W is for Wrangling Cats

Blimey, five out of the last six posts had a space theme, and the other was a political rant! If I'm not careful, I'll have to change the Blog's name to Spacebase One or something! So to save myself from that fate, here's a complete change of direction with a roundup of recent moggie-related purchases, and other such feline fun!

 

A white button jumping Tiger; I can't remember if it came from a charity shop or something more commercial, but seem to recall it was the only one of its kind in a basket with duplicates of a couple of other animals, so probably commercial a purchase, and I don't seem to have noted the brand, picked-up last August ('24).

 

Smyths had a whole bunch of the Schleich cats, the same month, so I grabbed one of each to tick that box firmly into the 'got' camp, possibly the best attempts at ginger-tabbies you'll find, and no horrid bald, wrinkled or skinny Human-ego breeds.

 

Last February I picked this up in Hobbycraft, thinking I might do something with it one day, I have some very small mosaic tiles, silver-backed, coloured glass, left over from some Art School project back in the early 1980's, which might look fun, if a bit kitsch, glued to this Papier Mâché foundation?

 

Left on the peg; but shot in TKMaxx back in March, you have to be some kind of hardcore cat-obsessive to buy some of this stuff, but it's fun, and figural, so I'll always get the camera out, when I see such things! Made by Joie, Kikkerland and unknown.

 

Back to Schleich, and this was on clearance somewhere, probably the Redfields garden-centre in Church Crookham? Schleich do these odd coloured animal finishes from time to time, to celebrate or commemorate things, either Schleich-related (90th year anniversary in this case) or something in the wider-world, and I think I shot a similar one at a London Toy Fair, which may not be on the Blog yet? They also do all-gold versions sometimes.

 

Definitely from Redfields, the Papo ginger-tabby, is not finished as well as the Schleich's, but is still a good effort at a difficult fur-type, and a nice sculpt, with plenty of character!

 

Toe Beans!

L is for Loose Ends

The last of the Christmas figurals, and it'll be back to more normal output, if equally occasional at the moment, but that's life! A mixed bunch and some of them from last year . . . 

 

Hobbycraft were clearly selling the end of the line we've seen over the last year or two, as they only had a few, back in November, and once they were gone, they weren't replaced, not even with a similar line? I managed to grab this deer family, as one day, a cake-decoration deer page is on the cards; there are loads and loads of them! Poured resin and about 40mm?

 

I also picked up this snowman, which reminded me that while we looked at the line two or three years ago, last year's post went to archive when I ran out of time, inclination or whatever else contributed to quite a lot going off to the long queue. It meant I could get this year's out as last year's is still in his [net] bag, along with the Santa' in a poly' bag.

 

The Mushrooms were from The Works, a bit of fun for a possible future project (fantasy secenry), and this year I saw them or similar assortments in several places including The Range and possibly either B&M or Home Bargains?

Can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might have been the aforementioned Home Bargains, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas, I saw a lot of Grinch 'Merch' as it's called these days - by a dying civilisation which insists on abbreviating everything - JLO, LOL!

 

I mentioned that I thought there might be a sequel to Nightmare in the offing when I started to see that everywhere, back in, sort of, Oct./Nov., but I think with both, it's just the inexorable commercialisation of Christmas, particularly by the toy and home-furnishing industries off the back of Holywood? But it was a very inexpensive white-button walker, which is a slowly-growing side-collection, in main-part thanks to robots and Halloween!

 

I think we did look at the Malteezer deer last year, this year's edibles included this Santa Clause from Marks & Spencer, which was illustrated as being like an Aero inside, but was actually the more solid and disappointing texture of a Wispa - which I've hated from the day they were launched!

I forgot to properly check out the edible cake decorations, this year, but managed to find this in Sainsbury's a day or two before the big day, we looked at all the ranges/brands a year or two ago, but this was a new colourway of one of the Santa's from Cake Decor.

 

While I think this lead flat is similar to the set we looked at a while ago, this one possibly coming from Chris or Adrain last year sometime (2023), and also held over, I brought it forward with the Hobbycraft images! I think a similar sculpt can be seen at the back of the upper set's image in this post, which, it turned-out, are Hafer, but this one has a different base and will be from another set, how many were there!

 

Finally, while the above are mostly in some sort of chronological order of when they acme in or were shot, (or make narrative sense to me!), this was an early purchase which them hung around, unshot, and uneaten until the other night, when I managed both! Hence, the fogging of the chocolate, I think?

A departure for Kinder I think, I don't remember seeing them before, but they may be a year or two old as a concept, the prizes are meant to be tree-hangers, and obviously it's a Christmas-specific thing, being a merry festive snowman!

