If you ask my husband, he will tell you without hesitation that I am a total nerd when it comes to Disney. I love everything Disney! If they would let me live in a Disney Park I would!!! Probably in New Orleans Square in Disneyland or in Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World. Every time we talk about a family vacation you can bet that a Disney destination is brought up and talked about non-stop. My husband had to finally tell me that he will not be going to Disneyland for at least 10 years because he is that sick of it. My oldest daughter is 5 and she has been to Disneyland for a total of 7 times in her life. We actually just got back from a Disneyland vacation last June which was amazing!
Every time I take a Disney vacation I try to find something different that we can do so it breaks up the lines and the monotony for my husband. This last trip in June 2017, the new activity that we tried was Pin Trading. I will be honest, I did not want to try it at first. My sister went to Disneyland a few months before us and she brought back a lanyard with a whole bunch of pins. She showed my girls and they could not stop looking at all of the pins. For Easter, they both asked for Disney pins. I got them a few more pins so that they would have a few more to trade when we went, but I wasn’t very hip on the idea.
The first day on our vacation that I actually started pin trading I was HOOKED!!! It was so FUN!!! My in-laws all made fun of me because every where we went I would say, “I’ll catch up! I just have to run into this store to see if they have any pins!” It was probably a funny sight to see a 6-month pregnant lady running around Disneyland trading pins. I even got my sister-in-law hooked and by the end of the trip we were both running around crazy looking for pins. If she went on a ride and I wasn’t riding, she would come running up to me and tell me that she had found a pin that I was looking for and that I needed to run right over to trade. We would then bee-line it to where she had seen the pin hoping it was still there.
There are many hard-core traders out there that will not trade for scrappers, and that’s ok!! I know it is way frustrating to trade and think that you are getting an authentic pin, but it turns out to be a scrapper pin. Whenever I would look, I would try to get authentic pins, but when it comes to my girls, they don’t care at all if its real or fake. They just love to trade for the fun of it. I’m ok with that! I love to see them get so excited when they find a pin that adds to or completes one of their sets.
I found pin lots on eBay and Amazon that gave us quite a few traders for a really great price. Plus it was really fun to see my girls go through the pins and find the ones that they loved and wanted to keep. I am fully aware that these lots have many *scrappers in them. I try my best to go through them before we trade so that we aren’t trading scrappers and other people end up with them. One or two probably slip through, but the main thing is that my kids are having the time of their lives. They find little souvenirs to bring home, but more importantly they are bringing home memories.
This a picture of my pin board. Yes it is hanging up in my house, but I absolutely love it!
We are already planning a trip to Disney World for 2019 and I’m already stocking up on pins to trade. I know its still a while off but my daughters and I can hardly wait to start trading again!
*Scrappers are pins that are not real. Manufacturers have taken the molds and mass produced these pins and then sold them for super cheap. The quality, coloring and everything else about the pins are very low. When you see a scrapper you will know.