Sure, there’s a bunch of sites with suggestions, plenty of youtube vids, YMMV, a few ppl have said our plan was pretty cool. Thought I’d share, since I’m getting a bunch of fantastic help from others on this board. Here’s what we did.
1.Created a photo card on our favorite phot card site. Invitation, or greeting card. Used ahem, “borrowed,” good quality pictures from google images or whatever. Make sure there is no url on the pictures – your photo card site might require a release form if you have ahem, “borrowed” pictures that are marked as licensed or copyrighted. Front picture is a picture of “the gang” – mickey Minnie, goofy, whoever them other fuzzy folks are, all waving in front of the castle at WDW. The words we edited in say, “Greetings from disney world!”
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Inside has three more pictures – Buzz and Woody, some other star wars dude, and Chewbacca.
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Other inside panel has weird, kid friendly font with an official sounding invitation:
“Dear
Mickey and all the gang were wondering if you’d
like to do something very, very, special this year. You are invited to come see us if you’d like to”
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Back panel has mickey and Minnie waving with the caption, “See ya real soon!” (mickey says that all the time)
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I used a sharpie to hide the phot card maker’s logo on the back of the card. We make photo cards for all his friends’ bday parties, so he might put 2 and 2 together if he saw that logo.
Now the funny stuff:
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Bought a clearance “star Wars” themed dry erase board from target. It’s in its own star wars packaging, about 16in by 12in.
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Got a post office priority box, rectangle – 1095 size – PO has several sizes for whatever, priority boxes are free. Flat rate boxes are free too.
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Went to a few local po’s, and asked them if I could use their rubber stamps. I put a bunch of stamps on the box, “Air Mail, FRAGILE, DO NOT BEND, PRIORITY MAIL, POSTAGE PAID” – a bunch of em. Also threw some “official” Postmarks on it. And also on the envelope for the card.
Note: I had to explain several times that I only wanted to put the stamps on the box, and that I was not buying anything or mailing anything. After I explained this several times, they understood. It took a while. -
I put the dry erase thing in the box with an official letter from Mickey (you can find templates all over the web for free.) The letter basically says, “I hear you and your whole family are coming,
blah blah blah, can’t wait to see you, blah, blah, blah, here’s a cool Star Wars dry erase board so you can keep track of everything you need to pack, and also you can write down what cool rides you want to go on, make sure you see all of our new Star Wars rides. P.S. Kylo Ren and Chewy want to meet you - see ya real soon!” With a pik of Mickey on it -
So now, we have that inside the box, and the envelope taped to the front of the box. The box is mildly dirty and has official ink stamps all over it, and the return address on the letter is an official
Priority Mail Sticker. It just says “Priority Mail – US Post Office and some other stuff.” We addressed the letter to the kid, and we’re going to leave it on the front steps on Saturday. -
We also ordered Magic Bands, and mouse ears. They came in a box, addressed to me, that I think I’ll open on Saturday too. The box is from the Disney store, so we can just say something like, “Oh they must have sent this to me so I can set up these magic band thingies.”
I’ll take some photos and upload at some point. I’m not crafty at all, but the box looks completely real. Looks like it’s been through the mail, kinda dirty, and a bunch of official post office rubber stamp mark. on it.
