I can wear this sweater and headband any day, but only I knew I was channeling Baby Yoda

I think this is the fourth year I’ve done this challenge… If you’re newer to following along with my silly antics, I am a huge Disney fan, and this wonderful human, Leslie Kay, came up with “Disneybounding”, which is a way for people to feed their Disney-loving souls with fashion. It originated because adults aren’t allowed to wear costumes to the Disney parks, but we still might want to dress like our favorite characters, and one can accomplish this with plain-clothes using colors to mimic a character’s look. It’s fun looking through your closet to see what you already have that might work for a certain character’s look, and it also forces you to look at your wardrobe with a different sort of creative eye. For example, up until this year, I don’t think I would have thought to put a tank top over a long sleeved shirt, but I did it twice this month and it’s not a bad look! Another great thing about Disneybounding is that it allows you to wear outfits that YOU know are Disney, but the rest of the world might not.

I present to you my type-1 enneagram over-planning outline of the month! Featuring a pen my husband handmade for me!

This yearly challenge is fun because it gives me a whole month where I can be creative and connect with an online community of like-minded nerds. For the most part it’s a very supportive community, because we’re all just looking to have fun and add some magic to our everyday lives. This year was a little different than past years, though, for a couple reasons.

I might have made some teal shorts specifically for one character, but they’re definitely re-wearable for non-Disney occasions (wait, what’s a non-Disney occasion?)

First is that there were SO MANY participants, which is really great, but it seems like some people pre-shot most of their content at Disneyland, and some people even got professionals to take their photos. To me, this month is about dressing up LITERALLY EVERY DAY, and creating outfits that I can actually wear without feeling out of place going to work or being in public. I noticed more people whose outfits border on cosplay and I feel like these people probably wouldn’t wear these outfits in public or outside of the Disney Parks. I was chatting with a fellow bounder this morning, and while we agree that people are free to interpret the challenge any way they want, there seems to be a lot more competitive-ness this year and some people seem to only post pictures of them at Disney, and they’re trying to gain the most likes and followers. Don’t get me wrong - I was thrilled when I got reposted in @thedisneybound’s stories a few times and it’s fun to get comments and likes, but that shouldn’t be the only goal. Some things are going to perform better than you think and others worse (for example, my Finding Nemo outfit as Pearl was one of my favs, but “performed” worse than my super simplistic Jane from Tarzan outfit where I was just sitting in my craft room wearing one boot 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Coronavirus means crafting while waiting for an online live-streamed yoga class!

Second is that our world was hit hard by coronavirus, closing all Disney parks worldwide, making many people work from home or not work at all, and forcing us to be in our homes way more than we’re used to. The fact that this happened in March, though, allowed me to distract myself with the challenge, and I’m thankful that I had this creative outlet and online community of friends to keep me busy in these first few weeks of this crazy time.

This year, I also decided to give myself a couple extra personal challenges. The first was to take pictures with a tripod each day. I took pictures in front of murals, at parks, inside my house, outside my house…lots of interesting places! In past years I took selfies in my amazing full length mirror, but I figured why not try something new?

Successfully sewed in snaps for a bodysuit I wore FOUR different times!

The more exciting challenge for myself was to wear more handmade items. I knew it was unrealistic for every outfit to be 100% hand-sewn, but having at least one handmade piece of clothing seemed doable. I did have to make several things in order to do this. I focused on making things that would be versatile and re-wearable. I also made several things that were solid colors. I often find that certain characters are out of my ability because I don’t have a variety of solid colors. Also, a lot of my clothing is already Disney themed, but for this challenge, often a shirt with Mickey Mouse on it isn’t really the look I’m going for. I wore 34 different handmade pieces this month. I re-wore 10 of them. The most days I wore a piece was 4 - both my purple jeans and my pink bodysuit! I made 14 new things for this challenge, not including 3 other items I made very recently that snuck their way into my outfits. 5 of those 14 things were small - bows/headbands/kercheifs, but I still made them specifically for this, so I’m counting them. I included my dog in handmade costumes, and I wore a handmade wooden pendant my husband made for me for our five year wedding anniversary, so there are other handmade items too! And even though my sewing can get back to “normal” now (what is normal, though?), I still want to make sure I’m making things I’ll wear more than once, things that can go with many outfits, etc. Also, I think my husband (as sweet and supportive of my Disney obsession as he is) is excited for me to have more pieces of clothing that don’t have Mickey Mouse on them.

I’m proud that I’m pushing myself out of my sewing comfort-zone. Strips are kinda scary!

I’m super proud of what I did this month. I even experimented with makeup and tried to coordinate fun colors on my face with my outfits. I know it doesn’t actually mean much, but I had a blast. I whistled the Steamboat Willie song on March 16, sang a weird old country song about blood the 25th, and yesterday I spent about 6 hours making a music video dressed as Rapunzel (I had a vacation scheduled, thinking I would be going to Disney World, which clearly and understandably did not happen, but I decided to still take the time off work and have a quarantine stay-cation). Friends who I haven’t talked to in years took time to say that they were enjoying what I was doing, and that means a lot. I’m glad I can spread a little joy in this weird, uncertain time. I’m even trying to think of ways to keep it up. Continuing daily Disneybounds isn’t something I’m up for right now, and having daily self-timer photoshoots was fun and all, but it was a LOT of work. I also am NOT wearing any makeup today for the first time in a month!

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I’m already making a list of fun Disneybounds I’d like to do someday, but for now, I’m just gonna sit here in a handmade Mickey Mouse print dress, and drink my home-made foamy coffee drink and get back to sewing a non-Disney dress that could most definitely be used for a good Disney outfit in the future 😉

In the meantime, feel free to watch my silly, fun video - a quarantine parody of When Will My Life Begin? from Tangled!