Halloween LEGO Heads

These LEGO Halloween heads are such a fun way to store LEGOs. And they double as decor, so you leave them out all of spooky season. I found mine at Marshall's and TJ Maxx, so they were actually quite affordable.

Vintage Mickey Mugs

I love finding vintage Mickey Mouse collectibles. These milk glass mugs are my latest discovery. The Fantasia mug and the Steamboat Willie mugs are part of a Pepsi collection from the 1980s made by Anchor Hocking. The center mug features both Mickey and Minnie and was created by Federal Glass in the 1970s. So fun!

Skeleton Dance Fun From ShopDisney

All images: Disney

A new Halloween collection has arrived at shopDisney and it looks amazing. All of these items in the Frightfully Fringe collection were inspired by one of my favorite spooky cartoons: Skeleton Dance from 1929. The set of Four Glasses, each with a different design from the short, and one with a frightened Mickey, sell for $39.99. 

There are also Four Plates that match the glasses. The plates are made of ceramic and sell for $49.99.

This Table Runner features delightful dancing skeletons. The cotton runner is 60"x17" and sells for $59.99

This delightfully macabre Glass Carafe is 10" tall and features a Skull shaped stopper. The carafe is available for $34.99.

An Ice Bucket and Tongs featuring the grim skeleton and the howling cats is available for $49.99.

This spooky Tray features a terrified Mickey being confronted by a group of skeletons and sells for $39.99.

A Sketchbook Ornament with a dancing skeleton and howling cats is available for $22.99.

This delightful Crossbody Bag features multiple scenes from the cartoon scattered across its surface. It's available for $29.99.

And finally, this Bucket Hat has a row of dancing skeletons embroidered on the front and "Disney Cartoons Presents A Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance" embroidered on the back. It sells for $29.99.

Jim Shore's Madame Leota Is Spooktacular

Jim Shore

"Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat;

Call in the spirits, wherever they're at."

Are you a fan of Disney's Haunted Mansion? Have you always longed for a ghost to follow you home? Or perhaps you just enjoy drifting through Madame Leota's seance room. If this sound like you, the Jim Shore's latest figurine will be the perfect souvenir. 

Madame Leota floats above her table, watched over by a raven in Jim Shore's delightfully distinctive style. This figurine, which is a Park Exclusive, should arrive in Disneyland and Disney World this June. Will you be adding it to your collection? 

Photo of the Week

It's just a bunch of Hocus Pocus! There's an amazing collection of Hocus Pocus merchandise at World of Disney in Disney Springs. I especially liked the Crocs and Binx pitchers.

Photo of the Week

This mischievous kitty has claimed my Pirates of the Caribbean blanket for her own. Apparently I'm not the only one who loves Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner.

Haunt Your Home With These Printables From Disney

All images: Disney

Disney has a fun new series of Paper Parks printables to haunt your home. The black and white images are designed to be cut out and colored before turning them into amazing 3-D models. 

Part I includes:

• a miniature version of Disneyland's pumpkin topped gates
• a "Welcome Foolish Mortals" sign
• Haunted Mansion paper chains 
• bat stanchion decorations
• ghostly shadow puppets

Part II is perfect for a Haunted Mansion party:

• a placemat inspired by the gate sign
• phantom five cup sleeve
• napkin rings
• gargoyle place card holders
• Doom Buggy snack box

Part III is a model of the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion complete with:

• entrance gates
• hitchhiking ghosts
• conservatory
• and portrait chamber

Part IV includes more rooms for your Haunted Mansion model, including: 

• Madame Leota's seance room
• ghostly ballroom dancers
• cemetery accessories 
• As well as Hitchhiking Ghosts masks

These printables would be a fun activity for the whole family. Just click on the links to download them from the Disney Parks Blog. You'll have a hauntingly good time.

Photo of the Week

My cousin sent me this adorable Hula Stitch diamond painting kit last fall. I finally got around to finishing it this week. It's so cute and fun to do that I'm ordering another one!

