Hello everyone!
I hope you're having a wonderful month of January.
I apologise in advance, as this post is long overdue; you might remember that back in August of last year, I posted a story (Back to School) that was also an entry for a competition in the Sylvanian Families Collectors Community forum.
I am very happy and honoured to say that my little story won first place in the competition! I'm truly glad that so many people liked my entry. I love writing, but as I'm not a native English speaker, I always worry about my word choices
not being ideal, about the ideas and feelings I want to convey not quite
reaching. I feel truly honoured! Thank you once again to everyone who liked my story and voted for me!
I was able to choose a prize, and picked the Calico Critters School Bus. I was really excited, since this is a exclusive CC item, not available in Europe! I received it shortly after the competition (thank you, Terra!) and thought it'd be interesting to do a short review on it. Sorry that it took me so long!
I won't be writing much, since the pictures speak for themselves, but I hope that you enjoy this review and that it's useful!
Here are a couple of pictures of the front and the back of the box. So colourful! Love the little flavour text and the small pictures to the side.
Here is what we see as we open the box. Some instructions for placing the seats and the stickers.
Here we have the seats and the little stop sign on the bus. As shown on the box, when you pull on the lever next to the driver's seat, the doors open and this little sign pops out. It's adorable!
A picture of the stickers, too!
The school bus in all its glory! It feels quite sturdy and it rolls flawlessly. :D I love it! I never thought I'd have something like this but it's really cool. I have also added a pic of the driver seat with the wheel and the lever I was talking about.
A final pic of the bus, and another one with a couple of figures inside so that you can see the space inside when the seats are removed. The seats can also be put sideways so that the passengers are looking at each other.
And that's it for my review! Hope it was useful or that you enjoyed it at least. I know I love reading Sylvanian reviews, haha! With this final picture, I wanted to show you the family that will own the bus in Arcfield. They're the Butler/Bearbury bear family I recently bought (thank you once again Berna for the wonderful outfits for the mother and father!). I'm planning on changing their surname, not sure to what yet...
You might have also noticed that I haven't used all the stickers available for the school bus. That's because in my village it won't be just a school bus, but a normal bus that the villagers take to get in and out of the village. I also plan on having its owners live in it, tiny home style! I don't know if it's very realistic to have the family both drive the bus and live in it, but I kind of want to do that, haha... Maybe they can carry everything in the trunk and swap as needed? :)
Have a wonderful week, everyone!
Hello everyone!
During this past holiday season, and for the first time ever in my life, I received wonderful Christmas cards and gifts from some of my fellow SF collector friends!
I wanted to write a post to thank them once again; for their friendship, first and foremost, and of course for their lovely, thoughtful, generous gifts! They all made me truly happy! :D
Here are some pictures of the beautiful packages, cards and gifts I received from them. Sorry if some of them are a little blurry, I was very excited when taking them, haha!
Amaia sent me a beautiful baby ornament for the Christmas tree! Here he is, being the absolute star of my tree (in fact, as you can see, I put him in front of the actual star, haha!) :D I adore him!
She also sent me the cutest Christmas card, with a lovely snowy picture she created. She made the babies' outfits herself, aren't they the cutest little elves you have ever seen? She had also sent me, earlier in the year, the adorable baby koala elf I featured and mentioned in one of my previous stories, as well as two blind bag babies I was missing and another card, so she actually sent two of them to me this year! Thank you so much, Amaia, for your heartfelt gifts! :)
Berna offered to make not one, but two custom outfits for my Sylvanians! Isn't she generous? She sent me a beautiful card and the two most perfect, loveliest outfits I have ever seen. The fabric feels so nice, and they're so lovingly and well made! I asked her for everyday outfits for my new Bearbury bears, that I recently bought second hand. They normally come dressed as a bus driver and conductor.
