'Tis the Season...

So here we are...the 1st December and the Christmas season has begun.  So let me start for apologising for not writing a new blog post sooner but things have been a little busy of late.

Working in a pre-school at this time of year means lots of things to do from sorting out Christmas presents for all of the children (69 at the last count!) to organising our Christmas Fair fundraiser to preparing for our Christmas concert! Rehearsals have begun already, and we've been singing Christmas songs for the past week!

I have also been working with a good friend of mine, Michelle who was co-host of The Minnie Minxes Disney podcast.  Unfortunately The Minnie Minxes are no more but from the ashes of one podcast rises another - the Disney Dream Girls podcast hosted by Michelle and yours truly!  Simon is busy creating us some artwork and you can already find us on i-tunes.  So if you would like to hear a couple of British ladies talking passionately about their Disney passion give us a listen and join in the fun. Or you can follow us on Twitter @DisDreamGirls, or myself @JaynePhipps for all the latest thoughts and news.

And as today is the beginning of December I have been rather busy getting the house and garden ready for the festivities.  With the help of Simon we have decked the fences and the pathways with lights and my favourite Santa, Snowman and Penguin have taken up their usual position.

Outside lights not captured very well on camera but the sky is beautiful!

This will greet me every night I come home from work :)

My favourite 'illuminations'!

Inside I have dotted around the house numerous Christmas ornaments and two of my three trees are now up and decorated.  I have one tree that is decorated in Gisella Graham ornaments...

Love these quirky decorations

...and then a black tree that is covered in all things silver and white.  

My sophisticated tree, with an appropriate movie poster behind it!

A little Disney has already worked its way in... 

Some of my Department 56 models

Two new Jingle Smells vinylmations

And a little Winnie the Pooh!

...but it won't be until later in the month when we put up a real tree that the full Disney affect is felt!!

I am hoping to get a few more blog posts out throughout December and let you know how my run up to Christmas is going...I might even manage to get some more posts completed about our latest vacation...:)  See you soon x

My Family and Other Vinylmations

Due to having a very talented husband myself, family and friends now find ourselves immortalised in Vinylmation form.

Vinylmations are a plastic figure, in the shape of Mickey Mouse that have been painted to represent all sorts of themes and characters and are available from Disney in their parks and stores.  They have become a collectors delight and have a huge following amongst Disney fans.  They are issued in sets and are bought blind, so part of the fun is trying to get a complete set and then 'swapping' or 'trading' any duplicates.

Over the course of our last few visits to WDW and Disneyland we have, ourselves, purchased the odd one or two.....in fact our son has enjoyed the challenge of finding those knocked down in price and then 'trading' duplicates in order to get the illusive full set!

And for the artistic amongst you there are blank, plain white, vinylmations to buy and 'decorate' yourself.  Now for Simon this was too big a challenge to pass up, as soon as we saw Vinylmations for the first time in the parks he started talking about how fun it would be to paint one and then low and behold we discovered the blank ones!

Initially Simon decided to paint me and him;

Me and Simon with the stack of 365 Mickeys Project

When Simon posted pictures of these online he was 'hassled' by fellow Disney fans to recreate them in plastic form.....so as a compromise (and not wanting to infringe any Disney copyright) Simon created a couple of 2D drawn images for friends Christy & Emma.

But Simon couldn't stop there and after a friend in Japan had sent us a Vinylmation all the way from Tokyo he decided to repay the favour and re-create our friend, Nana, Vinylmation style.

Nana

Along with a special commission from Emma

Emma

And after the success of creating Simon and I in plastic form our two kids were keen to see themselves as 3 inch high figures, so with a weeks holiday presenting itself Simon set himself the task of creating the rest of our family;

The four of us, and me with new eyes - Simon decided to re-do them!!

Not bad going, the detail is amazing and likenesses are uncanny!