Disney Inspired Dorm Snacks

Hello everyone and welcome back! I hope you all had a great Parents and Families Weekend and I hope you all enjoyed watching Penn State get a win this weekend! Now, we are in the tenth week of the semester (crazy, I know!) and if you are feeling anything similar to the way I am feeling, the dining hall food is getting a little bit old. You might be saying to yourself, “why, yes, Michala, the food is getting old, but I only have a microwave so what else am I supposed to do?” I can tell you exactly what to do – get some fresh fruits and vegetables from McLanahan’s Produce downtown and make yourself some Disney inspired snacks that are a great way to spice up your typical week of dining hall meals.

The first recipe I want to share with you are these Snow White inspired apple nachos. I absolutely love fall, and Snow White is the classic Disney Princess. What could be better than putting together such a classic character and a classic fall food into this great snack?

All you need for these nachos is an apple, some caramel, and then whatever fix-ins you would like on top of your apple slices (I use walnuts and chocolate chips, but any kind of nuts, peanut butter, or candy would be amazing!). Check out this site for some topping ideas for the nachos.  When I used to make these nachos at home, I always used a corer to pull the core out of the apples and then I sliced the apple to look more like a real chip, but I do not have an apple corer in my dorm, so the first thing you have to do is just slice up your apple into nice slices. Keep the slices about ⅛ inch thick so that when you put everything on top of them, they do not break all apart.

Once your apples are sliced, take a spoonful of your caramel sauce and put it in a microwave-safe container. Put the caramel in the microwave for about 45 seconds, BUT keep an eye on your caramel because you do not want it to burn in the microwave and have your entire dorm mad at you for setting the fire alarms off. Heating the caramel makes it easier to drizzle over the apples and it makes it feel like more of a cozy fall treat. Then drizzle your caramel over the apple slices, sprinkle over your chosen dry ingredients, and enjoy!

The next two snacks I would like to share with you are just a fun way to present some snacks to enjoy. The first is a Lion King inspired snack that I found on Pinterest, with some bell peppers and carrots. You are going to take a white paper place and draw a little lion face in the center of the plate. Then you need to slice up your bell pepper (and if you have large carrots you can cut those guys up too). Then all you have to do is arrange your peppers and carrots around the outside edge of the paper plate to make a lion’s mane. You can enjoy this cute snack with some ranch dressing, or my favorite go to when it comes to vegetables is hummus.

Image Courtesy of Kate Holmes

Another interesting and fun way to change up this dish is to use some fruit slices, like apples and oranges, for the lion’s mane as well.

Image Courtesy of Sefika Savli on Pinterest

The final Disney Inspired snack I would like to share with you is this Mickey Mouse trail Mix. the key to this mix is using mickey shaped things and using mickey mouse themed colors in the mix. I mean, let’s face it, everything is better if it’s shaped like Mickey Mouse!  In my mix, I used some Chex cereal, candy corn, red and yellow m&ms, Mickey shaped cheese puffs, some pretzels, and popcorn. This snack is a good way to combine your favorite snacks all in one and then put it in a container to continue enjoying for a little while.

Image Courtesy of Courtney Burnside on Pinterest
Image Courtesy of Trips with Tykes

Thanks everyone for checking out this blog post. I had a lot of fun coming up with these snacks, and I promise, they are all really good. Let me know if you have know any Disney Inspired foods and please let me know what your favorite Disney Parks snack is if you have ever been to Disney! 

See you real soon!

Disney Costumes for College Students

Image courtesy of Tom Bricker

Hello everyone and welcome back to Bibbidi Bobbidi PSU! This week I want to share with you a couple of Disney costume ideas that you can DIY. Because we are college students, I know that we do not have a lot of money to spend on costumes or, for that matter, we do not have a lot of time to invest in making a costume either. This week, I hope to show you different costumes that are so quick and easy you will have them finished before you can say Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo! 