A perfect fit! Don't they look wonderful? I adore both outfits, every single detail of them! The little tie, the lovely flowery skirt, the little brown jacket... She even thought of making them similar to their uniforms in colour, so clever! I absolutely adore these gorgeous little outfits, Berna! Thank you so much! I hope to feature these lovely bears in a story very soon! :)
Cutata sent me a beautiful card with a picture of an adorable and angelic baby bear and the cutest little squirrel baby with a lot of absolutely beautiful miniature gifts! The little box was so cute, and she even sent a mini card along with the big one! Everything was so beautifully wrapped I felt sorry to open it!
You might recognize the little present, since I used it in my latest story! What you don't know is that it was filled with the cutest little handmade cookies! :D I hadn't even noticed when I took this picture, haha! If you follow Cutata's blog (and if you don't, you really should!) you already know about her amazing attention to detail, and it really showed in her beautiful package. She made everything by hand, even the little Christmas tree, as well as the one on the baby's red outfit! I absolutely adored everything you sent me, Cutata. Thank you very much!
Last but definitely not least, Nina sent me a wonderful package filled with amazing hand-made miniatures and delicious Christmas candy! Everything was delicious, loved the marzipan especially! :D She also sent me an adorable bottle of hand cream (that smells absolutely wonderful!), and the most beautiful bag! It's really soft and lovely, I really love it! It'll be really useful to me. :)
I also love the little Christmas-themed box she sent me, and of course the lovely card with the Periwinkles on it! :) I used most of the beautiful miniatures she sent in my story about the Andes' family Winter Solstice dinner.
I also meant to show baby Óscar with his new red sledge, but didn't end up taking the picture in the end. But rest assured, that was his gift from Holyster! :)
Your package made me really happy, Nina! Thank you VERY much, everything was so carefully wrapped too, and I loved all the wonderful Christmassy details you included, such as the dried orange and cinnamon stick! :)
Once again, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to the four of you for your lovely packages and gifts that made me so happy! If I forgot to include anything, please do not hesitate to remind me and I will update the post! I also loved each and every one of the wonderful messages you wrote on your cards. Thank you once again for your friendship and your generosity! :)
Have a wonderful rest of the week, everyone!
Hello everyone! Happy New Year!
It's 2020 already! Can you believe it? I hope you all had a wonderful year in 2019 and that 2020 is even better for you all. :)
Since it was very fun to post the SF official calendar's picture every month last year, I thought I'd keep doing it this year! If anyone else wants to take over, please do not hesitate to tell me!
About a month ago, I was lucky enough to attend a SF exhibition not far from where I live, here in Spain, and they had 2020's calendar in there! I was ecstatic!
So, here we are with the picture for January!
And we begin with an adorable one! I love how cozy all the Sylvanian look, with their cute coats and scarves, having fun in the snow! Freya and Nora are having hot chocolate inside the cutest igloo. It even has it own scarf! Reminds me of the ones Pigjes made! There's also a very cute snowman in the background, and lots of children having fun. I love Freya's little thermos, and the baby squirrel is so cute, holding the little snow figure he or she made!
Since this is the first month of the year, I thought I'd include the actual calendar part, too. Look at how cute it is! The Spanish branch Epoch team did such a great job with the design and the birthdays!
The year just begun, but I have several ideas for blog posts already; for starters, I want to write one about the beautiful Christmas packages and cards I received from several collector friends (thank you Cutata, Berna, Amaia, and Nina!), another about the SF exhibition that I attended and mentioned above, and yet another to do a review (and possibly write a little story) featuring the Calico Critters School Bus I won in a competition of the SF Collectors Community forum (so happy and honoured!).
I also have several story ideas and SF-related projects that I'd like to work on. During the last few weeks, with my birthday being in October and Christmas more recently, I have acquired several new families and figures (I'll admit that some of those I bought myself, haha!), so I need to think of personalities, jobs and stories for them! So exciting! :) I also need to update the "Families" section!
I'm leaving for a short family trip abroad in just a couple of days though, so all that will have to be for after January 7th.
As you can see, I'm still very invested in my Sylvanian Families hobby, and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy my posts and stories. I want to thank you all once again for your kind and supportive comments, that I always look forward to reading!
Happy New Year once again, everyone! Have a wonderful month of January. :)
