A Disnerd Birthday Adventure, part 3: Fashion & Fun

Fashion
I was absolutely GIDDY that the vast majority of my party guests showed up in Disney-inspired outfits as requested. Yes, I indicated that it was not optional, but I kind of expected that some people wouldn't take me seriously. But to my delight, most of my friends participated... or maybe I should say...humored me.

First, my fabulous outfit. :) As you might have guessed, I was Flynn Rider! It's not so much Flynn as it is the actor Zachary Levi that I love. But it seemed appropriate to wear this for my birthday! The teal blouse (Old Navy) and skinny jeans (ModCloth) are both new. So, not quite an outfit on a budget, but I decided they were my birthday gift to myself. Everyone's allowed an exception when they're having an epic birthday.

And here are some of the other fabulous outfits! Click on the pictures to view bigger and read captions.

Thanks to Abi for these photos!

Thanks to Allison for these photos!

Not pictured: Carolyn as Cruella deVil & Amy as Goofy.

After the votes came in, Tiana (Rapunzel), Stephanie (Snow White), Elizabeth (Eeyore) and Kylene (Maleficent) went home as reigning Disnerd Fashionistas! Seriously though, I was super impressed by everyone's outfits. From Cassie's snake skin shoes (Jafar) to Laura's fishscale nails (Ariel), everyone did a great job! I hope you had fun because I sure did!

We also had other fun Disney-themed activities to complete the epic awesomeness. A huge shout-out to Kylene and Mimi for organizing!

Matching Game
Mimi led an icebreaker type game where each of us had a sticker on our back, with either a Disney hero/heroine, villain or a sidekick on it. We had to figure out who we were and then find our partner by asking each other yes or no questions. This was a great way for all my guests to meet each other, since I had friends from different areas of my life. Let it be noted that I was the first person to figure out my sticker (Pinocchio) and my partner (Abi - Jiminy Cricket)! I knew exactly who I was when I asked, "Am I human?" and someone answered, "Um...well it depends." :)

I have no idea what face I am making in the picture on the right.

Karaoke!
Later on in the evening I broke out the Disney karaoke. This may have been my favorite part of the night. I found a whole bunch of karaoke videos on YouTube that I compiled into a playlist. I hooked up my laptop to my TV and we had a whole hour of Disney karaoke songs! It was both heartwarming and slightly disturbing that everyone knew all the words to every song. (I knew I wasn't the only one!) Disney songs work well for karaoke because you are allowed to be both dramatic and silly. Plus, most of the songs are within my vocal range.

why do i look so earnest? and yes, that is a Disney Princess microphone (that someone gave me a while back)

I took a couple videos but this is by far my favorite. Drew totally embraced his Gaston-ness in this clip:

Who What Where
Kylene organized our last game, and by then we were down to about a dozen people. This is when things really got crazy (aren't you all wishing you had stayed longer? haha). We played a Disney version of "Who What Where". It's sort of like Pictionary but a little more involved. In each round we had to pick out pieces of paper with a "Who" - all Disney characters, a "What" and a "Where." Then we had to draw that scene. As you might imagine, hilarity ensued. See if you can guess some of these masterpieces (answers at the end of this post):

my drawing

Laura S's drawing

Amy's drawing

Christopher's drawing

All in all, this was probably the best birthday party I have ever had. I throw a good party, if I say so myself. ;) But it wouldn't have been possible without the help of so many friends, and for everyone who came to celebrate with me. I felt incredibly blessed and cared for that night. It was the perfect way to ring in my 30th year and cap off this crazy Disnerd Adventure! Thanks for being a party of my epic day!

I've got at least 2 more posts coming before I say goodbye, so stay tuned!


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Who What Where answers: (1) Aladdin break dancing in a tent (2) Cheshire Cat bowling in Madison (3) Ursula segue-ing on a mountain (4) Cogsworth pole vaulting in a cave

A Disnerd Birthday Adventure, part 2: Food

The Asian in me loves parties that have exorbitant amounts of food. Like so much that you know you'll never finish it and have to force people to take doggie bags home. To me that's the only kind of party worth having. The problem is that whenever I host a party, I get really stressed out that there won't be enough food and then it's not very fun for me.

I didn't want my epic birthday party to be stressful, so I decided to delegate half of the food to friends and assign myself a lot of the easy prep stuff. This worked out really well! I should do this more often.

I realized that when you have every single Disney animated movie to draw from, you can pretty much make whatever you want and somehow give it a Disney spin. I did spend a lot of time brainstorming food ideas though. I even designed food labels for each item. Blame it on the day job.