Image Courtesy of Unique Vintage

The first costume idea is your typical Minnie and Mickey Mouse. All you need for this costume is a pair of ears, a black shirt, and a read polka dot skirt (or for guys, a red pair of pants). Yellow shoes are a must-have when it comes to Mickey and Minnie mouse. If you can’t find any yellow shoes, and easy hack is to just buy a white pair of shoes and spray paint them. White gloves would also be a cute addition to this costume, but they are totally optional.

Image courtesy of Pinterest

Next up, we have Mike Wazowski and Sully! These costumes are two of my absolute favorites, and they are super easy to make! For Mike, you need a lime green shirt, white felt, green felt, and black felt. All you need to do is make Mike’s eyeball out of the felt and then glue it to the shirt. A lime green tutu is a perfect way to finish off this look.

To make Sully, you need a blue shirt and purple felt. Cut Sully’s spots out of the purple felt and glue his spots on the shirt. Just like Mike, a blue tutu will be the perfect way to tie this costume together. I recommend fabric glue of some sort to make sure these costumes stay in tact.

Image Courtesy of Gurl

Finding Nemo is another great Disney movie, and let’s face it, the seagulls are the best characters! This costume is a great way to include a lot of people and make a cute, easy, cheap costume for halloween. First, you will need a shirt and iron-on letters (You could also use black fabric paint and a stencil). Use the letters (or stencil) to create the word “Mine!” on the front of the white t-shirts. Then, all you need is white paper, black paint, and yellow paper. Make a tall crown with the white paper, ensuring it fits your head when stapled together. Give your hat two eyes with the black paint, then cut a triangle out of the yellow paper and glue the beak to the bottom of the hat. Voila! You have your super-easy seagull costume.

Image courtesy of Popsugar

Finally, I want to share with you this Mary Poppins and Bert costume option in case you want to get ready for the release of Mary Poppins Returns this December. This option might not be the cheapest option, but we love a classic Disney movie, even on Halloween! For Mary Poppins, you will need black tights, a black skirt, a white button-up, a red bow tie, an umbrella, a black hat, and a cheery disposition! For the umbrella, you absolutely need the bird head in order to call yourself Mary Poppins for the night. You could simply order an umbrella like this, or paper mache the bird and then glue it on to an umbrella you already have. The black hat is also going to need a little bit of work; you will need some white and red fake flowers to glue around the brim. For Bert, you will need black dress pants, a colored shirt and a black sweater vest, a bow tie, black shoes, a chimney sweep broom, and some makeup dirt. Put it all together and you have got a handsome Chimney Sweep! After a little bit of money, you will be looking supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!

One last word of advice, do not procrastinate making your halloween costume! The process will be a lot more enjoyable if you start early and not on Halloween Eve. Have a great week, and I hope to see you back here next Friday.

See you real soon!

De-Stress with Disney

Hello everyone! I hope you all made the best of the bye-week and had a great weekend, despite the apparent lack of Penn State football in our lives! I am here this week to help you cope with the stress of college through Disney-related activities. So, last week I talked about how legos can be a great way to unwind and spend some of your free time, but there are other Disney-related ways that can help you destress as well.

Image Courtesy of The Mature Mouse

Now, I know that we can‘t all just pack our bags and go to Disney whenever we feel upset, but we can color to relieve some of our stress… I know, it isn’t the same as going to the most magical place on earth, but it works!  I am sure at this point, you all have heard about adult coloring books, and their benefits; believe it or not, Disney also has an adult coloring book collection. (I know, Disney has everything and it is amazing 🙂 ) The coloring book collection is called the “Art of Coloring”, which is very fitting because Disney has many other “Art of…” collections. There is the “Art of Pixar”, “Art of Disney”, there is even a hotel called “Art of Animation” which I will tell you more about in a future blog! These coloring books are a great way to relax and ease your mind if you have free time throughout the day.

These are the coloring books that I currently have, but I am missing one book from the collection and that is the Disney Animals coloring book.

