LONG TiME NO SEE

Wow, where did the year go? I didn't plan on taking such a long break from my blog but I blinked and most of the year had passed. So to get anyone who might read this up to speed, I moved last year across the country and since then have been setting up our home, organizing my collections, and doing home improvements when I have the time. I meant to share photos on here of our progress but it all just became too overwhelming.

Things are starting to finally slow down a bit so I will slowly be adding posts on here but plan to do a full blog makeover soon. Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is coming up I'm starting to get really motivated to create and decorate. I will be sharing Halloween inspired products and art I find over the next couple of months both here and on Pinterest. I will also be sharing home improvement photos along with how we display our collections. I hope they can inspire in some way. Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Here are a few photos from last year right after we moved in. Halloween was the first holiday I decorated here and I can't wait to do it this year.

xoxo

Sara

TOY : DREAM BiG FRiENDS

Happy Monday everyone! The weekend before Thanksgiving I attended one of my favorite conventions, Designer Con. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a toy and art convention mostly focusing on the designer toy world. I’m going to share more from the convention over the next few days but I first up is the Dream Big Friends now on Kickstarter. 

“After watching their own kids play, David Horvath and Sun Min (Award Winning Designers of Uglydoll) began a discussion with Klim Kozinevich (Creative Director of Bigshot Toyworks) and wondered; what if there was more? The worlds of princesses and pixies, fashion models and super heroes are all fantastic, but something was missing. The trio set out to create a unique personality in a small plastic body, focusing on aspirational, inspirational and imaginative play. Something that would encourage kids around the world to embrace what makes them who and what they are, inside and out. With all that in mind, Yuna was born!

Yuna is the very first doll in an all new line called Dream BIG Friends. She's also the first Asian American girl to be the center of a doll line! She loves science, travel, rockets, art, design, and Korean food. Her BIG dream is to run a company designing rockets that will one day take her to Mars. She'll be the first one to stand on the planet's surface, naturally. With your help, she’s sure to get there.November 20th  (that's TODAY!) heralds the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for Dream BIG Friends, where you can invite Yuna and her cat Kamata into your home. There have been many discussions about body types and unrealistic proportions and attitudes imposed through children's toys these days. David, Sun Min and Klim wanted their first doll, and all of her friends, to feel like very real characters, complete with rich backgrounds and boundless potential...  Avatars for your imagination. Made with high quality materials and built to last, our BIG Dream is that one day far from now, your kids will share Yuna with their kids. Yuna will be making her first appearance at DesignerCon November 21 and 22 in Pasadena, CA at the Bigshot Toyworks Booth #901.Spread the word... and Dream BIG with Us!“

Links:

Dream BIG Friends Kickstarter: http://kck.st/1POfuRK

Bigshot Toyworks: http://www.bigshottoyworks.com

TOYS!

Somehow it's been almost a year since I boxed up all my possessions and moved across the country! Where did the time go? Last Halloween Doug and I shared a short video we made of some of my home and collections. We have shelves being delivered this week hopefully so I may have a video up this Halloween of the toy wall going back up! Fingers crossed! Until then, here is our video again from last Halloween <3

 
Sara Harvey's Toy Sideshow from Doug Smith Media on Vimeo.

Have a wonderful week!

xoxo

Sara

PiNEAPPLE BANDiTS

Happy Tuesday! I wanted to post this sooner but unfortunately my days have been crazy and I just can't move as fast as I use to.

My friend and co worker at Hallmark Allie Rotenberg (we both no longer work there) has some awesome products she collaborated on with 5 Points. Her Pineapple Bandits collection are so fun. They created some 3D printed figures in a few different styles and of course I needed them in my collection. I love their derpy expressions and imagine them being really terrible at actually being bandits. I want to hang out with them.

Be sure to check the 5 Points pop up shop currently in Venice Beach if you're in the area. Also check out their other product they carry. I love all of it! Such beautiful work. I can't wait to add some to our new home. 

See more on instagram @weare5points  and Allie's instagram feed @allie_ro

Have a great day!

xoxo

Sara

MOMIJI BLOG INTERVIEW

Hi everyone! Things have gotten a bit crazy over here so I'm pretty behind on everything. I wanted to share a interview Momiji posted on their blog if you're interested. If you don't know Momiji dolls, take a look at their shop and doll archive. I became obsessed with them when I discovered them years ago. All mine are in storage still but I added a few photos I found.

