One of a Kind Disneyland 60th Anniversary Pin Display
This is the second LED-lit Disney pin shadowbox I have created. The first can be seen by CLICKING HERE.
I don’t normally begin my posts with a picture slideshow, but for this shadowbox I have created I will make an exception. It is hard to capture the mesmerizing beauty of the completed display in simple photographs. To see it in person is on another level entirely and I am way beyond pleased to see my vision come to a completed reality. Without further ado, I present to you my Disneyland 60th Anniversary custom one-of-a-kind LED-lit shadowbox display…. Enjoy!
Pretty amazing, right? So how’d I make it? Well the background photo was custom designed by me in Photoshop. I combined the image of the 60th anniversary Sleeping Beauty Castle with a vintage black and white image of the same castle from long ago. It was pretty difficult to find two images that had similar perspective and be able to combine/blur the architecture of both castle images down the center. My favorite part of these images is actually the vintage trash can on the lower right. Not sure why but it seems a bit whimsical. Once I felt I had perfected the combining of the two images I then had an enlargement printed by Mpix.com who did a fantastic job! I chose the metallic option knowing that this shadowbox was LED-lit and the image would shimmer that much more with the lights on. I used a spray craft glue that was acid free to attach the photo to cardboard backing and then again to attach the cardboard to the black felt background that came stock with this frame. I should mention that I purchased the light up shadowbox from Michael’s craft store and I believe I paid around thirty dollars after tax for it after using a half-off coupon I had at the time. To float the pins I purchased some dense black foam off of eBay that I cut to size. It worked nicely as one side of the foam had a tacky glue on it already so when I pulled the backing away I inserted the pin post into this side of the foam and it gave the pins added stability. Then on the other side without the tacky glue I actually applied super glue to attach the bottom of the foam/pin combo on top of the photo. Hope that makes sense. All this was necessary to make sure the pins don’t fall inside the display as they aren’t lightweight pins. I lined up and placed all the pins with color on the left over the color modern image of the 60th castle. The one pin on the right is the silver pin which I wanted to stand alone on the black and white “vintage” castle side. This was the pin released for the actual anniversary in July and also carries the most epic Walt Disney content out of the set being the Opening Day speech he gave.
The final detail came in a vision I had for this project that I could not get out of my head. I had the idea to place a transparent ghostlike image of Walt Disney delivering his Opening Day speech on the front glass panel so that it stood out as a sort of a floating 3rd dimension for this display and would pop even more when lit from behind by the LED lighting. To create the image I found a special movable transparent window decal printer “paper’ at Staples. Basically it was a kit to create and print your own reusable window cling decals. I wasn’t even sure it would work but decided to give it a go. To create the image of Walt I took to Photoshop once again. I found the iconic image of Walt at the microphone with flags in background delivering his speech. Using Photoshop I removed all the background images except for the one flag/light post to his side. Then I changed the opacity of the image so that when I printed it more light would be allowed through. Another challenge I had was in the fact that I wanted to place the image on the inside of the glass panel, pressed up onto the glass. Because I would have to place it sticky-side up instead of the normal “down” of sorts, I had to flip the image prior to printing so that Walt was facing to your right instead of left. That way when I placed the image on the underside of the glass it would then flip back to the original state of Walt looking to your left when seen from the top down through the glass. Not sure if this makes sense or not. It was tricky to figure as all get out when I was doing the printing, and then making sure the printer was printing on the right side of the decal was another task in of itself. I wasted about half of the packaging of decals before i got it right. Once I got it printed I then had to cut carefully around Walt and the lamp post/flags for placement. I was discouraged at first with the amount of air bubbles that creeped in when I placed the image - but most of them have worked their way out by now. It was a huge task to get it to work as I envisioned it, but the payoff is simply amazing. Seeing Walt Disney over the vintage side of the display delivering his speech, juxtaposed with the modern day 60th color side of the display is breathtaking and makes quite a statement. Happy 60th Anniversary Disneyland! (I know… slightly belated as this display is 2 years in the making!) Hope you have enjoyed sharing my vision! If you have any questions about this project feel free to hit me up by using the contact link on the left menu!
The pins included in this shadowbox display:
Walt Disney Imagineering - WDI - Disneyland 60 Diamond Celebration Stained Glass Jumbo Pin (LOWER LEFT)
Description courtesy of PinPics.com:
This WDI jumbo pin was released at the D23 Expo 2015 and was available at the Mickey's of Glendale store inside the Anaheim Convention Center. The pin celebrates the 60th birthday of Disneyland, featuring various rides and lands, including: Sleeping Beauty Castle, Disneyland Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mickey's Toontown, It's a Small World, Mad Tea Party, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Disneyland Monorail, and Space Mountain. In the center of the pin is a stained glass element in the shape of a diamond.
Complete 7-Pin Set of the Disneyland 60th Anniversary Diamond Countdown Series
These pins were released monthly leading up to the 60th Anniversary of Disneyland in July 2015. Each pin has a hinged stained-glass panel in the shape of a diamond that opens down to reveal an iconic image of Walt Disney himself. At the top of each pin is an iconic quote from Walt Disney. All pins were a limited edition of 3000 with the exception of the silver released for the actual anniversary which had a limited edition of 5000. These were a pain to acquire. With so much time in between releases it took literally a minimum of several months to end up with a complete set. Also the popularity of this set was off the charts resulting in massive lines camped out overnight for each release.
Blue: LE 3000 - Quote: "I felt there should be something built, some kind of family park where parents and children could have fun together." - Photo: Walt Disney with scale models of Sleeping Beauty Castle and the Matterhorn.
Red: LE 3000 - Quote: "You don't build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them." - Photo: Walt Disney wearing a hard hat on a Disneyland construction site.
Purple: LE 3000 - Quote: "Give the people everything you can give them... make it a real fun place to be." - Photo: Walt Disney conversing with the animatronic bird Jose inside the Tiki Room attraction at Disneyland.
Turquoise: LE 3000 - Quote: "You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world... but it requires people to make the dream a reality" - Photo: Walt Disney walking along the tracks and admiring his Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland attraction.
Yellow: LE 3000 - Quote: "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world." - Photo: Close-up of Walt Disney in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Navy: LE 3000 - Quote: "Here you leave today - and visit the worlds of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy." - Photo: Walt Disney at the helm as engineer of one of his renowned locomotive trains as part of the Disneyland Railroad.
Silver: LE 5000 - Quote: "To all who come to this happy place: Welcome." - Photo: Walt Disney delivering Disneyland’s Opening Day speech with flag in the background. Epic moment.
