Mom

I'm a huge fan of Hallmark. If you're following me on Pinterest, you'd know that. If Hallmark was a company Walt Disney trusted with whom to create one of his first partnerships, it's good enough for me!

Last week, I went to Hallmark so I could pick up a few birthday cards (yes, I'm one of those who still sends physical cards and keeping the USPS in business) and a few other things so I could receive my free VIP gift bag filled with goodies. I received a card about a 'Mom' frame, so I wanted to check it out.

It was on sale, so I picked it up. This is going to be such a cool Mother's Day gift! Hallmark has a partnership with Shutterfly to make these pictures. You buy the frame, and there are instructions inside to tell you what to do. You load up your pictures to Shutterfly and can choose one, two or three pictures to use for your frame. They will print it out and ship it to you for free! Use the codes provided, but enter them after you've created your picture. The system won't accept the codes at the beginning of the process even though it asks for it. I could have saved myself five minutes.

Anyway, a sample of the finished product is below. I'm going to do the same thing for Father's Day so my parents each have their own frame.  Visit Hallmark to learn more about the frames and these One-of-a-Kind Creations!

Hallmark word frame insert

View the entire collection of cards.

Hallmark Word Frame

 

(See the other post. I have to keep this widget for Shutterlfy!)

Mom Word Frame Insert

Create beautiful photo Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

It's a Work of (He)Art Part Deux

As promised, I am showcasing a few more pieces of my Disney production art. You can refer to my April 17, 2013 post which started all this, as well as going way back to 2007 to see a giclee done by Andreas Deja.

These first two pieces are some favorites. It's the White Rabbit and Alice with their croquet mallets. They were part of a TV commercial, and unfortunately I wasn't able to acquire the Queen of Hearts that completes the set.

With recent Disney animated features, it's getting more difficult to find production and/or animated art. That's why I jumped at the chance to pick up Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog.

Many of you know that The Lion King is one of my top favorite Disney (and non-Disney) movies of all time. While Timon is my favorite character, I certainly can relate to his warthog friend, Pumbaa. Which is why I had to pick up this piece where you can see Pumbaa singing his line, "When I was a young warthog!" from Hakuna Matata.






Disney fans know Orville and his brother Wilbur from The Rescuers movies. I really love that movie.

Some don't know that due to the success of those movies, Orville had a brief stint at a Disneyland Attraction.


Debuting July 4, 1984, "All Because Man Wanted to Fly" was preshow film with Orville at the Circle-Vision Attraction. That was the same year I hired in at Disneyland, which is another reason why this particular piece is special to me.

To see the 8-minute preshow film, click here. This scene from which this production art occurs around the 7-minute mark.

Don't worry. I have a lot more art to showcase! You know how those Disney fanatics are with their collections!

Dining Out For Life

Dining Out For Life is an annual dining fundraising event raising money for AIDS service organizations nationally. 180+ participating restaurants in the Twin Cities have agreed to donate a portion of their proceeds to The Aliveness Project and Rural AIDS Action Network.

Last year's Dining Out for Life raised over $215,000 in donations from restaurants, sponsors and individual diners, and I'm happy to say that I've been eating my way in support for years.

It's difficult to make reservations for our typical group of Friday night friends, so I made reservations at Pittsburgh Blue with a smaller group of friends. So we did our part by ordering drinks, appetizers, and meals. I ordered the prime rib and wasn't disappointed.

Of course I had to commemorate our evening with a photo opp, and my friend, Chris, said it looks like he photo bombed our picture. I think it's because of my fat head. Notice the sticker Dani's wearing? They give those out to diners each year.

Usually I keep almost everything, but since my company supports the state and local governments, everyone around the office is proud to show they vote. I show that support, as well as that I eat. Wish I kept some of those other stickers so that this would be more impressive, but it does make people laugh when they see this.

To find out more about Dining For Life and how you can support it next year in your area, click here.

Earth Day, 2013

Today is Earth Day, but I really didn't get to 'celebrate' as I have in years past. Partially because the Disney Store didn't have a lot of merch for adults, and all the cute shirts came in kid sizes.  But that's okay.

I did do my part by buying Disneynature's Wings of Life on Blu-ray. I can't wait to see Bears in the theatre. How do you celebrate Earth Day? Find out ways you can participate at Disney Earth Day.

It's A Trap!

There are days where you feel like you're tied to your electronic devices, and there are times when you feel they have a hold on you.

Sometimes you just feel trapped.

It's a Work of (He)Art

Any Disney fan will tell you that Philoctetes sang those words in Disney's Hercules. Phil is right that any work of art is a work of heart. 

Yesterday I was carrying on a conversation with two good friends, Don and Kenneth, about the Walt Disney Classics Collection, Grand Jester Studios, and Disney production art. All of these are labors of love and works of (he)art.

In discussing some of my production art, I discovered I hadn't posted pictures of some of these on my blog or on Facebook. Really?!?  Wow, that even surprises me. So today's blog post gives a nod to some of my artwork. I'll follow up with some others in future postings.

The piece of art that started the discussion was my original hand drawn production artwork from Disney's Fantasia. This comes from the 1940's, is authenticated and has a certificate of authenticity (as is all of my artwork that is of any value). In this scene, you see a unicorn with one of the pans. (Not Peter)

Since I mentioned Don, I thought I'd share two pieces of Disney production art that he would appreciate and that I have hanging in my office at work, and both coming from Disney shorts.

DuckTales and soon the Disney Afternoon would be filling the airwaves. This art of Uncle Scrooge comes from when he starred in the 1987 short, Sports Goofy in Scoccermania.

 

For the next two pieces, I don't have the information from which particular works they come, other than they were for specials on TV. However, I did find another piece that is from the same section of the short for Donald at this website. Scroll down to the third image and click on the larger image. You'll see theirs is numbered 59 in the bottom right hand corner, and mine is 57.

 

http://www.animationvalley.co.uk/mickey-donald--co.html

This one below is what I had framed for my office, and hangs next to Uncle Scrooge.

Okay Kenneth. This one's for you. I have Mickey in my office as well. The first picture is prior to me having it framed, so it shows the piece off more, and the second is after I had it framed. Mickey hangs on an adjoining wall.

 More artwork coming soon, and then you boys can decide how my will should be written: 
WDCC/GJS/artwork!