Here's what we had (warning: you may want to grab a napkin to wipe the drool off your mouth as you read this!):

Savory Foods:

Pumbaa's in a blanket, made by Kylene & Vicki
haha. I used the "SHE'S GONNA EAT ME!" scene for the label. So ironic.

Koda's smoked salmon on crackers (Brother Bear)
This is seriously the easiest finger food to make. All you need is smoked salmon, cream cheese, crackers and fresh dill! No cooking required. :)

Mushu's fire-roasted dumplings
Also very easy, when you buy them frozen. The handmade dumpling days are gone. haha.

Genie, wake up and smell the hummus!
Here's a little random fact: I always thought he said, "Genie, wake up and smell the homeless!" hahaha. I mean, has anyone ever thought about how Aladdin probably smelled really bad?





Chicken Little Waffles not pictured (somehow I forgot to get a shot of these!):
This was fried chicken on homemade waffles drizzled with maple syrup, made by my roommate Amy, who on the day of my party had only been back from a 10 day trip to Africa for less than 24 hours. Seriously, my roommate rocks. We'll leave out the fact that her first batch of waffle batter used powdered sugar instead of flour. To be fair, the container was unlabeled. :D

Corn dip & blue corn chips (also not pictured...oops!), made by Kylene & Vicki ("blue corn [moon]" is a reference to a lyric in "Colors of the Wind")
I only ate a couple bites of this, but it was SO yummy. I'm still thinking about it a week later. Note to self: get recipe!

Non-Disney:

Steak strips on baguette with caramelized onion and blue cheese
Who cares if this isn't Disney. They were amazing. Once again my roommate is awesome! (I suppose we could have called them Home on the Range steak? But seeing as that my life goal is to forget I ever watched that movie, I didn't think it appropriate to make it part of my birthday celebration.)

 
Sweet Foods:

Cinderella's magic pumpkin cookies, made by Courtney
I actually didn't get to eat any at the party but I had one of the leftovers later. They were goood! I think I'm going to have to ask Courtney to make these again. :)

Snow White mini apple pies, made by Tiana
Um, I'm pretty sure there was poison in these because they were to DIE for. And they were apple-shaped! How cute is that? 

Dalmatian puppy chow
There wasn't really anything dalmatian-y about this chow. But it was easy to make, and a great party food.

Tarzan's tropical fruit
Another easy one! I think all parties need to have fruit. Yep, pulling the Asian card again on this one.

Mickey oreo cupcakes, blonde and chocolate, made by Tiana (sorry the picture is blurry!)
You have to have something Mickey-shaped at a Disney party!

Rapunzel's tower, made out of cupcakes, ice cream cones, and a lot of icing, by Tiana
Um, this was ridiculously awesome! I was in awe of how accurately detailed this was, and even more in awe that Tiana managed to get it to my party in one piece. No one wanted to eat it because it was so pretty!








The finale - cake & punch

 
A Disnerd cake
What's a birthday party without a cake? My friend Stephanie likes to decorate cakes, so we worked together on the design, featuring my special 30th Mickey logo, and symbols from the 4 main eras of Disney animation: the sorcerer's hat from Fantasia, Cinderella's slipper, Aladdin's magic lamp, and the sun from Tangled. It was both gorgeous and very Disnerdy. So basically it was perfect. Thank you Stephanie for the most memorable cake I have ever had!

Pink Elephant punch
A Disney-themed birthday party for a 30-year-old needs a little alcohol. I mean really. So I Googled "pink elephant punch" and found this recipe! I'm guessing people liked it because there was hardly any left at the end of the night, even after making a second batch. Dumbo & Timothy would have certainly enjoyed it.



Amy and I were eating leftovers all week. Actually I still have smoked salmon and dumplings I am avoiding eating. Imagine if I had prepared all the food myself! A HUGE thank you to each and every friend who helped with the food. I really could not have had such a great spread without you! 

Next and last Birthday post: fashion & games!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, belated

Thanks to Disneyland, I now own a Mickey egg mold, which also works as a cookie cutter! You will hopefully be seeing a lot more Mickey-shaped food in the future. :)

Happy Year of the Mushu!

Chinese (Lunar) New Year was never a big celebration in my family, probably because of our Filipino cultural heritage (where January 1st is a much bigger deal). But I thought it was fitting to at least celebrate the Year of the Dragon in Disnerd style, because Mushu the dragon comes from the only Disney film that takes place in China! How fortuitous!