Vintage Disney World Coasters

I love finding vintage Disney collectibles at thrift stores and garage sales. Most of the time, I find things from the 90s and later, but every once in a while, I find something really fun. Yesterday, I discovered these 70s era Walt Disney World coasters at Habitat for Humanity. The set originally had four coasters: Main Street USA, Adventureland, Liberty Square, and Fantasyland, which was missing. The images are painted on a smoke colored glass with lots of gold accents. The funny thing is, a few years ago, I picked up a candy dish in the same style. I love finding quirky items like these to use around the house.

O Christmas Tree

My tree is finally decorated, if a bit eclectically, with many of my favorite decorations. I haven't had a tree this big in ages, so it was fun putting on a random assortment of ornaments I've collected over the years. There are ones from my childhood and ones that represent places I've been or things I've done, and many that feature my favorite Disney characters. Opening up the ornament boxes and unwrapping each treasure is like taking a long walk down memory lane. I look forward to it every year.

Haunted Mansion Inspired Diningroom Decor

While wandering through Disney Springs last week, I discovered the most amazing new Haunted Mansion inspired home decor. While the price for pretty much any of it is way out of my budget (I can't imagine spending $4000 for a chair), I love the way it looks.

There are two different chair styles: one with arms for the Ghost Host.

And a side chair for the other ghostly guests. The chairs may be ridiculously pricey at $4000 and $2000 each, but I love the shape and the wallpaper inspired fabric.

The placesettings are simply gorgeous and subtly spooky. The bowls have a Haunted Mansion crest in the center of each, while the plates have a metallic border of flourishes and bats.

There are even two different colors of placemats. One has the wallpaper design in purple to match the chairs and the other is done in a yellow-green stripe. Gargoyle candlestick holders, patterned after the sconces in the Mansion, really elevate the look.

Finally, there are at least two styles of napkins, each featuring a black and white rendition of one of the stretching portraits from the Mansion. The first shows the totem pole of men being swallowed by quicksand.

The second is the half-dressed man standing on a keg of dynamite. The entire collection can be purchased at the Co-op Marketplace in Disney Springs, but the chairs must be special ordered. Would you deck out your diningroom in Haunted Mansion style?

40th Anniversary Star Wars Bedding at Target

I found the coolest bedding at Target the other day. It's an entire line of Star Wars 40th Anniversary sheets, comforters, blankets, and pillows.

Two of the pillows feature artwork from the original posters for Star Wars. The third, has a black and white photo of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and Han Solo, along with character autographs.

There are also two different sets of sheets. One features constellations in the shape of tie fighters and Darth Vader's helmet on a grey background.

The second set reminds me of the Star Wars sheets from the 1980s. They're light grey with an X-wing, a Tie Fighter, and the Millennium Falcon leaving rainbow trails across the sheets. Very retro.

The quilt, which like the sheets is available in twin to queen sizes, is also grey, with a black silhouette of the rebel symbol with a flight of X-wings. It also comes with a sham with several different ship silhouettes and letters that spell out "Rebel".

Finally, my favorite item is a throw. It's a lovely, rich shade of black that would be appropriate for many decorating styles. And woven into the front in white letters, is "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." I love it!

I Love My New Mickey Bathroom

So, I decided that our new house needed a little extra Mickey. After all, you can never get too much of the mouse, right? My latest Mickey project was the second floor bath that Bean and I share. The bathroom is very spacious for a guest bath, but was painted the most hideous colors when we moved in. The tub and sink area were a sort of dark royal blue and the toilet area was a rather unfortunate brown. The colors were definitely not me!

To begin with, I had to remove all of the hardware and fill a ton of holes in the walls. We decided to change out the curved shower curtain rod for a straight one because the door had been slammed into it one time too many. The mirror was missing when we moved in and the light fixtures just weren't the right style, so I took those down, too. And it was a good thing I did; there were no electrical boxed behind the lights and the holes were just knocked into the wall as though with a screwdriver. After installing boxes and a lot of patching, I was ready to paint.

