My Favorite Pins #7

1 I love this image. So pretty!
2 This is such a cute idea. All the places you have been cute out of maps.
3 I'd like to make something like this.
4 Love the way this jewelry is displayed on the wall.
5 Love this quote! I may paint it on a large canvas.

You can follow me on Pinterest HERE. :)

Collecting Disney Vinylmations

I wanted to devote an entire blog post to collecting Vinylmations. I have used information from Wikipedia to first explain what Vinylmations are and other basic information about collecting them. I tried to type it out myself, but I was rambling way too much. I figured it was best to use their information for this post. So lets start with the basic facts first.


Vinylmation is a brand of 1.5", 3", and 9" vinyl collectibles sold at Disney theme parks, select Disney Stores, and the online Disney Store. The name Vinylmation is a combination of the word Animation and Vinyl. The figures are all shaped like Mickey Mouse but have different themed markings, colors and patterns. Vinylmation was first introduced in July 2008, and the first figures were introduced in November 2008.



Trading of figures is officially encouraged and practiced at Disney locations in a fashion similar to Disney pin trading. There are designated places where guests may trade figures with cast members. Trading now takes place at select Disney Stores as well. Disney Parks allow people to trade in their Vinylmations for either one out of a mystery box numbered one through 24, or for one in a small clear case. If you do not like the Vinylmation from the mystery box then you may trade with one of three in a clear case that you can see which ones there are. You can trade them in at most stores throughout Walt Disney World, the Disneyland Resort, and in several Disney stores.



Vinylmation figures are sold in sealed packaging. The purchaser does not know which figure they are buying until they have opened it. Each figure belongs to a series and all of the figures in a series are printed on the packaging for that series and the series comes in a large box. Each series has one unknown figure, termed the chaser. Some come with cards, stickers or another figure to make a set. In addition to being a mystery figure the chaser is also the rarest figure in each series. Limited edition nine-inch figures are also sold and these are visible without opening the packaging. 3" figures can be purchased by the case. Each case comes with 24 vinyls: 2 of each known design, and 1 mystery chaser. To accommodate the chaser, one of the 11 known designs appears 3 times in each case.


Above you can see Cody standing in the store called D-Street located at Downtown Disney. This is the best store to go to for purchasing Vinylmations. They have the largest selection. The store is basically all Vinylmations and is known for good trading. We went to D-Street many times in hope of finding some good Vinyl trades! D-Street also has a great selection of urban art and collectables...


As you can see above, there is also a great selection of open box Vinylmations to collect. Not all of them are mystery boxes. This is great for those who don't want to end up with a bunch of duplicates. We went on our Disney vacation we had 27 trades (duplicates). It was so exciting trading our entire vacation. Our duplicates were all paid for already so we ended up trading them all to get "new" ones to add to our collection! I actually ended up completing a series/set also! I was super excited about that! One of the best things about going to D-Street is all the Vinylmation eyecandy...


They have an entire table and display of Vinylmations. If you are really into collecting it almost is torture because all the "harder" to get Vinyl's are in that table behind a thin piece of glass. You honestly just want to take a hammer to it and grab them! HA! You see many Vinylmations behind that glass that are worth 1000's of dollars! Yes, I know, CRAZY!


So what Vinyl's did we end up with while trading on our vacation?
Here is Cody with our very first trade!

We were very excited to end up with this lime green guy. He is an older Vinylmation that retailed at $15 originally and is a few years old. I always wanted him! It was a good way to kick off our trading. We also traded for him at our Disney resort. That's another perk of trading. All the resorts have Vinyl trading. It makes it easy to trade every morning before heading to the parks! Now I am going to flood you with more photos! Below is everything we came home with. (Some were purchased)


Aren't the above guys awesome? They are 9" Vinyl's that were purchased at the Orlando Disney Outlet store. They all retailed at $45 each originally and we paid less then $15 each for them. We don't have many of the 9" Vinyl's because they are so expensive. Some are even priced at $74! I think that's insane, so we only purchase sale ones.

Now for all the little guys...
Cody added a few more Star Wars figurines to his collection...
I purchased the entire set below for $20 at the outlet.
They are all so fun to look at. I really look forward to displaying them in our new house. A great way to learn more about Vinylmations is by visiting the Disney Vinlymation blog HERE. It keeps you updated on new Vinyl's that are coming out. The Disney online store runs some good sales occasionally on Vinylmations. You can also view the Vinylmation vault HERE to see all the series! Collecting Vinylmations becomes addicting. My collecting has slowed down because I feel like I have a lot. I don't even know how many I have, but I will tally them all up once I start decorating with them. :)

If you want to view all my posts about Vinylmations click HERE.
To view all my posts from my Disney Vacation click HERE.

