Diggin' up Dinos

Checking out two different types of excavation kits!

This one cost 2 € I think, and for that price you will get a laughably small and ugly lil' dino figure. The whole thing looks very uninspired. For something as cheap as this, the sculpt is acceptable, but the paint job is dull as hell. But hey, it's for kids! They don't care!

These ones have a skeleton to dig out, goodie! The price was somewhere between 3-4€ per egg, I can't remember the exact number. These kits are far more your money's worth than the previous one.  There are surprisingly many parts of the skeleton fitted inside and it will actually take you some time to dig them all out. I had the parts soaking in water for a while to get the last bits of clay/plaster out that was stuck between tiny spaces. 

I do have something to nitpick about. There were no instructions how to put these together and their species are not named anywhere. I recognize the one on the top is a T-Rex, but the one below? I don't know.... Giganotosaurus? Carcharodontosaurus? Something else?
It irks me that the bottom one's bones are in two different colors. Either one would have been fine, but mixed? Nope. (I like the lighter color better than the brown).  And why didn't this one get a stand like the T-Rex did!?

Crystal T-Rex

I was visiting the first time the  Science Center Heureka's small shop in Helsinki and there I saw these beautiful crystal 3D puzzles for sale. I walked out of the shop without buying anything, but I decided that next time I was visiting Helsinki that I would come back and pick one up. Some time later I did it! I had to decide between getting the T-Rex or a human skull. It's pretty self explanatory which one I ended up buying. I didn't really like the color choices for the skull, either black or clear.  The king of the dinosaurs won in the end because of the more vibrant color and the dynamic pose it had.

After I opened the package, I found this two sided paper describing many other puzzle models available. THERE'S A DARTH VADER!! OMG!! But of course, there was none in the shop's limited selection. Dangit.

"It would be very interesting, challenging to one's mind if it is fixed randomly"
If not downright impossible! I had a hard time putting this together, even with the instructions! As I started putting this Rex together, I was wearing cotton gloves, because I didn't want to have fingerprints all over it.  Bad idea! The puzzle pieces were more slippery than a wet bar of soap in my hands. So the gloves had to come off.

Through steps 4-44 there is nothing holding the pieces together, you just have to carefully balance it like I'm holding it in the picture. BTW, it was not a very good idea trying to take pictures in the midst of building it. I was focusing on the camera, and didn't really pay attention to my other arm which was holding the puzzle upright, I tilted my hand a little bit too much and all the pieces come crashing down! I had to rebuild it once or twice, just for wanting to take a picture. Thank goodness for the plastic screw on step  45! I could finally put my headless T-Rex down!

The last piece...

It is a little disappointing that the arms, legs and tail are so see through. They stand out a bit too much from the rest of the body. Otherwise it's awesome! I like the sculpt and pose, even though the pose might not be scientifically accurate, being too upright and the tail dragging the ground. My pictures are lying about the color too. Seeing it live, it's far more orange-y or almost like bronze in color. (Depends on the genius in charge of the lightening,  I guess.)

Jurassic Eggs: T.Rex & Stygimoloch

What can I say? I love skeletons and you are never too old to like dinosaurs! <3

There's a pamphlet with a picture and info about the dino, with assembly instruction on the other side. Sadly, we didn't get a feathered T.Rex like the Velociraptor was.

The T.Rex head was already assembled when I got it out of the egg.

Maybe it's just me, but the Stygimoloch's flat hands seem weird to me. It looks like it's clapping! :D

I'm a little disappointed that the T. Rex didn't come with a  rock pile to stand on. Without the platform, it looks so much smaller compared to the other two.

It's also a little sad that these skeletons aren't  in scale to one another,  although I do understand why. You can't fit anything in those narrow dino eggs, where the space is so limited.

Sweet stuff from Estonia

At the end of last month me and my mom went on a one day trip over to Tallinn for a shopping spree (I really should stop doing those). Our morning started already at 4 A.M. because we had to reserve enough time to get everything ready before we could set on our 1 hour drive to Helsinki. Then we had to ride the subway for another 30 minutes and finally a 20 minute walk to the terminal. Luckily, there was a breakfast buffet on the ferry, which made the two hour crossing over the Gulf of Finland seem like no time at all.

I didn't even make it on land before I made my first purchases in the ship's supermarket. How could I resist that XXL Sized Darth Vader Pez dispenser or the other Star Wars candies for that matter?