These coloring pages are incredibly detailed and gorgeous. There is an extensive amount of characters represented in these coloring books as well, even having pages of the lesser-known Disney Characters. I have no doubts that this collection of coloring books will continue to expand as more Disney movies are made.

Speaking of movies, another great, simple way to relax is to sit down in your free time and watch a classic Disney movie. Grab your friends, make some popcorn or get some ice cream from the creamery, sit down and RELAX! Sometimes, we just need to afford ourselves the time to slow down every now and again to be able to enjoy ourselves. I think that watching a Disney movie can help us reconnect to our childhood and just make us feel better. I also think that sometimes we need to be reminded of some of the lessons that these movies can teach us.

The third and final way that you can de-stress with Disney is by using Disney inspired essential oil blends (shoutout to Courtney McDowell!). If you take a look at this Instagram page here, you will find hundreds of Disney inspired blends of oils. Essential Oils are great for so many different things, including reducing stress. I encourage you to take a look at this page, even if it is just for fun! Another fun way to use Disney essential oils is to use Disney inspired diffusers. You can find a lot of Disney diffusers here on Etsy. I think you could guess that my favorite one is the Ariel Diffuser (but the carriage necklace is a close second!).

Search Results from Pinterest for “Disney Inspired Essential Oils”

Thank you all for joining me this week. I hope this post will help you manage the stress of college a little bit better. I know that sitting back and watching a Disney movie when I am feeling down always makes me feel a little bit better!

See you real soon!

Disney Legos to De-Stress

Hello everyone! I want to start this week off with a question… did you ever experience the pure joy of building a lego set? I certainly have and I wanted to share the second part of my Disney collection with you this week – my Disney Lego collection!

Legos are a great way to unwind and relax, especially for college students. Legos are kind of like coloring books and reading, they are a way to relax and have a lot of fun, and that is why I enjoy them so much. Small Lego sets also come in a compact box that can be easily transported. Of course, you are limited to smaller sets if you want to bring them with you to college, but that is not a problem! (Also, don’t forget to glue your pieces together after you complete the set or else you won’t be able to take them back home in one piece during summer vacation!)

The first Disney lego set that I put together was a Christmas gift I received three years ago. It was a massive undertaking. It is the beloved Disney castle.

This lego took me longer to complete than I ever could have imagined. I received the castle for Christmas my sophomore year of highschool, I started working on it during Christmas break, and then I worked on it whenever I found the time until I completed it this past summer, before I started college here at Penn State. I was so ecstatic when I placed the last little lego on this giant piece.

I think the castle is so special to me because the designers of this set really took time to put in a lot of detail. If you notice in the photos above, there are pumpkins and roses and a bed and a story book; there are so many little intricacies that make it unique. Disney itself has this magical, unique attention to detail and I think it is important to keep that consistent even in a lego set because it is just more magical that way.  This castle will soon be joining my other collectibles on the shelf above my room.

You might remember me mentioning that Kiss the Girl is my favorite scene from The Little Mermaid, and believe it or not, I have a Kiss the Girl Lego set, too. This set is not nearly as complex as the castle, but it was still extremely fun to put together! I do have one complaint about this set though, Ariel is not wearing her iconic blue dress from this scene in the movie…

Finally, I have these lego sets, which are much newer than the other ones and they have not yet left the box that they came in!

Because this is Bibbidi Bobbidi PSU, I also wanted to share with you my Nittany Lion set! These sets are smaller and not as time consuming as the larger sets, but this makes them the perfect college de-stresser. You can take these sets with you and put them together whenever you need a little pick me up throughout the year. The best part is, once they are complete, they can jazz up your room a little bit, too!

There really is a lego set for just about anything you might be interested in, and I promise you that you will enjoy putting one of these sets together in your free time! Thank you for joining me for this week of Bibbidi Bobbidi PSU, come back next week for some more Disney-related college de-stress advice!

See you real soon!