Magic Monday: Learning to Draw at Animation Academy

Good morning everyone, and Happy Monday! For today's edition of Magic Monday, we are heading over to Hollywood Studios. I scrapped these photos from Animation Academy (which is no longer there), of my twins learning to draw from Disney Animators. My husband took the twins to Animation Academy while I stood in line with my son and oldest daughter to meet Mickey and the Incredibles. The girls said they had so much fun, and they were rather disappointed to learn that it won't be there when we go for our next trip.

Enamel dots made the perfect little paint droplets for my paint palette:

I sketched a mickey head with a chalk marker to embellish the title :

The supplies that I used for this page came from my June Counterfeit kit:

and my July Counterfeit kit:

Thanks for stopping by for another Magic Monday! I'll have some more crafty fun up on the blog tomorrow with a challenge and an example layout for the Counterfeit Kit challenge tomorrow. Have a magical day...See ya real soon!

Magic Monday...Star Wars Style

Welcome to another edition of Magic Monday! This week I am focusing on all things Star Wars. When we went to Disney World in 2014, we just happened to go on one of their Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios. Now that they have announced that they are making a "Star Wars Land" at Hollywood Studios, and the park has a lot more Star Wars activity year round, these Star Wars weekends have become a thing of the past. The way the parks evolve and change are actually one of my favorite things about Disney, so I am trying to document the way it was when were there before, to fully appreciate the differences and changes when we go back.

 I made this page with my brochure from the park that weekend, just stapled to the top of my page, so that you can still open it out and read it, and some fun photos that Eric and a few of the girls took-"Magic Shots" that made it look like they were battling Darth Vader.

what it looked like with the brochure folded out:

 details, details:

And, yes...I am still working on that ginormous April kit! Lol! Hopefully, I will have pretty much killed it soon, and I can do a kill a kit post or video!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today, I hope you have a Magical day! See ya real soon!

Wonderful Wednesday, and a little more scrapbook sharing...

Still working on sharing some of the pages that I have made over the past few weekends. Here are a couple of Disney pages that I made with a past Counterfeit Kit, my August World Traveler kit:

The first layout that I am sharing is a good example of using memorabilia on a layout. I used my mini stapler from American Crafts to attach the "Times Guide" from Hollywood Studios at the top, and I left the bottom loose, so that I could flip it up if I ever wanted to look at the back side.

Of course, it is rumpled from hanging out in my camera bag while we were in the park, but I love that about it! It really makes my page more authentic.

This next page is just a photo of me taken on the carousel at Magic Kingdom, and I love the happy feeling it gives me!

Both pages have many things that I love-colors, paint and splatters of mist, lovely little bits and pieces. What could be a better representation of the happiest place on earth?

Disney Scrapbooking...Hollywood Studios

We went for a Star Wars weekend, and it was sooooo hot! Here's a peek at some of our memories:

Magic Monday with Mickey

Good morning! Just popping by to share couple of layouts with you this morning! Today's layouts feature our meeting with Sorcerer Mickey in Hollywood Studios. This was a great character meet and greet for us, with very low wait times. We were able to see Mickey and the Incredibles in less than an hour. It was also our first time to actually talk to the "main mouse" himeself.
The layouts were made with bits from my June Counterfeit kit, and other various leftover bits and pieces from other past kits.

 My youngest, Cecilia made the mouse ears paper for me with some Sharpies, so I had to find a way to use it, and I thought that a page about Mickey himself was perfect for it. She was so excited when she saw that I used it for a page!

This next layout came mostly from my Counterfeit kit, along with a few left over bits and pieces from previous kits, like the circle border sticker from my May add-on kit, and other various scraps.

Thanks for stopping by this morning to share in another "Magic Monday" with me! Have a "Magical" day!

P.S. Can you believe it's almost time for the July Counterfeit kit challenge reveal? I am busy editing my photos for that, and preparing for a baby shower that I will be hosting for my little sister later this month. I can't wait to share it all with you guys!

What Do You Do When It's Cold Outside?

What do you do when it looks like this outside?

(Yes that's an inch of ice on my driveway!And on everything else-my dog doesn't even want to pee on the grass a.k.a ice needles)
My front steps are a sheet of ice:

and the plants and trees are covered:

So...I stay inside! My kids sleep in...and my poor hubby has to go to work anyway! I don't watch as he slips down the driveway, and just hold my breath and pray as he drives away. He is a good driver, and he did learn to drive up in central Illinois, so he knows how to drive on snow, but it doesn't mean I don't worry!
 As the kids sleep, watch tv, and just generally enjoy their day off school, I scrap our vacation photos and dream of warmer weather. Here are a few of the pages I have made in the last few days:

All of these layouts came from my January Counterfeit Kit (which I am finally very close to using up-YAY!) I will be linking up with Disneyscrappers for these 4 layouts. Thanks for stopping by-I would love for you to let me know how you spend your snow days!