The only candies that were actually worth their price were unsurprisingly the Pez candies. The lollies were bland as hell, no flavour at all. By far, the worst was those that came with the hand held fans. You can't even tell what they're supposed to taste like, there's a little sweetness to them and that's it. But honestly, I didn't buy the lollies and fans for the candy. I wanted them for the mini Vader and Trooper helmets! It will require some disassembly, but that's the fun part isn't it?

More PEZ! I also had to buy this My Little Pony box on-board for the Fluttershy dispenser even though I already have the Rainbow Dash one. It was a good thing there were coin lockers in the Tallinn terminal so I didn't have to carry these things with me the whole day! Now, since we were in Tallinn, I wanted to go to their local supermarket and stock up on those super tasty Pez Fizzy candies, which for some whatever reason are not sold in Finland. I've previously briefly talked about them here. To my dismay, I couldn't them! I must have looked at least four times through the shelves at the candy aisle before I noticed what it read on the lid on those Angry Birds sweets. YES!!! I bought six packs of them, which seemed plenty at the time, but they're running out fast.....

I also bought a couple of these Monster high candies I've never seen before. Boy, they were not worth it! If you let the candies melt away in your mouth, they're okay, but it you make the mistake of chewing them..... blergh. I can only imagine this is what perfume tastes like, so very artificial. Never buying this again.

On a slightly more positive note regarding Monster High. I managed to find one flea market that was within an optimal walking distance from the harbour. There I found these two dolls: Picture Day Abbey and Dance Class Clawdeen for only 3 euros each! Which I think is really cheap considering they still have all their limbs attached and most of their outfits. In Finland, if you manage to find a MH doll for this price, it's usually nude and missing a limb or two.

Still a bad picture, no matter how many filters.

Also at the same flea market, I found this unopened Princess Twilight Sparkle and this random hooded figure (McDonald's toy?) for 1 euro each.

There's still time!

For the first time we also went to one of those big shopping malls and got briefly lost on our way there. Once we finally found it, we headed to the floor that was all about toys. There was this stand full with many beautiful Safari Ltd. animal figures. It was really hard to choose only one to buy, especially with all the amazing variety of awesome dragons and fantasy horses! I wish I could have bought them all, but in the end, I chose this bat-horse or Areion Horse as it's real name goes. It wasn't too expensive...

At the same toy shop I found more of these cool dinosaur skeleton assembly sets! Last time I went to Estonia, I bought the Velociraptor one, this time I got the skeletons for Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stygimoloch! I would really have liked to find a Parasaurolophus and Spinosaurus set as well, but I guess they were sold out. Interesting how the bipedal  dinosaurs, especially if they are carnivorous seem to be the more popular ones. More on  these later!

The last store we visited sold home & kitchen stuff, and had a random selection of other trinkets. I found this fridge magnet of a fox very adorable, so I bought it, even though our fridge at home has wood paneling on the door, so you can't even attach magnets to it. But the fox is so cute!

From the same store, I also got this skull, just because it wasn't expensive and it looks cool. Again for the shits and giggles, I suppose, I bought this Star Wars shampoo & conditioner even if it is meant for kids. I seriously need to question who's bright idea it was to but a BALD character on the side of the bottle when they are trying to sell HAIR shampoo. The Inquisitor doesn't even have hair, his species is bald! Why didn't they put Ezra there with his wannabe Aladdin locks at least that would make sense....

Bye bye Tallinn!

Welcome back to Helsinki

Flea market findings 5

Phew, it's been a while! Enjoying the summer are we? Well, I'm trying at least, unfortunately I had to break my tradition of going to Animecon this year, because I had too much other things going on..... maybe next year then! I'm also feeling  a little bit "left out"  because of Pokémon Go!  I can't jump on that bandwagon because I don't own a phone capable of running it. Dammit! It sure looks fun though! I'll just have to settle with playing Pokémon Shuffle on my tablet then. Or go searching for new toys to buy instead of saving  the money for a new phone!!! :D

Transforming Digimon! While in Taomon form, you can see the toy is missing a piece, but if I keep it in Kyubimon form it's hardly noticeable, which is good! I find Kyubimon to be more pleasing to the eye anyway.

Kurhn doll and some random dolly keyring I thought were too cute and very cheap to let pass by. I think I only paid 0,70€ for both of them in total.

The Groke and Tony Tony Chopper plush with their big grins. Chopper was only 0,50€!!

