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!

An Artful Accident: Milwaukee Art Museum

Last weekend I spent the day at the Milwaukee Art Museum with my artsy designer friends, Courtney and Grete. We were there especially to check out a special exhibit on Posters in Paris from the late 19th/early 20th century. I felt very sophisticated and smart talking about design with them all afternoon. (No pictures were allowed in that exhibit, unfortunately.)

Milwaukee Art Museum from the outside - it's a beautiful building!

the main entrance has a really amazing ceiling

After that exhibit we wandered upstairs to check out other things in the museum, and what did we come across?

An exhibit about Disney animation!!! 

Needless to say, I was really excited. Even though the exhibit was clearly designed for people who are three feet tall.

The entrance to the exhibit featured my favorite character from The Incredibles: Dash!

The exhibit displayed how Disney artists were influenced by classical art to create not only beautiful but authentic designs. Art from throughout history have served as inspiration for the animated worlds created in Disney films. I was impressed by the wide variety of work that lent ideas towards a single film's overall look. As a designer myself, it was cool to get a glimpse inside Disney artists' "creative process."

The Beast transformation scene inspired by a Michelangelo sculpture

An antique candelabra and teapot as models for Lumiere and Mrs. Potts

Some of concept artist Mary Blair's inspiration for Cinderella - Picasso, Matisse and Braque

On one wall there was a matching game where you had to match up scenes from Disney or Pixar films with the art piece that inspired them. Grete and Courtney made me play the game to see if I was both a credible Disney and art fan. Since this game was clearly geared towards kids, I was relieved when I got every one correct!

Matching Disney scenes with classic art that inspired them: success!

In addition to the side by side comparisons, the exhibit also featured some original character sketches and scuptures, as well as storyboard excerpts. The Disnerd and art nerd in me were kind of going a little nuts at the chance to see those up close and in person.

An original sketch of Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty

character scuptures from Finding Nemo

Storyboard pictures from various Pixar films

So, it was a wonderful day of nerding out about art. I'm really glad we decided to explore the rest of the museum. What a happy accident!

Disney Mothers

Disney animated films have a lot of missing mothers (Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, for example), and also many evil stepmothers (Tangled, Cinderella, Snow White). Why? I do not know.  I'm sure someone more intelligent and thoughtful than me has a theory. If you've got one please feel free to leave it in the comments! (I've already said some stuff about orphans, a related subject.)

But, since it is Mother's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to supply you with a list of Disney mothers that are present (for at least part of the story) and who demonstrate an immeasurable kind of love, a mother's love.

Mrs. Jumbo: She gets locked up in the "crazy" cage simply for trying to protect her son Dumbo. "Baby Mine" is by far the most memorable mother/child moment in any Disney movie.

Bambi's mother: Here's another example of a mother who gives her life to protect her child. We never see it on screen, but her death has a remarkable impact on viewers of the film.

Fairy Godmother: She's not an actual mother, but she is kind, warm and caring in all the ways Cinderella's stepmother is not. While her bibbidee bobbidee magic is helpful, it's her gentle, loving nature that makes us love her.

Perdita: Anyone who gives birth to fifteen puppies at once deserves to be on a list like this! Not to mention the lengths she goes to in order to rescue her lost puppies. I'm assuming she also adopts the others that come to live with them in the end, totaling 101 children in all. Wow.

Sarabi: Showing great strength after losing both her husband and son on the same day, she does her best to lead the lionesses under Scar's evil regime, and stands beside Simba when he returns to challenge his uncle.

Quasimodo's mother: She's only on screen for the opening song, but her sacrificial love for her deformed child leaves a lasting impression.

Fa Li & Grandma Fa: The only example of multiple generations of mothers, these women deeply care about Mulan, even if they're unsure about how to handle her. Grandma Fa steals the show, proving that old traditional Chinese mothers can be quite funny.

Kala: Perhaps Disney's most well-developed mother character, we see in her a courageous resolve as she adopts Tarzan after losing her own child. She helps him to understand that he belongs, no matter what anyone else says or where life takes him.


Who would you want for your mother? Vote in the poll.

Have a Disnerd Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!