Dinner at The Derby (Hollywood Brown Derby)

During our 5 days at Disney, we only did one table service meal (there are so many fantastic snacks, and who really wants to sit around eating for a couple of hours while you're at Disney world, anyway?) I have to say that this was a fantastic meal, though- everything I tried was excellent! We tried out one of the signature restaurants in Disney's Hollywood Studios, The Hollywood Brown Derby.

The Hollywood Brown Derby Dining Room:

(photo from the My Disney Experience website)

I loved the light fixtures and caricatures on the walls:

Instead of ordering entrees for the adults- we ordered several appetizers and desserts, so that we could try a variety of things. 

I ordered the "Portsmouth Lobster Bisque

with a Lobster Fritter and Jalapeño Oil":

 

  

and the 

Blue Lump Crab Spring Rolls

Snow Crab Claw, and an Asian Slaw with spicy Miso Aïoli:

The spring rolls were the best spring rolls I have ever had, and the soup was so yummy I almost forgot to take a picture!

Eric ordered the famous Cobb Salad (the Cobb Salad was made famous by the original Hollywood Brown Derby in California)

with Finely Chopped Greens, Turkey Breast, Bacon, Egg, Tomatoes, Crumbled Blue Cheese, Avocado, Chives, and Cobb Dressing:

 (photo source)

I thought it was very good, except for the blue cheese-not a big fan of that!

And he ordered the

Andouille-crusted Prawn

over Black Diamond Cheddar Grits, Wilded Greens, and Ancho Oil:

 Also very good-especially the grits for this southern girl! If you try them, it will totally change your opinion of grits! Creamy perfection!

Even the kids' fish and chips were great!Caitlin had a Cobb salad too, but she wished she had left off the blue cheese-she thought it tasted like perfume.

My favorite part of any meal is dessert, so we ordered a couple of Dessert Trios:

The desserts we chose:

Chocolate Sphere with Hazelnut Praline Chocolate and Orange-White Chocolate Mousse,

Milk Chocolate Crémeux with Mojito Concoction on Almond Rocher, Amaretto Flan and Opalys White Chocolate Whip with an Almond Cookie; Brown Derby Original! Mini Grapefruit Cake, Double Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée, and the Warm Blueberry Cobbler with Crème Fraîche and Orange Blossom Honey.

This was the most popular dessert with the kids:

 

And, while I agree that it was very good, my favorite was the Warm Blueberry Cobbler-so yummy!

Or, maybe, it was the Mango Margarita-so refreshing on a 97+ degree day!

Have you done table service meals at any of the Disney parks? What were your favorites? I would love to know!

Exhausted...Exhilarated...

And...just like that, our vacation is over, and it's time to get back to the "real" world. Between 5 days at Disney world, and 4 full days at the beach, it was a long vacation, but it seemed to go by so quickly! And, of course, I took lots and lots of photos, so I plan to share some of the photos and stories to keep a record of them until I get a chance to scrap them. Between my camera, and all of our phones and ipods, we have somewhere around 4000 photos, so there are plenty of pictures and stories to share! Oh yeah, and I purchased the Disney Memory Maker (used to be known as Photopass Plus), so I actually got to be in a few of the photos myself! I truly think it was worth the advance purchase price of $149-we got over 200 photos from it-including characters, rides, and those classic park icon shots of the whole family, so that works out to less than a $1 per photo. Here are some of my family's Memory Maker "icon" shots:

Magic Kingdom:

 We arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 5pm at the 24 hour "Show Your Disney Side" party on May 23rd-which gave our "castle shot" a lovely color/glow.

Hollywood Studios:

After staying at Magic Kingdom until 5 am, we got up a little late for our day at Hollywood Studios-we didn't get started until after noon. Luckily, I was able to change most of our fast passes- the only one I couldn't reschedule a fast pass for was Toy Story Midway Mania, but I was able to get one for Rockin' Roller Coaster instead. We skipped Toy Story-90 minute waits in 95-100 degree heat wasn't even an option in our minds, and there was plenty of stuff to do and see, especially with Star Wars Weekend festivities!

We went back to Magic Kingdom on the 3rd day, and didn't do a castle shot right away, but we did get one after dark:

Love how beautiful the castle is at night!

We definitely discovered the benefit of Evening Extra Magic Hours on this day, but I will share more about that in a later post!

Epcot:

 

Spaceship Earth is pretty beautiful at night, too! Another late start for us-everyone was tired and really hard to wake up-this is the park that I would really love another day (or 3) at to explore. At least we had Evening Extra Magic hours here, too!

Animal Kingdom:

We loved Animal Kingdom, too! This was our check-out day, so we got up early, packed the van and cleared out our room, then we took the resort bus over to DAK for the day. We were running when we entered, to make our Kali River Rapids fast passes, so we got this shot at the end of the day.