Alien versus Predator old PC game and Neca's very chibi Predator climber.

Schleich's Velociraptor and Dilophosaurus and Safari Ltd. tiny T. Rex. Also, a Wolf and fox with their respective offsprings by.... I have no clue. They do have a copyright marking on their bellies, too bad they didn't bother to put their company name there next to it!

I can't get over with how awesome this Chap Mei Dilophosaurus looks!! *_* ....until I take a look at it dislocated lower jaw. It was so close to perfection!

Ever so pretty skull keyrings and DragonBall GT phone charms and Mario's magic mushroom.

Chap Mei Ninja warrior, beaten up Piccolo and a lonely Clone Trooper.

Slowpoke, silver Giratina and big Pikachu bottle.

Lion King stuff (I have no idea what that Scar thing is supposed to be) and a random pack of Sonic, Garfield,  the Aristocat's Toulouse Smarties topper, some adorable Mother Goose.

1998s Godzilla or just Zilla nowadays, Zorro's steed Tornado, and a cute lil' Grim Reaper.

I found these last four at a yard sale. MLP G1 Fifi & baby pony Shaggy, a very charming Pentik Murr Murr Fox ceramic wall tile and lastly, a very derped out Batman just for the shits and giggles.

Flea market findings 4

For a change, here's a picture post of my latest treasure findings from various second hand stores. These are my personal highlight of my lootings. So many lovely  toys! <3

It's risky to buy used puzzles, because there's usually always that one piece missing, but I got lucky three times! I found a super cute 60 pieced My Little Pony puzzle (1989, Holland) in excellent condition and two Moomin puzzles!  The smaller one has 20 wooden pieces (1992) and the other has 140 (made in West Germany). I find those animated dolls very creepy.

My google search is telling me this thing is called Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus Groom and Glam Styling Head Brietta. It's really big and I like the details on it, like the wings and the necklace. I'm thinking it would be really fun to customize this thing!

G1 My Little Ponies Blossom -82 (Italy), Tickle -84 and a McDonald's pony from 1999. As far as my research can tell me the purple saddle and the white hat originally belong to something called Pretty Parlor playset.

Monster High Create-a-Monster Ice girl with Blob girl's wig & dress and also the mermaid tail from Siren Add-on pack. I forgot to add the Blob girl's dress in the first picture so I put it there on the side when I tried the fin on the Ice girl now with another CAM wig on, just to see how it looks.

Nyx? She-Spawn? I'm not really sure what the first character is supposed to be called, all I know is, she has skulls for breasts and that's good enough for me!  The tiny dinosaur reminds me so much of Masashi Tanaka's Gon, but I doubt it's really him, it has no markings besides "made in china". I'll probably donate Luigi to a friend because I don't really care for Mario Bros. I was so happy to find classic Ash Ketchum in this good condition and a very good price!

Schleich Spinosaurus 2007, the paint is a little worn out on the tip of the tail and the upper jaw. I've always admired the Schleich dinosaurs, but never actually bought one before now. The T.Rex (Early Learning Centre, Watford, England) is nice and big, I was mainly thinking about repainting this one as well.

Schleich's Bayala/Arelan bear riding Torak  figure. I can't remember anymore which one I found first, the bear without the rider or with the rider? The funny thing is, I found these in two separate stores that were right next to each other. Don't care much for the rider, but the bears look awesome!

Bought a small bag filled with small toy animals and these foxes stood out from the rest. The small one is your regular china animal, but I've never seen a fox before just the standard farm animals, so that's what makes it special for me. The two big ones are made by Procon (2006).

Action Man Urban Mission's Robot dog (2000). I was really disappointed that there wasn't much more information about this thing. It's big and cool looking! Being a robot makes it very unique from all other toy dogs. Henceforth you shall be named Terminator dog (because of the red eye)!

Kiara plush from the Lion King and a brand new Gomamon plush with its tag still intact albeit a little faded! Oh, and a chibiesque Taichi!

Maggie!! Finally! Now I'm only missing Lisa! I'm so happy! :D Also got  a Pumba and Simba for my small PEZ dispenser collection.

Finally, we have the one who everybody love to hate: Jar Jar Binks! I think I already own the smaller one from before. Actually, no I  don't. I just checked. The bigger Jar Jar has a suction cup on the backside and that hole in his tongue, so I'm guessing it's meant to be holding something? Like a toothbrush maybe?