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| Plum Loves You |
Wow! What a fun week for toy collecting!
I hauled like 20 boxes from my storage unit filled with toys. I'm going to start listing some of my doubles on Etsy as I have time. Toy and antique selling is a great side gig and super fun to boot! I promised myself that I wouldn't go thrifting until I list at least half the boxes, which is like 500 items. I'm not kidding. Its nuts! Luckily, my semester is almost over so I will have time to do this over the summer.
There are literally 200+ My Little Pony (Vintage, and G3) to go through. The rest are random 80's miscellany! My daughter (9) is going to help me comb out some of the hair. I swear, pony hair is a tyrant!
Did a lot of work this week on setting up some online profiles. Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, oh my! If you want to connect with me on any of the following places to see pictures and share information about toys, please do!
ETSY - The Pink Room
I don't want to get super sales-y on this blog. I am doing it for fun, not as a money thing. But when I share finds, 90% of the time they will materialize in my Etsy store. This is because I am really strict about how many toys I will allow myself to keep. I make myself earn them through hard work. So finding something, even if I don't own one already, doesn't mean I get to keep it. I use toys as a motivation to get other things (like school, art, tough projects) done. If one can turn obsessions into positive, healthy things, then one has won.
I discovered that Instagram is a great place to meet other 80's/90's toy lovers! Within about a day I had made some bffl's and gorged myself on pics of other people's hauls. Lots of fun! I also have a nasty habit of liking about 500 photos a day. I can't be helped.
I'm mainly going to set Twitter on auto. I have ifttt uploading new Etsy and Instagram pics and I will Tweet when I have a new blog post. I'm not a huge tweeter but lots of people use Twitter so I thought I would create a feed there in case any of you are super active on that!
I'm currently using Pinterest to hoard rare item photos, to keep track of my collections and to just generally waste a lot of time liking and repinning 80's toys!
Okay, now that's all out of the way!
Aren't we all just super jazzed to see these guys in stores again:
I LOVE that they are using the old molds! Some other toy lovers believe this destroys the value of the old toys but I don't believe that to be true. Look at Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Ponies and Care Bears. Each of those had re-releases where they used the exact molds from the 80's and nothing happened to the value of the originals.
The way I see it, re-releases puts old toys in new hands and helps the value increase over time.
Popcorn is my favorite of all of them. On Saturday I went to Toys R Us and bought both these cuties. I plan to give them to my niece.
(Incidentally, just now as I was typing up this post, a deer came to visit outside my window. I posted the pic on Instagram. My office is in the basement and my computer is just in front of my window. I live near the mountains so wildlife is a regular occurrence!)
While at Toys R Us I also saw some cute new toys called Moonbeams. They are transparent, light-up creatures with little houses and vehicles. They reminded me of the transparent Charmkins I just blogged about. I am not sure if they will take off though. There seems to be something of a lack of consistency when it comes to their cuteness. Some are really strange-looking, others are adorable. Also, there have been some complaints online that they are made of hard plastic and they break easily.
Finally, I saw some other toys that reminded me of various 90's toys I used to drool over. Soft Spots! They are little PVC collectable dogs that resemble Blues Clues characters. They also bring to mind the animal versions of Magic Diaper Babies. They have five-pack sets as well as blind bags and a few playsets. I really think they are cute. Not sure if they have lasting power though. I would love to see kittens and bunnies and other animals added to the mix.
Did you see a new toy that reminds you of the 80s/90s recently? Do you follow a newer line of toys you adore? What do you think about re-releases? Go ahead and share in the comments section!
They're remaking puppy (kitty) surprises! I just love those cute things (they're at the top of my old toys wish list). I always wanted to get the purple bunny, to be honest, but if I could have a puppy one, I would be just as happy. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, I would never have guessed they were back. Man, looks I have to save up 25 dollars now...
ReplyDeleteBtw, I followed you on Twitter and also if you are curious, I have my own pinterest board full of 80's-90's toys, some I think are rare (penni secrets and puppy {kitty} check-up). Here's the link if you like: https://www.pinterest.com/tikleurcutebone/toys-from-yesterday/
A newer toy series that I'm a bit interested in is the Kawaii Crush doll sets. Not exactly similar to 80's-90's toys, but I still think they are really cute and wouldn't mind buying a set sometime if I had some extra cash.
Oh, and I honestly think it would be really cool if they were a couple of re-releases of old toys. I don't know if I want everything to be re-released (lady lovely locks for example), but if they re-released nosy bears, tea bunnies, or keypers (YES PLEASE to all of these!), I would so totally buy one. Maybe I think some of the more original/stuffed animal like things should be re-released, but not the doll lines. Does that make sense?
P.S. Sorry for the overload of information XD
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Tickle Your Cute Bone
You've got quite an inventory. People are still nostalgic about the '80s, so the demand should continue to be constant, especially since the ideals tend to stay alive and remade in different ways. And with these online media platforms left and right, it would be easy to promote such a thing, given the right tools and strategy. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteTravis White @ Marketing Digest