MLP Fair 2012!

It's my favourite time of year - Fair prep time!  :D

The 2012 MLP Fair will be in Orlando this year, in July.  Roomy and I have our tickets to the Fair, and our hotel booked.  July seems ages away, but it'll come up fast, as always.  I think I could start prepping the day after the Fair and still not be ready for the next one.

 Last year's Fair prep involved hours and hours of cleaning sales/trades ponies that had been sitting around gathering dust since the year before.  I vowed that I would get a box big enough to hold all my sales/trades stuff so that it would be clean and ready to go at a moment's notice!

...We're going to need a bigger box.

Our booth display from 2010 - the Fair in Kentucky

Half the fun of Fair prep (at least according to Roomy) is creating the booth display.  Roomy is a master builder, she designed and built the main parts of our display for the last two years.  She is looking forward to this year too.  Normally we build something that links with where we're going, but this year we're thinking of bringing a little piece of Canada with us.

Of course, I'll also be bringing some customs to sell.  Some are older customs looking for a new home, some are still in the works.  You'll be seeing them soon, right here.

Elf

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 12

Yes, I'm still avoiding actually cleaning in the Pony Room by cataloguing my collection.  Plus, it gives me a chance to show off some of my new(er) Ponies.

 First, there are the Ponies that I got at last year's MLP Fair.  They've been here since last July and they haven't been catalogued yet.  I admit to Pony procrastination.

 Then there are the Ponies I got in last year's MLP Arena Advent Swap.  Lots of Ponies.  Lots and lots of Ponies.  Gyspsy here was part of my December 25th gift.  At least that was only two months ago.

Finally, there's the latest addition to my collection, Brazil Heart Throb.  I've been saving for her for awhile, she is just so stunning.  She was my gift to me when I started a new job a little while ago.

Progress is progress, but sooner or later I'm going to address the stuff that's piling up in one corner of the Pony room, including G3 backcards, shipping supplies, sales stuff, and other odds and ends that I haven't quite figured out what to do with.

Elf

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 11

It's not fun spending your weekend cleaning, even if it's cleaning in your hobby room.

But spending the afternoon dressing up Ponies...now THAT's fun!

 I've had an ongoing project for about 4 years now to catalogue my entire collection.  It's been one step forward and twelve steps back for a lot of that time, but progress is being made.

 In the MLP Arena Advent swap this year I received a tonne of Pony Wear (yay!)  And as I was organizing Pony stuff I kept finding bits and bobs of Pony Wear around the Pony Room.  I really didn't know what all I had.

 I decided to model the Pony Wear on Ponies for the purpose of cataloguing.  It doesn't always show off the outfits as well as just laying them out might, but it does make it a bit easier to see what every piece is (those fuzzy slippers aren't so easy to identify when they're not on a Pony.)

 Also, the purpose of the catalogue isn't entirely to show all the little flaws, but more as a visual aid, at least where it comes to Pony Wear.  I have a spreadsheet that I'm keeping in conjunction with the pictures, so the flaws can be listed there.

This dress and mask from the "Lights, Camera, Action" set are some of the few pieces of my childhood collection that I still have.

Elf

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 10

Now that the door is in place, I feel motivated to get moving on the Pony Room Reorg again.  So off to Ikea Roomy and I went!

My goal was to get a glass-doored display cabinet to house my custom Ponies, mainly the customs I've received from other customizers.  We'd made this trip before, but were stalled by the fact that the local Ikea was in the process of moving to a larger store and didn't have all their stock available at the time.  I was also on the lookout for some storage boxes to organize my accessories and other little pieces.  Just so we're clear, the trip wasn't all about me, Roomy was on the lookout for some storage solutions for her hobby room, too.

Somewhere around five hours later, we emerged from the Giant Ikea with flat packed furniture in tow and headed home to start building.

 Lucky for me, Roomy actually enjoys doing handy stuff like building furniture.  She had the new cabinet built and set up within an hour of our return.  I might also mention that, although within the budget, this cabinet was quite a bit bigger and more expensive than planned.  Well, at least it gives me room to grow.

Front Row: Evening Orchid and Supernal Sparkle, both by Pop-Girl; Back Row: Stevie and Elvina, both by Princess FireFly

The custom Ponies are enjoying their new diggs.  There are no fears of dust, ick, and spiders now!

Elf

Glory Star

Glory Star was another quick G4 custom.  Her base was a Rainbow Dash and her inspiration was G1 Glory.  Her TAF symbol are silver stars, some with metalic purple tails.  Her wings are also touched with silver and metalic purple.  Her eyes have also been repainted.  Her hair is Dollyhair Sour Grapes, Water Nixie, and Moonlight.

Elf

Pumpkin Harvest

Pumpkin here was actually done in the autumn and came about rather by accident.  It was a few weeks prior to my panel on customizing at N2U con, and I was in need of a G4 bait to show how the neck mechanisim is different from the other generations.  I had pulled out an AJ double I had with the intention of beheading her, but as I was fiddling with her, I came up with the idea behind this custom.  So AJ kept her head on and another G4 got baited.

Pumpkin Harvest's symbol is a harvest of grains and vegetables from the Autumn.  Her eyes were also repainted.  Her hair is original, but was given a gradient dye with Rit fabric dye.  She bears a resemblance to an early custom I did, Autumn Harvest.

 
Elf

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 9

Do you see these kittens?  (OK, they're two, but they're the youngest cats in the house by far, so they're the kittens.)

These kittens are the reason for the following post.

When we first moved the Pony Room downstairs we put a sliding plastic door up to keep the kittens out.  That worked for awhile, but then the kittens pulled the hook that was holding the door closed out of the wall and got into the Pony Room.  Bad.  So we got a second sliding door to add to the first one.  The doors met in the middle and could be tied shut.  Problem solved, we thought!

sideways slidy doors

Wrong.  Now the doors had enough give that the kittens could squeeze underneath.  Bad.  Now the Ponies are unsafe in the Pony Room!  What's a girl to do?  (At least the kittens have gotten out of the chewing phase!)  Luckily, Roomy came to the rescue with a friend who's a handyman and was more than willing to help us with our problem.  He suggested an innovative cat-proofing solution sure to astound the ages!

A Door!

Our Friendly-Neighbourhood Handyman then proceeded to go above and beyond, building walls to support the door, hanging the door, spending lots of time making sure the door was straight and worked well, framing the door, and putting up drywall.  All that's left for us to do is paint the "walls."

A doorless Pony Room

Roomy and Handyman Francis taking measurements

The walls go up.

Door!

Putting up the drywall.

 And that's it!  In the space of about four hours I now have a Pony Room that is both secure AND easy for me to come in and out of.  This, my friends, is a good day!

Elf