If you couldn't tell by now, yes, I am in fact a Disney fanatic. A
maniac for Mickey, a goon for Goofy, etc. I'm also writing this post
while jamming out to a mix of Disney songs. The 6+ hour trek to
Disneyland will begin in a few hours and it's time to get in the zone. I
wanted to do something different for this trip to Disneyland (Disneyland only turns 60 once!) and I'm always up for challenging myself to make
new things. After 3 weeks of working on various aspects of this project,
I proudly present my DIY Mickey ears! Curious? Scroll down!
NOTE: this isn't a step-by-step tutorial. It's more like a look into the process of making these ears with some instructions sprinkled in. But I'll include the materials I used below!
Materials
- images of Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto
- felt
- scissors
- two yellow buttons
- foam sheet
- sewing needle, pins and thread
- 2 headbands
- glue gun
There are so many amazing customized Mickey ears in existence, just Google, Instagram, and Pinterest for some magical inspiration. I wanted to incorporate my favorite dynamic Disney duo: Mickey and Minnie. Luckily for me, my boyfriend was down to make his own Mickey ears :) With Pluto the non-planet making waves in the headlines recently, he decided to go for a double Pluto theme. I chose to make felt appliques of Mickey and Minnie's faces as well as their backsides. I Googled images of Mickey and Minnie and traced/sketched them. Then I cut out the images to make stencils.
Mickey and Minnie stencils.
Next came the painstaking process of cutting felt. Fortunately and unfortunately, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to arts and crafts. So naturally it took me a week to cut out all the pieces, trim them, and start all over until they were acceptable. It was essential to get Mickey and Minnie's facial features as close to the real images as possible otherwise they would look like knock-offs. I wanted them to look like Mickey and Minnie, not Mike and Minna (see below)..
As much as I loved minimalist Minnie I had to do her entire face, including hand-stitching her eyelashes and other facial features.
I used yellow nail polish to paint these white buttons yellow. I first tried out yellow felt for the buttons but I thought the buttons would add a special touch to Mickey's backside lol.
After all the felt cutting it was time to sew the pieces together. I started working on Mickey and Minnie's backsides first. Each dot on Minnie's bow is sewn on, as are Mickey's yellow buttons.
Progression of Mickey!
Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto!
I traced a can to make my template and connected the two circles to make my ears. I then cut apart old jeans to make the Minnie and Mickey and used felt for the Pluto ears. And then more sewing. I had to sew each completed piece onto the ears template. Make sure you check that your faces are placed in the right direction. I had to sew Pluto twice -___-
The story behind the Pluto ears: while brainstorming Mickey ear ideas, my boyfriend brought up the photos NASA's New Horizons took of Pluto the former planet. He heard that you could see a heart on Pluto's surface while I heard that Pluto the dog's face was on Pluto. As a result, his Mickey ears include both perspectives. How cute are the "o's" in Pluto?
I found many tutorials online that explained how to hot glue foam sheet circles to make your Mickey ears sturdy and stand upright. I was extremely nervous about gluing the ears. I only had one shot to do it correctly because the entire process of making the faces was worthwhile, but ridiculously long! My anxiety faded away once I realized that the ears stood nicely! :)
Since I was scared that the ears would flop around, I sewed down the headband to the foam sheet circle. I then hot glued the ears together.
The completed ears :) I was worried that the edges of the Mickey and Minnie ears would unravel since I used denim. I ended up using Mod Podge to seal the edges.
Can you tell which Pluto ear I made and which my boyfriend made? I helped my boyfriend make Pluto's face and the corresponding letters for that ear. He made the planet face, heart, and letters for the other ear! He even learned how to sew haha. He did awesome :) The couple that crafts together gets decked out to go to Disneyland together. Fact.
I absolutely love our ears! Wish us luck that the ears survive our Disneyland trip. They better since I made a box to put them in when we go on rides that aren't safe for ears lol.
Thank you for following along with my four-part Disney DIY series :) As a lover of all things Disney, I definitely enjoyed making all of these projects. I'm sure there will be a part five in the near future! A question weighing heavily on my mind is how many of these projects I can wear to Disneyland at once..
♥ Justine
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