Fair Souvenir and Wildlife Wonders Polar Bear

Remember that I mentioned getting myself a souvenir at the Fair in my last post? I usually get souvenirs that are not Fair specific; just things that the random vendors there sell. Like pins --every year I buy at least one pin from The Pin Specialists:

I am very glad they keep coming to the Fair every year. This year I bought a Blondie stamp pin from them. I would have gotten more, but to my joy, this was the first year that the Fair itself had a huge booth dedicated solely to souvenirs from "The Miami-Dade County Fair." Everything from stuffed toys pens, hats and caps (one of which I needed, and bought) to less conventional things such as this beautiful pencil holder with a tile featuring a lovely fair-related painting:

Here is a close-up:

I am delighted with it; the colors look very good in my studio/bedroom, and I kind of needed a pencil holder anyway (okay, maybe not so much, but it's so damn pretty!!)

I've been taking more photos of my new Safari Ltd replicas. Here is my treasured Wildlife Wonders Polar Bear. Several shots, because I like her so much (can't help of thinking of it as a she... Probably because one of the characters in the Seekers series I am currently reading is a female polar bear called Kallik):

*Sniff Sniff*

Right side...

...left side.

Little by little I am taking more photos of everything that was in the big box from Safari Ltd so stay tuned.

This Friday I am off to the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens with my friend Crystal to take some toy photos. Looking forward to getting a couple of shots that are decent enough for the Laughing Giraffe photo competition. Now I'm off to work!

-Marina

Tourney of the Rose and The Fair

Hi, everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. I'm finally back home and looking forward to inking this month's TGF designs tomorrow!

So this past Saturday my boyfriend and I went to the Moose Lodge in Palm Beach Gardens, where the Tourney of the Rose was taking place. Thanks to a friend's kindness I had pretty garb to wear, which was nice. Plus Will was nice enough to buy me a belt on the spot, and I also had the pendant he got me at Gulf Wars to wear along with his token and all the little site tokens and other things I've collected since I started going to SCA events with him.

The thing I enjoyed the most at this event was taking photos. In fact, since I can't seem to become interested into any particular SCA craft or activity, I think this is what I will dedicate myself to: get a really nice camera and just go around taking pictures of everyone. I'm sure everyone will enjoy looking at them later and at least I feel that I am doing something helpful that isn't easy to screw up very badly.

This is my favorite of all the photos I took:

On Sunday, as planned, we went to the Miami Dade County Fair! It was SOO awesome. Every year I look forward to the Fair almost as much as to, oh, I don't know, Christmas. I love it! As soon as we went in we ate a couple of arepas, then I bought a hat and souvenir pencil holder and we asked one of the salesguys to take a photo of us together:

One of the best things in the entire day happened almost immediately after: they had a petting zoo! Full of goats and cows and other critters like zebras and giant tortoises and kangaroos, but most importantly... GOATS!

Many of you know I love goats, and if you didn't, well, now you do! Goats are one of my favorite critters along with deer, owls, squirrels and garden snails. That one up there totally loved a good scratch! They had little cups with sliced carrots for sale at $1.00 each, and I bought six. This is one of the photos Will took while I went around feeding these cuties:

Isn't that adorable?! It's so cute I can hardly stand it! I even submitted it to Cute Overload. First time I submit anything there. I hope it gets posted!

Another interesting thing was that they had a large display of dioramas made by schoolchildren, and I recognized a lot of Safari Ltd animal replicas in them. You can visit this thread in the Laughing Giraffe forum to see those photos; here is just one of them:

As you can see it was a very fun weekend for me, but very exhausting as well as expensive. I am looking at my bank account and can't figure out some of today's charges... One shows up as a very unhelpful "Miami" for all reference and I cannot remember what it was. At this point I am beginning to fear I got swindled on something, and when it happens on the last day of the Fair that is Bad News. Hopefully I will remember whatever it was.

Wishing you all a nice week,

-Marina

The package from Safari Ltd is here!! :D

So! Thursday night, just as I am about to leave work, I get a call from my mom letting me know that there is a big (did I mention BIG?) box waiting for me at home:

I knew my Safari replicas had arrived!! :D I couldn't bike home fast enough to get to them.

*DRUMROLL PLEASE...*

★★ TA-DAAA~!! ★★

It was a really good haul. Below is just a part of it!

As much as I would like to, I can't post photos of all of them at the moment. Too many are still in their boxes and bags because I simply don't have the space to display them. What I hope to do is take them on outings to the park and such, one at a time, where I can take good photographs. Still, I would like to brag share a few of them with you:

Incredible Creatures Hamster

Such a cutie pie --the photo doesn't begin to do it justice.