In case you can't see the characters in the zodiac I created very well, here's the list:

• Dragon: Mushu, Mulan
• Snake: Kaa, The Jungle Book
• Horse: Maximus, Tangled
• Sheep/Goat: Djali, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (there aren't any sheep in the Disney films, unless you count the time that Genie transforms into a sheep and tells Aladdin, "Alright you baaaaad boy, but no more freebies!"
• Monkey: Abu, Aladdin
• Rooster: Panchos Pistoles, The Three Caballeros
• Dog: Bolt, Bolt
• Pig: Pumbaa, The Lion King
• Rat: Mickey Mouse! (Mickey's not a rat but he's way cuter.)
• Ox: Maggie, Home on the Range (technically a cow, there are no male ox in any of the Disney movies)
• Tiger: Rajah, Aladdin
• Rabbit: Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh

If you're unfamiliar with Chinese zodiac, check here to find out what year you are. I'm year of the dog.

Happy New Year! Xin ni kuai lok! (This is how you would say it in my dialect, Fukien.)

A Disnerd Christmas

It's another Disnerd holiday! Christmas is a great opportunity to decorate, eat, exchange gifts, eat, watch Christmas movies, and eat (I am so overloaded with sugar from these past couple weeks it's ridiculous). So of course I hosted a Disnerd Christmas party!

First, I decorated my apartment with paper ornaments.These were super easy and cheap to make. I bought a few sheets of Disney paper, a few sheets of Christmas paper, and I was all set. Good thing I'm a scrapbooker and have access to things like paper trimmers and eyelets.

want to make these? check out this website

these are easy and don't require eyelets like the other ones. check out this website.

the finished look.

these ornaments have been up for a while now. I'm very proud of my resourcefulness. I just happened to have the right size ornaments to create these Mickeys!

Then there were of course, the snacks. Thanks to the 'regulars' who brought food! I made Sword in the Stone cupcakes, which basically consisted of frosted cupcakes with sword toothpicks stuck in them. I'd seen other examples of much more elaborate ones, but I didn't have the energy to do it.

Notice that the swords are Christmas colored. I had to pick them out of the box which also had orange, blue and purple toothpicks.

Tiana made Christmas "Sticky Mickeys" - so cute!

After the viewing of Sword in the Stone, we had a "Pink Elephant" gift exchange (Pink Elephant as a tribute to Dumbo, of course!). Here's my gift still in its wrapping. I found this cute Disney Christmas wrapping paper at the dollar store! I also have Winnie the Pooh but I have a thing about finishing a roll of wrapping paper before starting a new one. 

The gifts were mostly Disney themed. Christopher was thrilled when he opened his gift, a Disney Princess flavored lip gloss set. Other gifts included a Disney Guess Who? board game, a Mickey/Minnie rubber stamp and ink pad, Mrs. Potts and Lumiere figurines, and a Tangled coloring book (from me).

The most coveted gift (stolen twice) was a handmade Mickey ring and Minnie earrings, made by Tiana. How awesome are they? By the way, I was the one who got them in the end. hehe. Sorry, Becky. 

After everyone left I made the cookies that I had planned for all of us to decorate together but had given up on because the dough was so sticky. When I was still in the kitchen at 12:30am, I realized that, yup, this Disney blog has officially taken over my life! But um, at least the cookies turned out well!

Yes, I did cut out stencils that spelled "Disnerd" in the Disney font to use on these sugar cookies. As if I needed more proof that I am truly a Disnerd.

Disnerd Christmas goodie bags, which I had to give out the day after the party. Good thing most of my friends work at the same office as me!

I was so touched to receive gifts from Kylene and Vicki, a Disney Christmas singalong CD, and from Christopher and Tiana, a handmade Tangled lantern! Thanks guys!

It doesn't float, unfortunately. But it does light up!

The night also included bonus viewings of Mickey's Christmas Carol, featuring Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge and cameos from several other characters like Mr. Toad, Mole and Rat, Willie the Giant and some Robin Hood peasants. We also watched Small One, another short that tells part of the real Christmas story.

I was exhausted at the end of the night but it was fun. Again, I enjoyed the opportunity to be creative. And I was excited that others joined in the fun by finding or making Disney-themed gifts.There's much fun to be had when you've got a theme and a small budget. :)

Have a Disnerd Christmas, everyone! 

A Disnerd Halloween Adventure

I've made an executive decision (and since I'm the only one running this blog it was pretty easy to get a unanimous agreement) that this year I am going to make all of my holidays Disney-themed. Why? It gives me a reason to post more fun stuff on here, as well as make this blog a community experience, getting other people involved in the Disnerdy-ness. And what better holiday is there to do this to than one where you're supposed to dress in costumes?