Wood Floors & Fur Babies

Today I finally hooked up my computer. Sadly it's sitting on my kitchen table because my desk is still at our old place waiting for me to take it apart. Everything with our move happened so fast that I didn't have enough time to schedule a bunch of blog posts in advance. I know you will all forgive me. :) Once Thanksgiving weekend is over things will start to become normal for me again. I will get back to my normal routine. So what has been happening at our new house this week???


I've been taking some photos of the house to capture "before" images. Even though the above photo will probably never "change". I love my vintage mailbox! We may change our house numbers to something a little bit more eye catching.

Our Fur Babies are adjusting well.

They all handled this move like little champs! No crying hardly and no puking in the car. That's always an added bonus. Besides some unpacking this week, I have just been pondering paint colors and realizing how much work the house does really need! It's a lot of updating and painting. It will be fun. I am just so ready to get started!!! One thing that I did this week, because I just couldn't help myself, was ripped up carpet in one of the basement bedrooms...


YES! The basement has wood floors! Can you even believe it? The bedroom above and our family room both have wood floors. It's going to be so pretty. I wasn't sure what Cody would think of me ripping up the carpet by myself without him. I was scared he'd be jealous and upset with me, but he wasn't. He was very happy to see the floors.


I wish you guys could have seen the grin on my face when we first walked through the house and we realized there were hardwood floors in the basement also! I had an ear to ear smile. I think wood floors are so pretty.


This weekend we hope to pull all the nails and staples in the floor and actually move some furniture in to the space. This room is going to be our shared office space. Probably painted a shade of mint green and decorated with my vintage toy collection. Should be fun! I have two other rooms to paint upstairs first though. I am vowing to myself to only do one room at a time and FOCUS! Trust me, this is not an easy task for me.

I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving and weekend! If you are going shopping on Friday, please be safe. People are crazy out there. I don't go shopping anymore on Black Friday. I have too bad of a temper to deal with the crowds. HA!

MOVED INTO OUR NEW HOUSE

Over the weekend we moved into our new home. It's crazy that we are already sleeping here! My life feels completely turned upside down because there is stuff EVERYWHERE. This was the quickest and most disorganized move EVER in my life. It just all happened so fast. We made the offer on the house and it was ours almost right away! It took us all weekend to get all of our stuff in our new house and 3 trips with the truck.


The above photo was our first load. It took forever because it was mostly boxes. It was like putting a puzzle together! We have so much stuff. Which is a pain, but I love to decorate and have many collections!

This is our old place before we started packing!
I can't wait to not look at boxes anymore!!!

I am going to try to keep up with my blog this week, but my house is so disorganized! I am sad to not be able to keep up with all my blog reading either. I have to unpack and make some sense of the mess! Plus, we are having Thanksgiving at our house with our friends. It will be our first all Vegan Thanksgiving. We are pretty excited about it! If I am missing some great stuff on your blog, please tell me about it in the comments below.


I hope everyone had a great weekend! :)
If you missed my first post about our new home you can see it HERE.

Recipe: Homemade Chips and Cheddar Cheesy Sauce

I wanted to share a recipe today that Cody and I recently tried. We don't buy store bought chips anymore because they are loaded with fat, oil and all kinds of other processed stuff. Of course the "Cheddar Cheesy Sauce", has no cheese or dairy in it. It's all strictly Vegan and YUMMY.

This recipe is from The Happy Herbivore by Lindsay Nixon

Ingredients for the Cheddar Cheesy Sauce:
1 1/4 cup of non-dairy milk
1/3 cup of nutritional yeast
2 tbsp yellow miso
2 tbsp cornstarch, we used arrow root powder
1 tsp granulated onion powder
1 tsp granulated garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tumeric

Whisk all the ingredients together in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat to low, stirring frequently until it thickens slightly.
Very simple.

Now lets make the chips! For ours below we did them a bit differently then Lindsay's recipe.
Here is what we use:
1 10oz package of 8-inch corn tortillas
Salt & Pepper
Cooking Spray
Non-stick foil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut the tortillas into little triangles.

Once you have all your chips cut, you will lay them down on the cookie sheets!

Lightly spray your chips with your spray oil. We only do one side of our chips.
Now season your chips. We only used salt and pepper for this batch.