Right now for 24 hours you can get %15 off at checkout with code 4theloveofmomiji

MOMIJI BLOG

Have a great day!

xoxo

Sara

TAKiNG DOWN THE RAiNBOW

A few months ago when I was taking down my collections and packing up my home I took a time lapse of the rainbow wall coming down. It took me awhile to put it together because I didn't have the right program to create it but lucky for me Doug was able to make it for me so I could finally share it. So here it is :) Something that took me years to put up (I added a lot of toys over the years) took no time to take down. I'm not even going to go into how long it was to pack everything up in boxes. Eek! Thankfully I had saved most of them which helped a lot with packing.

Happy Saturday!

XOXO

Sara

FOUR HORSIES OF THE 'POCALYPSE

Happy Tuesday! I wanted to share a kickstarter for some new figures from Bigshot Toyworks, The Four Horsies of the 'Pocalypse. This project has until Feb. 14th to get funded so go check out the rewards for backing them if you're interested in the figures. I promise you wont be disappointed. I just received Maddie, the 'Pocalypse figure from the last kickstarter and I'm highly impressed with the quality and can't wait to see these produced. I will share some photos on here soon once I have some time to take some pictures. 

The Four Horsies of the 'Pocalypse Kickstarter 

Have a great day! Mine will be filled with adventures for a certain boyfriends birthday :)

XOXO

Sara

SARA HARVEY'S TOY SIDESHOW

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!!! I hope you have a great day full of tricks and treats! This day for me is like Christmas for most kids where you can't really sleep the night before because you're too excited! I have always loved Halloween and getting dress up as anything you want to be. Usually my costumes are horror related because I'm a horror blood and guts kind of lady, ha! This year I didn't really have much of a costume planned out so I'm putting together something for later today with things I already own.

My amazing boyfriend thankfully gets me and put this awesome video together. He's super busy with normal work so I am truly grateful he took time out to make this for me so we could share it today. I really don't even have the proper words to express how much it means to me that he made this. It's not my entire collection or my entire home but the film would have been way too long and I'm sure no one wants to sit through that. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I think he captures my personality and my home perfectly. We had some fun with a little stop animation so I hope you like it! If you're curious, the music is by Danny Elfman, whom I've loved since I was a wee little child. So...here it is!!! I'm so excited! I will get to cherish this forever since my home no longer looks like this.

Sara Harvey's Toy Sideshow from Doug Smith Media on Vimeo.

Have an amazing day and eat lots of candy!

xoxo

-Sara

OCTOBER TOY A DAY'S PART TWO

More photos of my all month long Halloween theme. Three more figures from the Tim Burton's Tragic Toys set.

Mummy Boy

Pin Cushion Queen

Stainboy

Have a wonderful Sunday!
xoxo
-Sara

OCTOBER TOY A DAYS

I'm a bit behind on things and have been meaning to post all the Halloween related toys I'm taking photos of all month. Here are the first of 12 Tim Burton figures that I have posted to my Instagram. I will be adding more detailed and group photos to my blog after I've posted all 12 figures. 

Staring Girl

Roy, the Toxic Boy

Robot Boy

More photos coming soon!

xoxo

-Sara

SAY GOODBY TO THE RAINBOW // MOVING FORWARD

Some people know my past and I've shared a bit here on my blog. I moved to Kansas City, MO to attend college back in 1998! Man I feel old right now. I had decided to stay here because it was very difficult for my partner at the time to move and I had a really great job as an artist and designer so there was no reason not to stay. We had purchased this house back in 2008 I believe, and I have spent years making it my home. I've shared photos on Flickr and Facebook and anywhere I could. I love to decorate and style a space and hopefully inspire others. I've been able to share the designer toy world with people that may not have normally ever seen a collection like this and how you can have it in your home in a nicely designed way. 

