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!

A Disnerd Birthday Adventure, part 1: Decorations

My birthday party was AWESOME! I'm still kind of on a high from all the fun I had that night. Actually, I can't really think of anything that would have made the party better, other than having my family and other close friends there. In fact there is so much epic-ness to cover that I need to break this up into a few posts.

First we will begin with my favorite element of the party: decorations! (This is a long post but it's mostly pictures.)

Those of you who know me or who have been following my blog have probably figured out that I'm a bit of a craft nerd. So I held nothing back at the challenge of creating a Disnerd-ified space on a budget.

Here's what I came up with!

Everyone at the party kept asking me, "How did you come up with all of this?" Well, part of it was my own creative genius, obviously. But the other part was lots of time on Google. The Internet is pretty handy, I must say. ;)

I started with the idea that I was going to use Disney children's books purchased at Goodwill as my materials. I bought these 14 books for a steal, $25! (Sorry to Goodwill shoppers, there are no longer any Disney books in stock.) From these books I made garland, ornaments and coasters.

Garland
Materials needed: 2-inch hole punch, string, scotch tape

Basically I punched holes out of the paper and taped them along the string. It was pretty simple though admittedly took a very long time. In the end I think I must have made, oh I dunno, maybe 250 feet of garland? That's a rough guess. Before I put them up I laid it all out across my living room. But this is actually only a portion of it here.

I had planned on just making garland when I bought the books, but I realized I had so much paper than I should probably do some other stuff with it as well. After some Googling and browsing on Etsy, I found these two ornaments that were pretty easy to make.

Pinwheels (from here) 
Materials needed: paper trimmer, stapler, hole punch, string

I used two pages each cut in half lengthwise after trimming the ripped edges. I folded each of the 4 halves into twelfths, accordion style. This was the most time consuming, but I fell into a rhythm by first folding in half, then fourths, to make my folds even. Then I stapled one end together to make a fan.

After all four halves were folded, I stapled the non-stapled ends together to form a circle.

Then I punched a hole through it, tied a piece of string on, and voila!

Lantern balls (from here)
Materials needed: paper trimmer, hole-poker & self healing mat, brads, string

These were a little easier, though it took me a while to figure out that I needed to start with a square shaped piece of paper instead of a rectangle.

I sliced the square into 8 even strips.

Then I pierced two holes through all strips lined up together, about an inch or so away from each end. I fastened the strips together by putting a brad through each hole.

Then I spread out the strips and formed them evenly into a ball shape.

Then I tied string around the top brad, and voila!

Coasters
I had a few board books (for babies) as well as all the hard book covers leftover. So I cut them into 3.5-inch squares and made coasters out of them! Since they have glossy surfaces I didn't need to laminate them. I did add cork board ($3 for a sheet) to the bottom of a few thinner pieces. These coasters were used at the party but I also gave them away as favors for guests. I still have a bunch left if anyone wants some!

 

A few extra things
I also printed out a small poster of my logo and made people sign it at the party, so I could record who came. And I put up the Tangled birthday banner that I got last year at my work birthday celebration.

The bottom line
Total cost for decorations: approximately $36. Not bad, I say! 

Total hours spent: unknown. :) I did this over the course of about 2 weeks. So yes, it took a long time. But seeing the impressed reaction of all my friends made it totally worth it!

Next up: food!

Renaissance Parallels Pt. 5: Love

It's the last of my Renaissance Venn diagrams! I promise. :)

In this final set I focused on love, unquestionably the central theme to almost all Disney movies. But love doesn't necessarily mean romantic love (though 9 out of 10 times it does). I would like to point out the two fathers featured here: Mufasa and King Triton, both of whom give their lives for their child. Mufasa's death is one of the most emotional moments in the entire Renaissance.

It's also notable that Pocahontas shows up the most often, whereas it had very few appearances in the previous sets. This is probably because the love story in Pocahontas is the most overwhelming and dominating (ie: that movie doesn't have much else going on). It's probably not a coincidence that it's my least favorite Renaissance film. I love a good love story, but not when it becomes the whole story, which is kind of Pocahontas' downfall, in my opinion.

So, what did you think? Did I miss any major similarities? What was most surprising/interesting? Leave your comments!

And check out the other sets here:  main characters  |  songs |  villains  |  sidekicks

Renaissance Parallels Pt. 4: Sidekicks

So you wanna be a sidekick.

Sidekickery is a vital job in the Renaissance. Your first order of business is to tell your hero why you're so awesome. You should do this with great panache - song and dance is a must. After you've gotten the gig, your next task is to tell your hero why he's so awesome. (Heroes tend to have identity crises. They're high maintenance like that.) After that, finding some other talent or way to help out is a good idea. If you can fly, you're pretty much set. Otherwise, you should try to work on bossing other sidekicks around. That way you establish some authority. It also helps if you have a great sense of humor, know how to train your hero for battle, or hold a position as the king's right hand man.

If all else fails, being chubby and cute works just fine.

Renaissance Parallels Pt. 3: Villains

It's time to talk about villains! There are actually a lot of similarities between them.

A good (and by good I mean bad) villain is a key component to a quality Disney movie. The Renaissance has some great ones, but also some ehhh ones (namely Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas. Man, does he annoy me).