Barnyard Buddies Boer Nanny Goat and Ewe

The goat looks as though it could come to life at any given moment!

Incredible Creatures Hamster and Mouse

Fairy Fantasies Ollie the Elf on Snail

Ollie is very cute but the snail is my favorite of the two. 

Incredible Creatures Bald Eagle

Majestic!

Incredible Creatures White Lipped Snail

This little guy is so realistic! I just love snails.

Wild Safari Opposum With Babies

Incredible Creatures Prairie Dogs

Safari Farm Goose on Nest

Such a lovely pose and expression!

Incredible Creatures Flying Squirrel

This one impressed my mom; it's especially well done.

Bears at Discovery Rock Cave
My Black Bear Cub and Brown Bear now have a lair!

Speaking of collecting, recently I've come across a very interesting website via a link in the Laughing Giraffe forums (an online hangout for toy aficionados that I've been frequenting since my visit to Safari Ltd.) It's called Collectors' Quest and allows you to keep track of your collections, no matter what you collect. The website is still growing and changing, but it's definitely worth a look. My own profile is here.

I've had a fun but exhausting Saturday with my boyfriend at the Tourney of the Rose (an SCA event) where I took LOTS of photos. Tomorrow we are going to The Fair. I'm really looking forward to eating all those good fair foods, especially chocolate soft serve ice cream! And corn on the cob... arepas... candy apples... YUM!!!

Well, that's all for today. But I will be back during the week with more TGF sketches! Hopefully you will like them as much as you liked the last ones I posted.

Have a great Sunday!

-Marina

A ☆NEW☆ Critter, and more!

Hello again! Big news today: I've got a brand new Critter Crew member to introduce to you! He will be featured in future designs for The Greeting Farm.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ MEET BETO THE KITTEN! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Beto is a chubby little cat, a little shy and little clumsy, but very sweet. I hope you like him!

But wait, there's more! Here are two more design drafts for your viewing pleasure. First, a pouting Toby:

And Ricky the Bunny merrily playing the flute. It's been a while since I drew Ricky, hasn't it?

This month I'm drawing a lot of music/dancing themed designs for Marie featuring the Critter Crew. Stay tuned to see more sketches throughout the week! :D

-Marina

My visit to Safari Ltd!

Hello, everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. Mine was crazy fun, what with Paint Your Heart Out in Friday, seeing How to Train Your Dragon on Saturday (AWESOME movie, by the way!!) and then the Palm Beach Zoo on Sunday. Whew!

But that's not all --and this is going to be a photo-heavy post so I apologize in advance! (and just so you know, you can click on each individual photo to be taken to its Flickr page for more info.)

On April 1st I had the incredible, amazing, unbelievable luck of being invited quite suddenly to visit the Safari Ltd company. Safari Ltd manufactures some of the best animal replicas in the market --detailed, durable, with great attention to realism and lots of personality. I've always been an avid collector, lately adding new replicas to my collection on a more or less weekly basis. I also have a Squidoo lens and Flickr group dedicated to this hobby, so when company president Ramona Pariente kindly invited me to come visit on Monday, I was absolutely over the moon!

Here I am at the front desk. Below is what was the best part of the entire tour: the conference room! I had never seen so many animal replicas in one place; in fact, many I did not even know existed! I was left to my own devices in there for a good while and went all around the room, staring at everything open-mouthed for SO many times. They were all so beautiful!

I was even allowed to choose a whole bunch of replicas for myself. I didn't get to take them home yesterday (I'm sure that if they let every visitor raid their conference room displays it would be quite an annoyance to replace them, ha ha!) but they have my address, so I suppose they'll show up at my doorstep one of these days. I can't wait!! ♥

    

    

Vice-president of sales Alexandre Pariente took time out of his very busy schedule to give me a full tour of the premises (thanks again, Alex!) It was a wonderful experience. The warehouse was a fascinating place! I really wish I had taken more photos, but I guess I was just too distracted by everything around me... Anyway, at least I got a few! Below you can see quality control...

The first photo below shows the room where the posters and printed and laminated, and the second one is one of the dioramas Safari Ltd uses to display their replicas at toy trade shows:

    

Finally, here are a couple more shots of the warehouse:

    

This was truly a wonderful experience, though I'll admit to feeling just a little bit guilty that I got to go while so many other Safari Ltd enthusiasts that would love to visit don't get the chance. I hope that you enjoy looking at these photos and getting a glimpse of where all the magic takes place. =]

-Marina