Baby shower

I've been taking stock of my families recently, & yesterday gathered up all of my Sylvanian babies for a quick photo.  I found I had 18, which was more than I realised I had.  Eight of them  (Hawthorn mouse, Maple cat, 2 Outback koalas & the 4 Secret Fairy Tree babies) are relatively new arrivals & all arrived earlier this year which I guess is why I lost track of how many I have.

My babys are: 2 Silk cats, 1 Maple cat, 1 Thistlethorn mouse, 1 Hawthorn mouse, 1 Fielding mouse, 2 Snow-Warren rabbits, 1 Wildwood rabbit, 1 Chocolate rabbit, 2 Outback koalas, 1 Dale sheep, 1 Neptune sea otter, 1 Buckley deer, 1 Trunk elephant, 1 Cakebread toy poodle, & 1 Waddlington duck. 

As with the rest of my figures collection, the cats, mice & rabbits make up just over half of them.  The Silk cats, Fielding mouse, Chocolate rabbit & Waddlington duck don't have families & I'm not planning to add those families to my collection/Hawthorn Bay so I'll have to see what families I can fit them into as adopted kids, wards, etc.

Secret Fairy Tree babies (from left to right): Fielding mouse (mushroom), Buckley deer (strawberry), Chocolate Rabbit (ladybird), & Silk cat (butterfly).  Ugh, the cute!

I don't think I'd had any new family arrivals since the Bramble hedgehogs & Cakebread toy poodles in 2016 (not counting the babies & any other small sets with figures), but this April I added the Outback koalas to my famlies.

I've been thinking about getting the Outback koalas for a while now & it was so nice to have a new family + they bought the Maple cat baby with them from Japan & planted the seed for me to get the rest of that family.

I've been trying to think of names for the Outbacks this weekend, & need to take some photos & make a proper introduction soon.  I've had them for months & not even deboxed them yet!

Sweet chestnut..

My other hedgehog (Mr Bramble) finally arrived today so I thought i'd add a few photos.

I definitely want them to be siblings rather than Mr & Mrs.  As planned I'm naming Mr Bramble Kuri Keikyoku (kuri means chestnut, keikyoku means bramble) & his sister is named Kiri (meaning fog or mist). 

I ♥ them.

Surprise gifts & disappearances..

Before the recent Solitaire family who visited, I briefly played host to another Solitaire family.  I mailed them off to their new home in December & was hoping that they would have arrived by now but the owner still hasn't received them & fears they've been lost in the mail.  I've been holding out, hoping they were just taking a long time to arrive.

I included some gifts in the package for the ladies of the family (2 of my crocheted dresses in pink) & took some photos of the lades in their dresses before mailing them off, but sadly only took quick photos of the whole family to show to their owner when they first arrived.

I don't know if having the photos will make their loss worse or at least give their owner something to remember them by, but here they are..

The other Solitaire family I played host to more recently also left with a couple of gifts (dresses I crocheted in white & light blue). Thankfully they made it safely to their new home.  I didn't post the photos before as I wanted the dresses to be a surprise, but now they've been received I can share them. 

Only looking back at these photos did I notice that both the Solitaire daughters had droopy whiskers.  ♥

I'm still hoping that the first Solitaire family turns up.

Oy with the poodles already! (part 1)

It was a good mail yesterday.  Some of my poodle family arrived & they're incredibly sweet.

Papa & baby poodle are still on the way but they should be with me soon, so i'll take more photos of the whole family together when they're reunited.

I've been considering naming them after characters from Gilmore Girls because I love Gilmore Girls (so excited that the show is coming back for new 4 episodes!) & because of ''Oy with the poodles already!'' (from I Can't Get Started, season 2, episode 22).

 

I might name them;

Lorelai (after Lorelai Gilmore), Luke or Luc (after Luke Danes), Eustace (after Paris Gellar's middle name), Michel (after Michel Gerard, the Independance/Dragonfly Inn's concierge) & Babette (after Babette Dell, Lorelai & Rory's neighbour).  Also Babette had a garden gnome named Pierpont, which might make a good surname.

I'm not sure what I'm going to name them yet, I jotted some other ideas after I initially bought them, but seem to have misplaced it. I'm going to have to look for it before papa & baby poodle arrive, however the Gilmore Girls related names feel kind of perfect.

I think the poodle family are supposed to be apricot coloured, & Babette's cat in Gilmore Girls was named Apricot, so maybe the naming gods are conspiring & saying ''yes! go with those names!''.

Your love calms my brambles..

A new family have recently started moving into Hawthorn Bay, the Brambles Hedgehogs who I've decided to name the Keikyoku family (Japanese for brambles).