Observations:

• No Shan-Yu (Mulan)! I suppose he could be considered a 'jealous of the king' villain, sort of. Not quite. He's definitely pretty different from all the others. One of the scariest, that's for sure.
• There's only one appearance by the first Renaissance villain, Ursula, who, not insignificantly, is the only female villain of the series.
• Most frequent appearance: Judge Frollo from Hunchback.  
• I'm not actually sure if Hades is the brother of Zeus. I'm forgetting my Greek mythology at the moment. Anyone want to correct/confirm? 
• My favorite parallel is the hilariously similar way that Frollo and Scar confront the main character (Quasimodo, Simba), atop a high place that's on fire (Notre Dame, Pride Rock) and confess the truth that they killed his parent. Villains always seem to want to confess the truth at the climax of the film as they think they are about to triumph. But it never turns out well because shortly after the confession, the hero has a resurgence of energy and defeats them, and they fall to their demise. 
• I also love how villains can never seem to do anything by themselves. They always have their henchmen do the work, only to get frustrated when they inevitably screw it up. If you were a villain, why would you entrust the most important task (killing your arch nemesis) to your stupid sidekicks? This is highlighted in the satirical Emperor's New Groove, but it actually happens in both The Lion King and Hercules. Seriously. Scar and Hades were smart villains. That was their biggest mistake.

Did I miss any parallels between villains?

Renaissance Parallels Pt. 2: Songs

It's another edition of RenVenns! Music is arguably the Renaissance's greatest achievement. I know I've spent a lot more time playing this music on long car rides (when I can sing along, it helps me stay awake) than I have actually watching the movies.

I already wrote about the types of songs featured in these movies, as exemplified by the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack. So here, I present some of the lyric and content similarities.

There aren't too many patterns here, at least none that are surprising. The most common theme in songs are the main character's search and longing for meaning, fulfillment, love, etc. (every movie except Tarzan has a song about this). Makes sense--these are clearly emotions and thoughts that can only be expressed in song. Wouldn't it be awesome if life were a Disney musical? Whenever I was feeling sad, happy, excited, confused, I could just burst out into a musical number and it'd be exactly what I need.

The design is a bit messy because I added in samples of some of the song lyrics. I know that not everyone knows these songs by heart, as I do. 

Renaissance Parallels Pt. 1: Main Characters

I'd like to say that I noticed similarities between all the Renaissance films after watching them consecutively for these past 3 months. But in reality, I created a highly extensive spreadsheet several years ago. Yes, I just admitted that here in the public blogosphere. I figure after 9 months of Disnerdy antics, I don't have much face left to save.

SO, I thought it was about time to turn that spreadsheet into some fun Disnographics! Here's my first edition of "Renaissance Parallels." This first set of Venn diagrams (should I call them RenVenns? Haha. Wow.) focuses on main characters.

I find it interesting that 5 of these 8 parallels are family-related, two of which have to do with father-child relationships. Also, Tarzan, the latest of the 9* movies I'm comparing, shows up 5 times as well. I suppose by the time they got to Tarzan, they just grabbed stuff from all the previous stories? In any event, you start to see how similar these movies are to each other when you look at them like this.

Coming up: sidekicks, songs, villains and a couple others if I can muster up the time. There are a LOT of parallels!

*Rescuers Down Under will not appear in this Disnographic series. It has so little of the same structure, which is why I've always said it doesn't count as Renaissance.

Renaissance Ranked

Well, folks, it's the end of an era. The Renaissance movies will forever remain the best of the best, in my Disnerd opinion. I'm sad that we're moving on, but I've really enjoyed the past 10 weeks! Hope you have to.

You can expect the blog to calm down a bit, but I hope you will still tune in. I've got some Renaissance Disnographics in the works, and believe it or not, there are still about 15 more movies to review! (Yup. That's about four more months, people.)

In case you are curious, here's how I personally rank the Renaissance films. Do you agree or disagree?

1. tie: Aladdin (review) & The Lion King (review)
Top question I've been asked in the past 9 months of Disnerding? "What's your all-time favorite Disney movie?" These two tie for first. They both seem to have that perfect blend of compelling characters, an engaging story, beautiful animation, and awesome music. Funnily enough they also typically get labeled as "boy" Disney movies. Like I've said before, I've never really been into the whole princess thing.  

3. Beauty & the Beast (review)
Just trailing those 2 is Beauty & the Beast, which also has the same quality elements I listed above. I also love the development of not one but two central characters. Their transformations are interesting and compelling.

4. Mulan (review)
The main reason this isn't higher on the list is because of the music. I do love the songs that are on the soundtrack, but somehow they leave me wanting. They're not as classic or memorable as some of the Menken/Ashman stuff. Otherwise though, it's a pretty awesome Disney movie. And Mulan is a pretty awesome heroine.

5. The Little Mermaid (review)
Despite my critique of the film's story, it's hard to deny that The Little Mermaid was instrumental in kicking off a magical era of animation. The movie's demonstration of creativity and fun outweighs its more annoying aspects. I dare you to watch "Under the Sea" and NOT sing and dance along!

6. Tarzan (review)
The relationships between the characters are what make me love this film. It's also beautifully animated and the sequences when Tarzan is flying/surfing through the jungle are impressive. Also, it's hard not to love a movie starring a muscular man in a loincloth.

7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (review)
It's probably the darkest of the Renaissance films, but so interesting and unique for that reason. The Latin choral music-inspired score is pretty epic, and Quasimodo is one of the purest heroes ever.

8. Hercules (review)
As has been said, this film doesn't shine quite as brightly as the others, but it's definitely entertaining, heartwarming and fun. And I will always love Hercules' cinnamon bun ears.
 

9. Pocahontas (review)
Ehh. I think I've already said enough about this one.

10. Rescuers Down Under (review)
The only reason this falls after Pocahontas is because I've never counted it as an actual Renaissance film.

Stay tuned for more Renaissance wrap-up stuff: Disnographics, a summary of my fashion updates, and maybe some other stuff if I have time. :)