Here is my third post dedicated to my toy portrait series! It has been so fun to work on!!

It’s forcing me to think of background and scenery that compliment the toy and not just a plain white background (though sometimes that is the complimentary color) I have missed days here and there, BIG TIME, but that’s fine! This is my project and my schedule. If it takes 400 days to finish the 100 day project, then so be it!! :)

Life has gotten a little hectic, so I won’t be posting photos AS often, but I’ll try…

I’ve been seeing the #the100dayproject hashtag floating around and I really loved the concept.

100 days of making or doing something different. .

I’m already a full time maker and didn’t want any craft projects to distract me further, so instead I’m going to do portraits of toys. It’ll force me to use my DSLR outside of product photos in hopes of improving AND it’ll give my massive collective some love.
All the wins!
I’ve been numbering them on IG, and decided to post them here every time I have seven posts.

So, counting the one above and in order, here is photos 001 through 007

I know that a lot of my followers might find this silly and uninteresting, but I don’t. I did start a new InstaGram account for my toy photos, just so I could divide my worlds a tiny bit. If you are on IG and are interested, you can find my profile here.

I’ll post my favorites here now and then just to break up all the posts about quilting!

The super awesome Rae of Rae’s Making It organized this brilliant swap, and lucky me, she was also the one who got my name!!!

I received a package in the mail this past Saturday STUFFED with what you see above and more.

First there was the AMAZING mini quilt that featured the very memorable scene from the “Silence in the Library” episode. She free hand appliqued the loose skull in the astronauts outfit, AND to top it off she free motion quilted “Who turned off the lights?” over and over again in the background. It’s so well done, I’m beyond impressed.

On the question-ere, I mentioned that I my favorite Doctor Who villain is the Daleks. I have a Dalek toy army I’ve been collecting for almost a decade now. It use to be harder to find the toys, but because of the shows growing popularity, I’m able to buy them more often. Rae ran with this and made me my own unique watercolor and embroidered Dalek to add to my collection. I had watched her make it through Instagram and was so happy its now mine!

Also included in the package was a one of a kind watercolor done by Rae placed in a super cute metal frame. It’s already sitting with my Tardis collection! (yes, I know, I have too many collections!) There was also a Cyberman bust that included a tiny book (that will go great with my tiny Tardis book), a comic book inspired Doctor Who mug, a nice pile of cute fabric and a paint your own nutcracker kit for CT (that she ran off with right away).

I am beyond grateful for everything that was in the box. This was such a neat swap and I would totally do it again.

Oh and I’ll totally share what I made for my partner once she receives it. I was a few days late mailing it, so I may have to wait until next week.

I especially love amusement park plates, like the one shown above. Enchanted forest holds a special place in my art. I have a bunch of memories (and photos around here somewhere) of that place both from my childhood, and then as a stupid teenager who would sneak into it after it was abandoned and all run down. I think we paid the most for this piece, a whole $10, because my husband is also from the area and remembers it.

I am up to almost 80 plates total. I pick up most of antique malls, or thrift shops, but I also receive some as gifts because my friends and family know I love them. I have this grand plan to hang them all going up my stairs to the top level. It’s a huge wall that is about 6 feet wide and 14-18 feet tall depending on where on the steps you are. I figured I could finish it all in about a week or so.

Yeah, I was SO wrong! First I forgot that about half of the plates need plate hangers or new hooks. 40 or so plate hangers starts to add up in cost, so I’ve had to slowly pick them up when I see them on sale. Then the second thing I didn’t think about is the fact that I am 5’2″ and I don’t have a ladder that can go on stairs. It’s funny that the second problem didn’t occur to me until I hit my limit height wise! I was just so excited about hanging them all.

For now I have a good chunk of them up, give or take I believe it’s about 30. I am on the lookout for a good ladder to buy, because I know I’ll have more plans that require one. For now I get to come downstairs every morning and see just part of my collection displayed, and I’m cool with that.

Oh and as always, I’ll share more photo’s when I actually finish this project.