H is for Haversack of Halloween Horrors from Hobbycraft

Some years I do the Halloween stuff on the 31st October as if it's a sort of 'Pirate Day', but really I should post the stuff has I find it, or at least soon enough for those who want to go and look for it, to do so, so this is what I found in Hobbycraft the other day for a few quid.

 

 

It's in a net bag rather than the usual cellulose, polythene or vinyl bag, but I don't think there's any eco' message there, as it's a polyethylene net! A whole bunch of stuff for a reasonable price, I think it was only about 2.99?

 

Five large spiders and handfuls of the type of spider rings we've seen before at this time of year, in two colours; the rings are pretty-much knock-off's of those previous ones, but the large spider is a new sculpt and pretty mean-looking!

 

You also get four-each of the glow-in-the-dark skeletons, they are a bit crude compared to others, and not very 'glowy' as they are more transparent than glow-material, while the bats are pretty-much, much of a muchness!

 

However, as an addition to the various sets of finger puppets (described as 'toppers' here) we have also seen here at Small Scale World, in previous years, these are the bees knees! Although with my critic's hat on, I thought it was a bit of a swizz that there weren't two orange ones, a slight cheat there! Hobbycraft, now.

H is for How They Come In - Cheap Deals

This post deals with stuff I picked-up while out and about last April-May, or at least that's when I shot the photographs, sometimes things get shot same the day sometimes they don't, nor do they always get photographed in the order they came in, so March may be the start-date of this little lot, but it hardly matters!

This must have been a previous (2020) Christmas range, on clearance, from the same Hobbycraft decoration line we've looked at here recently from the year just gone (2021), which are themselves now on clearance! Not the best sculpt, it seems to be channeling at least two species, but what do I know, the cake-decoration deer have their own box (there's so many of them) and he'll add to that 'archive'!

Erasersaurs, we may have seen them before as another iteration; I haven't checked, but, even if we have, they may be new colours. There is a post on Dinorasers in the long-queue, but these aren't in it?!! Asda supermarkets, and close-enough to the now ended Walmart ownership for them to possibly be findable over the pond in that establishment, but probably not now?

This was 20p in Paperchase! They had a table with tons of stuff, most of it one-offs, some of it quite dusty and had obviously had a serious five- or ten-year stock take and cleared out the forgotten corners, and 'behind the shelves' areas of the storeroom? You can see from the chunky pen that it's a largish beast and had a lovely metallic decoration. 'Bronty' the Biro!

This was in the same Paperchase pile, and also the only one, missing it's cap and not something I would normally give house room to, but A) it's cats! B) I had, only a few days earlier, split the cats, dogs and elephants into their own tubs, and C) 20p!! Soft-foam calico cats with a Biro up their arses!

Flying Tiger gave up this for a quid, the same day I think? It was my first trip to Basingrad since before lockdown (a year or so?) and is just for the archive, to ID in the future, to box-tick the brand and items, fun, silicon 'rubber jigglers' in the old-school style.

These were on clearance at TKMaxx, and you know by know I really like these, the . . . start again; We are about to look at three of these sets of Nano-Metal's from Jada, two of which (probably these two) were on clearance at TKMaxx, the other - I think - came in a few days later, either from eBay or Asda stores? But . . . it may have been a donation and because the amount of stuff which has joined the long-queue in the last 14-odd months is vast, I'm not 100% sure on the history of these now! So I'll thank the two obvious candidates - Brian Berke or Peter Evans - for everything they do for the Blog, and carry on as if they were three similar retail/clearance purchases a few days apart, nearly a year ago!

The first set (above) was a straight tie-in with the Incredibles movie, or at least Incredibles 2 which I haven't seen, but I thought the first one was fun and they have that lovely metallic paint which makes this range so lush, while there is a duplicate pose in the second set which is a sort of Disney 'starter' set with figures ancient ('classics') and modern (Pixar joint-productions).

I don't know who Baymax is (actually I've just Goggled him! Big Hero 6, which had totally escaped me?), but there are characters here from seven franchises, with pairs from Monsters Inc., and The Muppets.

The one I'm not so sure about, I think it was reduced in Asda, but . . . which definitely came in a week or two after the other two sets and, again, another 'starter' set to get you wanting more Disney "100% diecast" Nano Metal's, with a lovely pair from Alice in Wonderland, two Scrooge McDuck characters and little Lilo.

T is for Two - Hobbycraft Rack Toys

These are fun, one being a copy of previously seen stuff, the other a rather weird take on millinery! It's funny, you can go to one of these big-box stores regularly for several years and find nothing beyond a mould-your-own pirate fort to shelfie, or you can go three times in three months and walk away with something after every visit! I was in Hobbycraft the other day for a multi-compartment storage tray and left with three, and these two!