It was sort of a big deal that I decided to do something for Halloween because I haven't actually dressed up in a costume for Halloween since I was 6. That was around the time my family moved; the new neighborhood didn't have sidewalks, the houses were much more spread out and it would have been hard to go trick-or-treating. And we lived off a big/busy road so we didn't get any trick-or-treaters either. I didn't actually mind so much, because our mom still bought as candy and that was really the main draw for me as a kid.

So anyway, this year I broke my 23-year-long refrain from wearing a costume and hosted a Disney Halloween costume party! It was actually just my normal Sunday night Disney movie viewing (and as fate would have it, we watched The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad - the most Halloween-ish movie on the list!), but it was a great reason to get creative and have fun.

I'm sure you just want to see the pictures already...in fact you probably scrolled past all of what I just wrote and skipped right to this part of the post. If that's the case, I will forgive you, but only because the costumes are so awesome.

Me: Snow White

 

The breakdown of my outfit: 

• short black hair & brown eyes - got it. probably the only Disney princess I wouldn't need a wig for. (Even Mulan's boy-cut hair is longer than mine!)
• yellow dress - already owned this
• blue velvet jacket with puffed sleeves - already owned this
• red shoes - so, Snow White actually has yellow flats with bows on them. I was tempted to buy a pair but decided my red ones would work just fine. 
• red ribbon - $2.50 at Michaels
• safety pins - $3 at Michaels - used these to pin the red ribbon to my jacket.
• red headband - $1 at the Dollar Store (it actually came in a 6 pack so I also have pink, blue, dark blue, purple, red sparkly, and yellow headbands that I will probably never wear.) 
• white flexible foam - $.89 at Michaels - I tried to make a white collar using the foam but ended up not wearing it cuz it just wasn't working.
• shiny red apple - approx. $.50 at Copp's grocery store, I actually forgot to take this out during my party!

Total Cost: $8! I was super proud of myself for pulling off this look at such a low cost.

Mimi: Muse, Hercules
Mimi was the first to arrive - here she is looking all fabulous as a Muse from Hercules. Notice that she went conservative and did not decide to put a huge slit up the side of her costume. haha. Good thinking, Mimi. I also want to give her points for dressing as an animated character as requested (she was initially planning to come as Jack Sparrow, her favorite Disney character ever.)

Becky: Minnie Mouse 
Becky came as classic Minnie Mouse. Apparently she based her entire costume on this pair of yellow shoes she found at a thrift store. Nice job!

Christopher & Tiana: Mickey & Minnie, The Brave Little Tailor
Christopher and Tiana were Mickey and Minnie from fa Disney short called The Brave Little Tailor. (Actually none of us had even seen it so we all watched it after the main movie - it's super cute, I recommend it!) Their outfits were completely homemade and totally spot on - complete with 4-fingered gloves, as well as a needle and thread in Mickey's brown pouch!

Kylene & Vicki: Aces, Alice in Wonderland
Kylene and Vicki were aces! Ace of Hearts and Ace of Spades, that is. :) Their costumes totally cracked me up! Apparently they had to hand-sew the felt fabric because the iron-on glue stuff they bought didn't work. I'm so impressed! We all decided their costumes were the most Trick-or-Treating friendly - very warm and comfortable!

Grete: Lumière, Beauty & the Beast
Grete's costume was possibly the cleverest of them all! Of course for her, finding gold clothing was not a problem - she already had it all in her wardrobe. I loved the cream-colored legwarmers that she used around her wrists as the wax candles, and gold-spray painted styrofoam bowls around her wrists and neck. 

One of the reasons I decided to have this party was because I knew I could pull off a Snow White costume fairly easily. But I was totally blown away by how everyone else went all out for the occasion -- each and every costume was homemade and super creative! It genuinely warmed my heart to see my friends voluntarily dressed up as Disney characters in costumes that they spent so much time making. And having everyone keep it a secret until I opened the door was pretty awesome (not my idea but it was perfect)!

To top it off, I added a few extra touches to make this an actual party. From the Disney family website, I found instructions to make Mickey Mouse bat decorations, and Mickey Mouse mummy cupcakes. It was a scramble getting them finished before the party (I was in Chicago all weekend and got home just 2 hrs. before the party started) - but totally worth it!

I dunno, this was so much fun I may have to make this an annual tradition.We've already started talking about costume ideas for next year. :)

group pic! shout-out to Abi who did not come in a costume but came to join the fun anyway! :)

some of us wore our costumes to work the following day. i got to carry my apple around since i forgot to take it out at the party. we paraded around the office and some people gave us candy (as well as earplugs and nuts). haha