I Hate Glitter

I finally decided to buy this My Little Pony Princess Luna  toy I've had my eyes on for a while.  I was hoping it would go on sale eventually, but got tired of waiting, so when I had an extra 15 euros on me I went ahead and bought it.

Right from the get go I knew I wanted to get rid of the glitter plaguing this figure. I took the head of the pony and started soaking the glittery part in a bowl of hot water. I let it soak there for a while and then armed with a toothpick, I started to scrape the glitter off. I got all of the sparkly menace off, but there was a lot of glue residue with a pattern left by the glitter. I took a cotton pad and lightly dipped it in acetone and tried very gently to rub off just the glue above the eyes, but acetone is too powerful stuff. Once I saw it was starting to rub off the eyeshadow color as well, I stopped immediately and just left the residue be.

Next I moved on dealing with the horn. I tried the hot water + toothpick method again, but the progress was too slow. I lost my patience, so I used a cotton pad soaked in acetone and aggressively rubbed the glitter off. This worked well, because I didn't have to worry about any paint coming off, unlike with the eyes.

Getting the wings glitter free, I just repeated the same process I did with the horn. Any stubborn glitter particles that didn't come off with the acetone I scraped off using a toothpick. Thank goodness there was only glitter on the outside of the wings! Right at the base of the wings is some residue that wouldn't come off even with acetone or me trying to scrape it off. It's not pretty, but it doesn't bother me as much as the goddamn glitter.

I popped the head back on and the gave the mane and tail a wash. I'm no stylist, but I did try to tame that mane a little, but to no avail, it still looks bad. I'm happy with that curl I got on the tail though!

Before & after

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

From Animecon with love

This is what you get when you have too much free time and for once, enough money in your wallet. ♥

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Discord Vinyl Figure by Funko 

I'll admit I don't actually like Discord's mismatched design, but his personality and powers are just awesome. A figure of Discord is such a rare sight for me, I couldn't pass this one up even if it isn't a sight for a sore eyes. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen one Discord toy along all the ponies in any store's toy aisle. Why is that? Girls can't play with villains?Although Discord isn't a villain anymore....

Dragonball Z Beerus & Freeza keyring by Bandai (The Best series )

OMG, this is the first time I'm going to mention Dragonball since I started this blog!? This might come as a surprise, considering the history of my blog, but DBZ is my absolute favorite series of all time (even Star Wars is nothing compared to it). Whew, I'm glad I got that announcement out of the way. I was a little skeptic about Beerus' character at first, but after seeing the movie Battle of Gods, this mix between Anubis and a Sphynx cat has become one of my favorite characters along with Freeza. You can't go wrong with a chibi Freeza, so this one makes a nice addition to my sub-collection of Freezas' and this lil' Beerus has the honor of being currently, the only God of Destruction in my collection. Hopefully, that will change in the future. These two are so small I'd rather consider them as phone charms, but it doesn't really matter, look at how cute they are!! 

Dragonball Z Piccolo by Bandai (Tamashii Buddies series)

Did I mention that I like Dragonball Z? Well, Piccolo is my favorite of the good guys, and to my shame, he is far too often neglected as a part of my collection. I like the idea that these figures are stackable with others figures of the series. It is unfortunate, however, as far as I can tell, you can't remove the figure from the platform it is standing on. Having this "frame" around the figure doesn't really have any purpose as long as you only own one of these. I sure would like to have a Beerus, Freeza, Coola, Cell, Kid Buu, Broly and Janemba in this form! 

Freddy vs. Jason: Jason Vorhees Horror Bishoujo statue by Kotobukiya

The Devil is in the sheer amount of details. I'll admit when I saw the Freddy statue, I thought it was a very bad idea and while I still think that the Freddy one is a little iffy, there is no denying how freaking awesome the this Jason is! The whole idea of gender bending horror icons is strange, but in Jason's case it totally worked out. I demand we get a bishoujo Michael Myers!! A little bit of nitpicking, but on the box art the hockey mask has deep scars going across it as if done by Freddy Krueger's razor glove but on the statue's mask the scars are barely noticeable. Aww. 

Star Wars Real Action Heroes Darth Maul Reissue Ver. by Medicom Toy

A gorgeous amount of details has been put into this, but I still have some issues with it. For the amount of money one has to pay for a RAH figure, I'd expect nothing else but perfection and sadly, this doesn't live up to it. I may have a misinformed image of what the RAH figures are supposed to be like, which probably explains why my overall impression of this action figure would be disappointment. I was under the assumption that these figures were very much customizable, but now when I am facing a problem called a (1) broken shoulder joint, my only two solutions are to A) buy a new replacement body B) send it to Japan to be repaired. Seriously, what the f*ck? How is it possible that one broken piece results into the replacement of the whole thing?? ArRgH!

And then there are little details here and there that are done "wrong" in my eyes, which aren't really crippling to the figure, but bug me out.

• the lightsaber hilt has some strange, little curving at both tips when it's supposed to be straight
• the neon red color of the lightsaber blades
• the belt is on the wrong layer of clothing. It's supposed to be on top of the long sleeved tunic, but for some reason it's under it. I'm guessing it probably would be an easy thing to fix, but I can't do it, because I'm afraid this thing will crumble into little pieces if I touch it. Oh, these problems of my life.....
• the stud earring, where is it?

Besides all that, I simply love it! X3

What did Santa bring you?

Happy New Year Everybody!

Here is a mandatory Christmas gift haul post just because I couldn't think of anything else to write about. 8D

I got......

• 3 new additions to my Moomin mug collection

• Moomin character guidebook
• Star Wars Darth Vader themed breakfast set (plate, bowl, mug)
• MLP: FiM Season one (with 5 "exclusive collectors cards")

The main reason why I'm even more inactive than usual.... if you can even tell.

• South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
• Alien Isolation

The Holy Grail I mean Gentle Giant's 2011 Premier Guild Members Exclusive collectible Darth Maul mini bust (try saying that 5 times in a row)!!! <3 <3 <3

Self-made Fluttershy

This was actually done a couple years back so it isn't actually new. I just went through a pile of memory cards to find these pictures.
I probably should have taken a few newer pictures and from different angles, but the thing is that I don't know where the darn thing is! No, I haven't lost it I just can't find it! Long story short, I moved some time ago so it's probably in some still unpacked moving box.  >_>
The wood material that I used probably has a fancy name, I unfortunately just can't give it to you. I found the material while I was doing a little dumpster diving in a recycling bin in our school's wood shop. I used a big and scary band saw to cut most of the shape but when it came to the twirl of the tail and mane I switched to figure saw in order to not cut my own fingers off and not to risk the mane/tail twirl splitting off  by the sheer force of the band saw. Acrylic paint and some regular markers were used for the coloring. The height of this particular Fluttershy is about 8 cm, the depth is 1,7 cm and the width from mane to tail about 11 cm.


***Update!

Found it!

Coloring Fluttershy

I got my hands on a My Little Pony coloring book and I just couldn't resist scanning a few pictures of my favorite pony out of the mane six and do a little coloring.....

 

....which then lead to this:

unofficial mlp mug