I have been searching for a very long time for these pieces with no luck. It wasn’t until Molly brought some of the matching mugs to last months crafternoon, and told me what they were called!! I seriously got right on eBay the second I left the party, and ordered me some. Oh and for anyone else searching for these, their by Re-Ment and are part of their American kitchen series! (they also have adorable mugs that look like milk glass)

I am over the moon about them. Oh and if you look at the photos you can see one of the pieces matches a piece I already own (which was actually a gift from Molly too!).

I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to display them, their so damn tiny! I do have a miniature hutch I picked up a few months back, maybe that would work? Maybe I can frame one of these photos for my kitchen? that way the whole pyrex collection is together?

I may be over thinking this…

I’ve talked about my Disney collection here before. It’s kinda big and is growing very fast. I just love Disney! So of course, I bought more pieces while we were at Disney World last month. I didn’t go too crazy. I made sure most of the pieces were small (with the exception of a large knit mickey that I didn’t take photos of).

I had a difficult time picking which Vinylmation figures I wanted. A lot of them cost more than I wanted to spend, and others just weren’t my taste. I was very happy when I found a solid white one during our last day there, and then I found the red polka dotted one at our resort the day we left. I prefer simple figures, and these fit the bill.

I also bought a castle magnet to match my Disneyland one, and a castle antenna topper just because it was cute and simple. I don’t have a car of my own, so of course it’s just going on the shelf. The little plastic mickey ears are actually a Mr Potato Head piece that they sell. I loved how it kinda looked like a vinyl toy piece. The last piece is the Mickey in the middle who’s head is kinda tilted up a little too far. I thought he looked a bit like my vintage Mickey’s, and he didn’t cost much, so I brought him home too.

After we got home, I went on ebay looking for something I forgot to get in the parks. While searching I found this pin for the 30th anniversary of Epcot. The date on the pin is just a few days before we were there, so I bid on it and won it for $1! It’ll go very nicely with our Anniversary button and CT’s First Visit and Celebration buttons. As a side note, apparently Epcot and I are almost the same age, I’m just a month older!

So, this was actually the least amount of souvenirs I’ve bought at Disney yet. I was proud of myself! Now I just need to find a spot for them all on my hutch.

Oh and on a side note, I’ve found I really love taking pictures of my toys. I’m even getting that picture above of the red polka dotted Vinylmation toy printed large for my sewing room, like 18″x24″ large.

So, this is kinda a weird collection. It’s not really a physical collection. I can’t really hold it in my hands. I don’t display it throughout my house like my other collections. It’s a collection of photographs. Photo’s of signs to be exact.

I don’t know exactly when I started collecting these. I really got into photography full on in highschool when I took my first photo class. I think a lot of the photos back then were of signs, and other random things. Then I started working in photo labs soon after, and the discounted processing made it so much easier to take photos of EVERYTHING.

I didn’t start putting all my sign photos into one spot until I started using Flickr, many years ago. I was able to categorize everything, and put like things together. I’m almost up to 500 signs so far. Some are local and a lot are from my, post mommy life, travels. I love going back and looking at them. They’re something so simple, and normal to our everyday life. To me they’re pretty, colorful and interesting.

If you would like to see my entire collection, just head on over to Flickr. I took a bit of a break from taking a lot of photos of inanimate objects when CT was born. I was more interested in taking pictures of her, plus we didn’t go out much. Now that we are taking more day trips, I think I may start adding to my collection again!

I’m also thinking once I hit 500 photos, I may have them all printed up in one of those Blurb books. I’m all about those things right now.

Do any of you have unconventional collections? I’d love to see them!!

You get this card with each piece that explains a little bit about their machine. Apparently their exact machine use to live at the LA Zoo and made kangaroos. I thought that was really neat!

I hope they make more molds, because I’d love to have some other pieces.

Also, if you’re interested in buying one of these in person, Rotofugi is located in Chicago, IL. Their shop is awesome and super fun to walk around. Plus everyone there is really nice!