Story of Mini Disneyland

It all started with a dream…

Actually, it started in a quest to find joy during the lockdown of Covid19. Just like with most everyone, we couldn’t leave the house, school was closed and businesses were shutdown. Even Disneyland had been shut down. In trying to find something positive within all the bad news that just kept coming about Covid-19, I went to the garage and started to just work on creating what became Disneyland Castle. Using materials originally I found in our garage and around the house the top of the castle was built. But Covid wasn’t done like everyone thought. As Covid became bigger, so did the project. As it grew I began to get more creative with materials but ultimately I had to buy some, and then more and more …..

Below is the story in pictures of how it started and came to be.

Once upon a time….

The beginning was the Castle. Just like with Walt Disney. We were to be in lockdown for two weeks, then six weeks. I started on the Castle after the two weeks. As Covid continued so did this project.

Then it it began to grow. I needed a road to go through the castle, and a wishing well. As Covid continued I kept building on what I had created. You can see the greys are a little different as I used every spare supply possible. It became a game to buy as little as possible and continue to build with what I had.

At the end I added lights and created a system to turn them on.

From the Castle the project worked it’s way outward. Starting with the road to the Castle, and the central focal point of Walt and Mickey.

But it didn’t end there, and neither did Covid, so I kept going. From the Castle then I decided to add the Adventureland and Frontierland Entrance to better surround the Castle as it looks today

And of course if you surround one side of the castle you have to surround the other side, so then the Plaza Inn was created….

And then if you have the Plaza Inn you have to have the Ice Cream Stand….

Since the road was started, I kept going, expanding further and further back down Main Street. And while the road looks like it would have been easy it was actually one of the harder parts. I needed to keep calculating to figure out how to keep things level as I built and to keep the Plaster of Paris consistency equal to make the road level. It took much longer than expected!

The buildings along the road to the Town Square then had to be built. The most notable one is the Candy Palace of course. Where you can stop and see the treats being made. Those I created from Sculpey left over in another bin from long, long ago. So grateful my family doesn’t seem to throw anything out!

At the end I added the lights and the sound system. You can see more on that in the Behind the Scenes section.

Thanks for viewing all the way to the end of this. Hoping it brought you happiness to walk through it.