed he wanted a Stitch band just like the one I made for practice, much to my dismay. This is the band i was most worried about. I have a mental block about drawing Stitch. It's so hard for me. Last night I followed along with an Animation Academy artist and tried a few different "how to draw" tutorials, and was still unhappy.

There was nothing I could do today but go for it. So I got out the practice band for reference and went to work.


Material List:
-blue magic band
-ICE Bottom Line base coat

-NYC long wearing nail enamel in Black Lace Creme
-NYC long wearing nail enamel in French White Tip
-Anita's Acrylic in ultra blue
-Apple Barrel acrylic in bright blue
-Anita's Acrylic in Island Blue
-Anita's Acrylic in Princess Pink
-Sally Hansen hard as nails nail polish in Sturdy Sapphire

I did something different with this band. I did NOT use the base coat on the band first. I taped off the edges as usual, but instead of putting down a base coat, I used a pencil to sketch on the eyes, mouth lines, and ears. Then I took my detail brush, dipped it into the black nail polish and made an outline of Stitch's face. Then I colored in his nose and pupils.



I filled in the area around his pupils with the island blue acrylic paint



I painted in his mouth with the black, and added the teeth and the highlight of his eyes with the white nail polish, and used the princess pink for the inside of his ears. I filled in his head with a mixture of the ultra blue and bright blue paints. Neither one on their own looked quite right, but the combo came out nicely.





Next I mixed all of the blues that I'd used so far (bright, ultra, and island) together and painted the area outside of Stitch's face. X wanted shine but not glitter, so I used the blue sapphire nail polish over the blue acrylic paint (after a visit to the hair dryer for a quick dry.)



I covered everything with the nail polish base coat for shine (the paint on Stitch's head/face was very matte.), let it dry and took it outside to spray with acrylic sealer.
Here is the finished product:




I'm not thrilled with it, I think he looks kind of like a weird blue demon, but X likes it so that's all that matters!

I am happy to be finished with the bands!!

We are 23 days away from vacation!!

L has a day camp next week called Camp Invention, where he gets to make things and take things apart and put them back together, etc...
He is very excited!

Another update soon...Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!


 
I am genuinely impressed with both your craftiness and your willingness to torture yourself for your family ;). They all look great!
 
I am genuinely impressed with both your craftiness and your willingness to torture yourself for your family ;). They all look great!

Torture is totally the appropriate word!! Next trip is plain paint or vinyls only!! (until they ask me to do something else, probably. I'm a sucker.)
 
Just stopping by to say your plans sound great! Sounds like it's going to be such a fun trip!! And the magic bands look great :thumbsup2
 
Just stopping by to say your plans sound great! Sounds like it's going to be such a fun trip!! And the magic bands look great :thumbsup2

Thank you!!

I see a Disneyland ticker in your signature...we're making our first trip to Disneyland and California Adventure next summer. For some reason it's stressing me out more than anything Disney World related, lol.
I hope you have a great trip out west!!
 

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