First, I painted on two coats of Kilz on the walls to block the old colors and hide any stains. Then I painted on a pale yellow. It took three coats to get good coverage. Next, I put in the new, fun, bubbly-glass lights. Which was when I realized that the wall color was way too green! Ack! Back to Lowes for more paint. This time, I picked a brighter yellow from Valspar called Chickadee. I got it home, put two coats on the wall, and discovered that it perfectly matched the shoes on Bean's toy Mickey! Exactly what I was looking for!

Next, it was time for mirrors and not just any mirrors would do. I got two 22" round Kolja mirrors from IKEA and two sets of 5 small, round, black-framed mirrors from Kirklands, one 11", two 9", and two 7" (Home Depot has a similar set by Martha Stewart, but they were more expensive.) I hung one large mirror centered over one sink at a height that Bean could use and the other one over the second sink at a perfect height for me. Then I added two 9" mirrors for the ears. Voila! Mickey head mirrors. We used the remaining 11" and 7" mirrors to make smaller Mickey heads on the other walls. My dad offered to make frames for the 22" mirrors so that the look will be more Mickey.

I changed out the faucets as well. The old faucets were the ugly, single lever kind that always seem to break. The new faucets, which were fairly inexpensive at Lowe's, are classic and fit the design well. We really wanted the one's that resemble Mickey hands, but couldn't find any at a reasonable price.

The Mickey touches for the tub/shower were easy. A few months back, Target had a black and white and red Mickey bath set. The shower curtain, rug, and shower curtain rings from this collection were purchased at Target on clearance. The shower curtain rings are Mickey head shaped and spell out Mickey twice. I would have though they would spell out Mickey Mouse with a blank Mickey head in the middle, but no such luck. A second solid black Mickey head rug was purchased at Walmart.

There are a ton of fantastic Mickey accessories available for the bath, and I just had to have a few of them. I even found a cotton ball holder and soap dispenser shaped like Mickey's head! A second solid black Mickey head rug was purchased at Walmart. And while we were down at Disney World last October, we picked up two of the Mickey Glove bath mitts. Bean has a Minnie soap dispenser, also from Target, that came filled with lemonade scented foamy soap. She loves that it's Minnie and I love that you can refill it with any foaming soap, although for us it's got to be Bath & Body Works foaming soap. (I'm a total Bath & Body Works addict, if you hadn't noticed.)

The bathroom had lots of storage space already, but the area around the toilet looked unfinished, so I added a couple of Fullen cupboards from IKEA. They are a great place to store extra toilet paper and soaps as well as offering a chance to display pretty bottles of perfume. I also added a medicine cabinet to the left of the sinks. I always think it's a good idea to have one and when I found this one on clearance at Lowe's, I couldn't resist. I planned to add glass shelves over the toilet for some additional Mickey displays, but my sister thought we should put a framed Mickey poster there instead. I thought it would be fun to display some of our ever-growing collection of Vinylmation there, as they were taking over the top of the bookshelves in the living room. In the end, we compromised; we put glass shelves above the cupboards for the Vinylmation and bought a poster to replace the mirror above the toilet. We are also on the lookout for some ceramic Mickey glove shaped knobs to replace the silver ones on the sink cupboards and storage cupboards.

The glass Grundtal shelf under the window is also from IKEA. It's the perfect place to keep plants as the window itself was too small. However, when the plants died, I decided to use it for additional Vinylmations instead. The towel bar on the linen closet door seemed like a good fit due to the white ceramic knobs on the ends, and there really wasn't a good place to add a large towel bar, so, it works. I opted for solid black, yellow, and red towels for the main towels, although we have several Disney character towels as well. I especially like Bean's Minnie Mouse hooded towel. It even has Minnie gloves on the top corners and mouse ears on the hood.

I've had a blast bringing a little more Mickey to this bathroom and really love how it turned out. It was a lot of hard work and took a ton of paint, but it was definitely worth the effort. I hope you like it as much as we do!