Our first family Mickeys in 2016:

Brandon wanted Villain Mickeys for his cruise in 2018!

A couple of years ago, we went on a fantastic Disney cruise!  To prepare for our epic journey, we knew we needed to go all Disney Dork with the door decor.  No flimsy foam or lame laminated paper magnets for us.  No way!  We are a family that appreciates wood and were going to make our own out wood!  Well, we posted the pics of the end results and got lots of questions from folks wanting more information.  For those of you who like to DIY, you can check out the professor’s post here.

It’s funny how things take off (thanks Pinterest!).. but we also got some people asking us to make them some Mickey heads for their cruises (thanks Brandon!).  And these people didn’t just want regular Mickey and Minnie… they wanted crazy dressed up like villain Mickey characters… Oh YEAH! <3 <3 <3

Check out this short video story following the birth of 2 Mickeys:

As we began working on new styles, we started seeing things we could improve in our original design… like Mickey wearing different “outfits” – (think Star Wars!):

Another thing we decided to do was layer the wood to give it a 3D-ish effect.  So, now we put Mickey’s pants on (as a new wood layer) instead of just painting them on.  Here’s a side view of some of our Mickeys to get the 3D look:

Something else we improved on was magnet placement on the back… previously we glued them to the back of the battery pack.  Kinda made it hard to change the batteries.  Now we have one on each side of the head with wooden spacers to make room for the battery pack.

My favorite part is the last step – putting on the names!  We do have a vinyl cutter which rocks because you can do any kind of font you want:  Walt Disney handwriting, Star Wars, Creepy villain, etc.  Here are some pictures of the finished magnets:

I’ve had so much fun making these Disney Cruise door magnets – it’s my second favorite thing to do (comes right after actually going on the cruise!)….  I just go down into the basement workshop where I keep all my mousekatools (see what I did there?!?) and draw, saw, sand, glue and paint the day away.  I hope you have as much fun as I do making these for your cruise!

If you want to make your very own door decoration, head on over to our how-to page to learn how. If you need help along the way,  you can always send us an email and we’ll do our best to help you make one.

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