"Throw an egg in it; that'll make it Easter-bonnet'ty!" Yeah, seriously . . . but a nice set of mini dinosaurs married to a scenic space-taker and a couple of bits of greenery, Easter bonnet's are all about the greenery!

The two on the right are from forthcoming posts on kids comic giveaways, and while the Hobbycraft ones are similar they are 'new' copies rather than pantographed clones, and - it has to be said - of slightly poorer quality/finish.

The palm trees are fascinating - from a technical point of view - as they are a single moulding (that frond is growing out of the trunk), which must be shaped with heat, probably while still hot from the moulding process? The shrub is clearly a fish-tank thing with a weight-basket attached to bury in the gravel at the bottom of a tank!

And they both have this bi-colour single-shot moulding which pushes the paler colour to the extremities, which have looked at before, again coming our hobby via aquaria? 

While these are branded to Unique, who we've seen before as purveyors of fine novelty tat! They are smaller copies of the Henbrandt ones we saw here, the originals going to five poses, to which we added a sixth pose here.

I don't know if these knock-offs have copied all six sculpts as they are only sold in fours and all the bags had the same contents? That's it; a couple of rack-toys in Hobbycraft now.

I would add that House of Marbles are carrying the Henbrandt set in new colours, so we will see these again here at Small Scale World.

S is for Seasonal Scraps

A few Xmas-related items I couldn't shoe-horn into other posts!

The only thing I found in Flying (formally just-) Tiger which was worth a punt, and then only because it was only a quid and I had a pound on me for parking, that I hadn't needed because the old Jobcentreplus was shut early and I thought that if - as a tax-payer - I part-owned the place, I could park there! Wooden snowman, ski-sticks, no skis!

Meanwhile, this came in from Brain B in the Nu Yoik, and I feel a bit guilty as a result, because both Asda and Poundland had smaller nutcrackers for tree hanging, 70/80mm maybe, but I just wasn't in a nutcracker mood this year and left them all regimented on their hooks!

Jo-Ann Stores paint-you-own, dress-your-own and sticker-your own, nutcracker fairy! Of course you can leave the skirt off and with that crown and some diligent painting, make a 'proper nutcracker of the he-fairy variety! "Steal some of the hair for a beard and no one will know, Dr Frankenstein?" Thanks Brian!

This has been hanging around by the front door on the old telephone stand for years, well decades according to the date on it! A lot of corporate cards are just naff shite aren't they? But I felt some effort and thought had gone into this piece of direct-marketing, so I thought I should record it before it went to recycling!

You may remember me mentioning I'd gone back and bought two duplicate cake-decorations in Hobbycraft when I posted the others a couple of weeks ago, well, I took them back and exchanged them for these two.

The polar bear was a nice sculpt and I can't say no to a motorcycle even if it is a scooter! Compared with the Airfix one, you can see it will take one of the many orphaned 35-45mm riders piling-up in that zone! I was tickled by the two holes in the pack to stop the handlebars breaking, but which makes it easier for them to catch on things . . . doh!

C is for Christmas - At Hobbycraft

Sliding into the festive season, and here's a few figurals I found at Hobbycraft, in fact, I managed to purchase the cat and soldier again (oh! Hugh; you're so predictable!) last night - I'll take them back and swap them, as there are dozens to choose from, but clearly my short-term memory isn't what it was!

In-store brand, sub-branded to 'Crafty Christmas', they may be local to you (in Europe, the Americas, the antipodes or elsewhere) branded under another name. They are quite small, across the range probably 20-45mm, because they are designed for cakes, cards and dioramas/displays, and - as the header-card states - of resin manufacture.

I got . . . ♫♪♪ Threeeeeeee Bay'bee Bears! Another-with-a-Pen-guin, a-cat in-a-hat - and a San'tah with pres-ents innn hiiiis haaaaaannds! ♫♪♫♪ . . . and a soldier, I got a soldier . . .

He's quite well decorated, but the painting leaves a little to be desired . . . boom-boom! Medals? I'll see me'self out when I've finished the blurb! He's about 28/30mm and a crude sculpt with a helmet that's a black helmet not a bearskin!

The undersides - bog-standard poured-resin fare, briefly kissed with a powered sander to make them flat/level-enough to stand up.

You may have noticed Santa' and the guardsman have thick/raised boots to sink into icing, glue or flock and which will help prevent breakage, common with these, check the packs before taking to the counter, as chipping (or worse) occurs as people browse through them, knocking them, dropping them etc . . . and then put them back!

Hobbycraft now, lots to chose from, tress, several dogs, a couple more bears, micro-vehicles, several pillar-boxes (including one with a  dog), presents . . . all sorts, £1.50p each!