After they bake for about 5 minutes, you have to pull them out and flip them over.
Then put them back in for at least another 5 minutes or a little longer.
It's kinda a trial and error thing depending on how crispy you want them.

There you go! Vegan style cheese sauce and homemade chips! Here is a short video of me trying the cheese sauce for the first time!


I highly recommend all of Lindsay Nixon's books!
She is really proving to the world that eating a plant based diet is easy and delicious.
Visit her website HERE.

I am working towards making my recipe posts better. I used to only post one crappy picture of the finished meal and the recipe typed out. I didn't feel like it was enough. This is my third recipe post with pictures of the whole process, what do you think? Do you have suggestions on how to make them better or something more you'd like to see? Please let me know. :)

Sponsors & Friends // November {part 2}

I had so many great people that I wanted to share this month on my blog, that I decided to do two sponsorship & friends posts. You can view the first one here if you missed it.
Let me introduce you to some more awesome people and their blogs....


Meet Lexie from Blue Wonderful

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BLOG // ART // SHOP

My name's Lexie. I am an artist living in East Lansing, Michigan. I love painting, drawing, and printmaking. I also like going outdoors, dying my hair, baking, spending time with my boyfriend, taking photos, shopping, and reading.

Meet Karen from The Quiet Owl

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BLOG // SHOP // PINTEREST

Hello! My name is Karen and I'm a 20 something grad school student living in the South. I do some regular posts on my blog, The Quiet Owl, including What I Wore Wednesday, Thrifty Thursday, Food Friday, and Amazing Anime on Sunday. I love finding vintage treasures, playing with my 2 dogs, spending time with my wonderful husband, and strolling through nature. I hope you'll come and visit me on my blog!

Meet Amanda from Amanda K By The Bay

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BLOG // INSTAGRAM // PINTEREST

Hello! I'm a recent college graduate living in Bellingham, Washington. After being inspired by so many great blogs out there, I decided to join the fun and start my own. My blog is a place for me to get a little creative, and share the things I love. On the top of that list is fresh sushi, a good thrift store, a strong cup of coffee and a soft scarf. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest my whole life, and feel so fortunate to live in such a beautiful area of the US. I have had so much fun getting to know people in the blogging community while discovering a new hobby. I currently work as a skin and makeup consultant at Macy's, and am planning on getting my master's degree in the near future. I currently live with my boyfriend of five years, Tommy.

Meet Carol from Calypte Collection

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BLOG // SHOP // FACEBOOK

Calypte Collection by Carol is the home of Handmade Statement Jewelry on Etsy. I am a wildlife biologist by day and a jewelry designer by night, (and weekends...and early mornings...and lunch breaks…and even in my dreams!). Jewelry making, and crafting have been a passion since I was a small girl, thanks to Grandma! I’ve gotten my hands into almost everything from scrapbooking, sewing, card making, sculpting, painting, knitting, crochet…! If you can craft it, I will try it!!

Meet Daisy from Boux Who

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BLOG // SHOP // FACEBOOK

My name is Daisy Watson, i was born on the 30th of August, 1991. I live in Kent, England. (just outside of London) I studied art at school, where my teacher told me it was okay for my work to not make sense, which is the best thing i ever learnt in education. Apart from that, i am pretty much a self taught artist. I love to illustrate and it is my dream to write and illustrate my own children's books. I have 4 cats, and i am unashamedly a crazy cat lady. Prior warning- i swear a lot. I love cooking and baking cupcakes. I am inspired by music, cats, birds, the sky, pylons, telephone wires, cute things, fluffy things, colourful things, and feeling happy.

Meet Chris & Julia from A Living Space

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BLOG // SHOP // FACEBOOK

Chris: A recent graduate of Bard College with a major in Photography, I am now teaching Photo and Video at a private boarding high school and pursuing new avenues of artistic exploration using inexpensive mediums.

Julia: Originally from Oregon, I graduated from Bard College in 2010 with a degree in Studio Art and French Studies. Now I'm teaching art, working at a children's museum, making my own art, and enjoying having my own place to decorate.

Together we live in a lovely apartment in Groton, Massachusetts with our cat, Bella, and our dog, Odo. We are constantly trying to improve the style and functionality of our small space on an equally small budget. We love shopping at thrift stores and yard/estate sales to find the best deals on amazing everything (furniture, decor, kitchenware, etc.); we'll keep you posted on our best finds for ourselves and for sale in our Etsy shop. In addition, we will share some of our simple DIY projects and style inspirations, as well as our own art projects. Now that we're engaged, we'll also be sharing our adventures in wedding planning!



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