This year, my wife and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary and by some alignment of the stars, Disney Cruise Line decided to offer several cruises leaving from NYC this October, one of which just happens to coincide with our anniversary. We have been wanting to take a Disney Cruise for quite a few years now and this seemed like the perfect opportunity since we wouldn't have to pay for air fare from Philadelphia to Orlando - the Port of Manhattan is just a short one hour and forty-minute drive from our house. And despite the fact that this is anniversary trip, we are taking both our daughters with us well ( if we didn't I don't think I'd ever be able to sleep with both eyes shut again.) Of course since it's a Disney cruise, the girls can go to the kids' clubs for age appropriate fun while we enjoy some adult time and then we can all still get together for meals, shows and ports. Yes, we get to go to Castaway Cay and, an even bigger selling point for us, we get a day excursion to Walt Disney World with Park Hopper tickets and three "Golden" FastPasses (usable on any ride any time!)
Now, Disney Cruises aren't like other cruises just like Disney fans (addicts?) aren't like other people. Everything on a Disney cruise is about the Disney magic and the passengers get into this as much as the cruise line castmembers. One of the most popular forms of pixie dust are called Fish Extenders - basically a small group of passengers (usually between about 10 and 20) who sign up to leave small gifts for each other during the cruise. Why a Fish Extender?
Think of the Fish Extender as sort of a Christmas Stocking that you hang on the brass fish-shaped message hook outside your cabin door. The families in your group will leave their presents in the Fish Extender sometime during the trip.
Crazy Disney fans that we are, we had to get in on this action - especially for the girls. They both LOVE to make crafts and the idea of getting that many surprises during the cruise was super appealing. My 12 year-old daughter decided to make Disney Character door magnets from Perler Beads while my 6 year-old daughter made each person a Tootsie-pop ghost.
Being a paper artist, I wanted to make every family their own piece of cut paper art, but making 15 of anything other something very small would be extremely time consuming. Luckily, right around the time we decided to join a Fish Extender group, I purchased a Silhouette Cameo 2 Cutting Machine so that I could do a better job cutting lettering for my projects and so I could start making some production level pieces - pieces I could offer at a lower price. Creating a custom gift for 15 other families seemed like the perfect time to learn how to use this new tool and to see what a production level project would entail.
Disney cruises leaving in October are themed "Halloween on the High Seas" which means the ships host special Halloween events and are decked out in Halloween decor.
I had several ideas of what to make, but eventually
settled on a porthole door magnet that would be personalized with each
family's name. Keeping with the Halloween theme, I decided to make the main element a ghost ship version of The Magic (our ship)
I started with 10" wooden circles I found in in the paint-your-own section of AC Moore (you should be able to find these in most craft stores.) For most projects, I would have started with heavy acrylic board or even mat board, but I wanted something a bit sturdier but still light enough to hang with magnets.
Next, I used the Cameo to cut hexagons and circles from 140# watercolor paper. I glued the circles on the hexagons to form the large bolts you often see on port holes.
I also used the cameo to cut the letters for the last names from blue paper and an offset piece (white paper) that I would use to attach the name to the porthole.
Here are the complete names, bolt-heads and another element, a Witch Minnie Mouse flying her broom across the moon.
For the background inside the porthole, I wanted to have the night sky, some clouds and a night-time ocean to frame the ghost ship. I made these from four separate layers and cut "registration holes" on each layer so they would line up perfectly. Here is an exploded view of the main porthole layers (starting top left): the wooden circle/outer ring, the night sky layer, highlight cloud layer, shadow cloud layer, ocean layer, inner/front porthole ring, and the bolt-heads and clamps.
To facilitate putting together the background layers, I built myself a little jig. Then all I had to do was spray the back with acid-free adhesive and line up the holes with the pegs. This made the process move pretty quickly.
After I got the background pieces together, I glued them to the wooden circles, created a little cheat sheet to place/glue the clamps and bolt-heads and finally glued on the inner/front ring.
Here is a picture of elements starting to come together. You'll notice the sign at the bottom, I forgot to take pictures while making that and the actual ships (life got a bit crazy) The sign is made from two layers of paper with the lettering and skull added on top.
Here is the final product - the Magic ghost ship is also made from four layers of paper
coming soon
Once they were all assembled, I painted two coats of satin acrylic varnish on the fronts for protection - these are meant to be hung on stateroom doors, after all - and glued sheet magnet to the backs before signing and numbering each one.
The final step was to place each porthole in a gallon freezer storage bag and attach a hang tag (also created on the Cameo). I added string so that I could hang gift directly on the Brass Fish if the family's Fish Extender couldn't fit it.
I learned a lot about how to use my Silhouette Cameo 2 during this entire process, how to use the software, what the machine does well and I can honestly say that I could not have done this project without this machine. I don't know how often I will make projects completely with the machine like this, I still love doing most of my work by hand, but it is a great tool to have in your arsenal.
