Disney Fish Extender Gifts for Kids!

These are the Fish Extender gift bags I put together for our upcoming Disney Cruise!  If you aren't familiar with Fish Extender gifts, you can read more about it in the post I wrote about the gifts I did for the adults in our group here.

We had 25 kids in our group to do gifts for, and their ages ranged from 10 months up to 13 years old.  It was a little tricky trying to come up with something that most everyone would like without having to do a lot of different things.  I also wanted to incorporate each child's favorite character (this was provided in the list for our group), and again wanted something that wouldn't take up a huge amount of space in our suitcase.  In the end, I decided to make some little personalized notebooks for each kid as the main gift, and then throw in a couple little items to go.  

I got 3 packs of spiral notebooks for $1 each at the Dollar Tree store.  The covers were tinted plastic which I knew I'd need to cover.  I cut rectangles out of cardstock paper and attached it to the outside and inside of the plastic cover sheet.  I used spray adhesive to glue the paper on because regular glue won't adhere to plastic.  Once thaMt had dried, I cut out the Mickey Mouse head shape from black cardstock and glued it on with a permanent glue stick.  I made each of the kid's name tags in Microsoft Word by typing their name in the Disney font and then adding an image.  I just printed them, cut them out, and then glued them on top of the Mickey head.  I also added a strip of paper at the bottom that I cut from some Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper.  

For the extra goodies, I did a small sheet of stickers for each kid, and also a little Mickey Mouse ball game that I got at Dollar Tree in packs of four in the party favor aisle.  For the couple of teenage girls in our group, I got itty bitty bottles of nail polish in Mickey colors and then added the Mickey stickers to the top.  My kids wanted to be part of the process (or I may have told them they needed to be...), so they made a Rainbow Loom bracelet for each of the kids using this pattern from Loom Love.  I slipped the bracelet around the notepad, added the stickers and game to the bag, put on a label that I made, and that was that.  

I had so much fun putting the Fish Extender gifts together!  I can't wait to see the gifts we get from our group, and I definitely will do this again when we do another Disney Cruise!

Disney Fish Extender Gifts for Adults

We are going on our first Disney Cruise this week, and I have done a ridiculous amount of research for the trip.  When I read about Fish Extenders, I knew we had to do them.  One, I love to craft, and two I love to give gifts, so it was a win/win for me. 

The first thing you need to do when you decide to to do a Fish Extender (FE) program is join a group.  If you skip this step, you'll end up leaving gifts for other people and not receiving anything.  If you go to the Disney Cruising group on Facebook, you'll be able to locate your specific cruise date/ship and join a group.  I love our group on Facebook where we can all chat, ask questions, and get to know each other.  It has been a very valuable tool for me.  I can't wait to meet everyone on the ship!

You'll also need to have a FE to hang outside your stateroom door.  You can buy them already made (tons on Etsy), or you can make your own.  I sew, but hate making patterns, so I bought a pattern on Etsy for $4.50 from The Rabbit's Hole Shop and it was worth every penny.  

Here is a picture of the one I made...

For our group, I made gifts for the kids and for the adults.  In this post, I'm going to show you the gifts I made for the adults.  Kids FE gift post can be found here.

I wanted to make gifts that were functional, but also could be kept for souvenirs from the trip.  I also wanted something that was light weight and easy to pack.  The doors on the Disney ships are magnetic, so for one gift I made a little dry erase board to hang on the door and added a magnetic dry erase marker with it.  I cut 5x7 sheets of white paper, got the Disney Cruise Line logo online and added the text to it I made these into stickers), and then cut some Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper to add as trim to the bottom.  I got a Scotch Laminator for Christmas (Thanks brother!) and used 5x7 sheets to laminate the boards I'd put together.  

 I bought a roll of adhesive magnets, cut them and attached them to the backs of the boards.  

The other item I decided to make was a Christmas ornament.  I thought it would be a fun thing to hang on the tree each year and to remember the trip by.  I bought some wooden rectangle plaques that  already had holes drilled (ArtMinds brand at Michaels that came in a pack of 8 for $1.99).  I painted them, cut out squares of scrapbooking paper (from the same Mickey Mouse pack I used above),  made the Mickey ear shaped logos with the cruise ship name and date, and used Mod Podge to attach everything.  I then cut ribbon, threaded it through the holes and knotted the ends.  I finished the ends with a fray stopper, but you could use heat to seal the ends as well.  

I got clear bags from the Dollar Tree store and packed the gifts up with some little labels I made.