I just got mother Eleanor Bramble to start with, but as soon as she arrived I adored her & knew I needed to get father Mortimer Bramble too, though I plan on them being fraternal twins, rather than husband & wife.

They have such sweet happy faces & I'm so happy with my decision to add them to my collection.

As far as I'm aware she's my first Japanese Sylvanian, she's certainly the first boxed Japanese figure I've bought up to this point (the only other Sylvanians I have with flat hands are the UK Tomy Thistlethorns & the Calico Critter Neptune sea otters).

I really wanted to give her a Japanese name, so inspired by an old favourite animated film of mine - Hedgehog in the Fog by Yuri Norstein (1975) I've decided to name her Kiri (meaning fog or mist), & yet to arrrive Mortimer I'll name *Kuri* (meaning chestnut), which seemed fitting because of the spiky cupules that cover them.

Before she arrived I decided that she would have a clothes/habedashery shop in Hawthorn Bay - partially because I didn't want to deal with having to make her a crocheted dress, partially because I have one of the Singer style Sylvanian sewing machines & have been wanting one of my families to have a (non-crocheted) clothes shop.  I hadn't realised that was Mr & Mrs Brambles jobs are supposed to be:

Father Mortimer Bramble is the Sylvanian tailor. He makes all the clothes for everyone in Sylvania. He loves sewing while gently rocking in his rocking chair. 

Mother Eleanor Bramble designs and makes all the special Sylvanian costumes like wedding outfits and Sunday best clothes.

Though it makes sense, in Japanese, hedgehog is harinezumi, which means needle mouse.

If you haven't seen Hedgehog in the Fog I highly recommend it..

The 13th is Magic!

There haven't been any new arrivals at Hawthorn Bay for a while now (the last family to arrive were the Whiskers cats in December last year) however a couple of families (funnily enough, both Solitaire cat families) have visited, passing through on their way to their new homes in far away places. 

The latter of the two arrived last Wednesday (the 13th) & they haven't left for their new home yet, & I wanted to check their condition out & take some photos to share with their new owner. 

I was especially taken with the sister Solitaire from this family, she has such a sweet expression, but they're all lovely & make a very handsome family. 

It seems that brother Solitaire is quite the character & a bit of a comedian.

Ahhh, that face! ♥

The book in the background is The 13th is Magic! by Joan Howard.  It's a children's fantasy book from 1950 about a brother & sister named Jill & Ronnie & their adventures after a magical cat named Merlin moves in with them.

Sister Solitaire is quite the adventurer & wanted to go outside to explore.

& while we were outside we ran into some of the locals (2 of our neighbours cats) - Lily (grey female) & Jet (black male).  Lily stopped to pose for some photos.

Sister Solitaire survived her encounter with the giant cat with all 9 lives intact & a fun story to tell once she makes it to her new home.

A Fisher in Winter.

I thought I'd take some quick photographs of Isabel Fisher before she moves on to a new home.. 

Isabel came to me with another purchase & I've decided to give her to a friend as a little Christmas present, along with a pink dress I've specially crocheted for her.

I'm not a big fan of Sylvanians with markings (an exception being the Appleblossom grey squirrel family, who I adore), but I must say that Ms Fisher has grown on me while I took photographs of her.   She's very endearing & I hope that my friend will like her too.

Bake/Off

It's been a while since there've been any new additions to Hawthorn Bay, but last week I received the 1998 Tomy Village Bakery. 

It's my third (& final?) Sylvanian bakery & you might be wondering why on earth Hawthorn Bay needs so many bakeries. Well obviously it doesn't.  I just love the bakery buildings & wanted all three.  Only one will remain a bakery, the rest will be converted to other businesses. 

 Tomy Bakery, #3137, 1987

 Tomy version of the Village Bakery, #3504, 1998

 Flair Water Mill Bakery, #4492, 2008

Hawthorn Bay has 3 main areas - the old village in a redwood forest, the coastal area, & a lake/mountain area.    I imagine that the first Tomy bakery was the original bakery built in the village, which was later replaced by the Village Bakery, until that too was replaced by the Water Mill Bakery (Hawthorn Bay's current bakery).  All 3 buildings are in the forest area, with the Water Mill Bakery being at the edge of the village where there's a stream.

The Water Mill Bakery will certainly be very well stocked with all the breads that came with the other bakeries in addition to what originally came with the Water Mill Bakery.

I already have plans for what the older bakeries will be, but I need to make some new signs in Photoshop & I've added some items to my wishlist to get towards the different business in the Village Bakery.  I'm looking forward to being able to set them up properly further down the line.