What some people may not realize is that my home and toys were therapy for me. I haven't left my home much in many years other than when I would go to work but then I came back home to be a caregiver. My home is a reflection of who I am and what gives me joy and I will always love it and have a special place in my heart for it. Unfortunately it does not hold the best of memories for me and as hard as I've tried I can no longer continue to stay here anymore. It had become my personal paradise and my personal prison. Every other aspect of my life has changed within the past year and this is the last step for me to make. 

In the next couple of weeks, after I have some photos and a video taken of my house, I will be boxing up all of my toys and art and getting my home prepared to sale. It will be an emotional experience I'm sure but also a very exciting one. I will get to start over and create something new in a new space. I'm going to miss you rainbow wall but maybe you will be new and improved someday. I'm not sure what it will be like to live here for awhile with no toys displayed. I'm sure it will be incredibly weird for me. I'm going to be sharing photos and the process of everything coming down and what the end result will look like. I will probably not be selling any toys, I know, I know, I'm sorry ;) I will be selling other things though because I need to downsize what I have and let go of some of my past. I will be having another Instagram account up with things I'm parting with soon if anyone is interesting because I would love for my things to go to people who will appreciate them. 

Thank you for listening...reading. This is an adventure I'm more than ready for and I'm excited to share my new life with you. 

XOXO

-Sara

5 QUESTIONS PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK

Happy Monday Everyone! So I thought I would post a few questions I get ask pretty regularly about my toy collection. These are questions I have answered so many times that I wanted to have this list up to direct people to, because as much as I don't mind answering questions, I just don't have the time to keep answering the same ones. I'm to the point where my answers are silly and made up just to entertain myself. These are my serious answers though :)

1. How long have you collected toys?

My entire life. I still have quite a lot of my toys from when I was a child. I use to freak out if I had to get rid of something for one reason or another.  I remember trying to confiscate toys from a garage sale my parents had when I was maybe 6 or 7. I was not good at letting go of things. I guess I'm a toy hoarder.

2. How in the world do you dust all of your toys? You must be cleaning all the time. 

Do you see those grey shelves my wall of toys are sitting on? Well they are grey for a reason ;) it's good at hiding dust. But in all seriousness, I've answered this question more times than I can even count and my response is always the same. If dust bothered me, I wouldn't collect objects. It's never been an issue for me. Sure, there is dust, but I move things around a lot. If you dust a few things off every now and then it's not overwhelming or even an issue really. I don't live in a place where lots of dust accumulates in my home. I never dust everything all at once. There is just too much to clean. I don't seem to have any dust allergy issues so it must not be too bad in my house. I would love to have a lot of thing behind glass someday but until then, I will live with it. 

3. Do you make a lot of money to afford your collection?

I hate this question. First, it's not appropriate question to even ask someone but I will answer it here, this one time only. I've collected toys and art my entire life. When I moved out to go to college and had my own place to decorate is when it started getting larger. Of course when I had a full time job after college, I was able to buy more things but I'm far from rich. So for over 15 years I've collected toys regularly except more recently I haven't been able to collected much. Everyone has things they enjoy, sports, traveling, going out to bars and clubs. Well instead of spending money on those things I collected. That's how I have a collection like this. It's truly my passion. I was unable to travel or do other things because I was a caregiver for most of my adult life. Collecting toys is what gave me joy. 

4. Hey, I can't seem to find this toy anywhere. Will you sell me your?

Nope! I can't find things I want either. That's just the reality of collection objects that are usually limited editions. I've searched and hunted just like everyone else for things I like. I don't sell my collection. I bought them because I loved them. There are few times where I have duplicates of toys so I will sell those and I have a few from blind box toys that don't really interest me so I may sell them but that's it. Please don't ask me to sell you a toy of mine. I've never collected anything because I thought they would make me money someday. 

5. Where do get your toys?

Everywhere. When you are a collector, you have to willing to hunt for what you want. I do what anyone can do. I figure out what the toy is, who made it, and then start searching. There are lots of sites out there that sell designer toys, vintage items, message boards where you can trade or purchase from another collectors. It's extremely easy to find things now a days. Google is your best friend. Before it was so easy to track things down I still did a significant amount of my purchases through on line shops. I have since 1999/2000. I don't live close to any shops that sell things I collect except for when I collected Todd McFarlane toys which I still have. Occasionally comic book stores or toys stores will have things I'm looking for but you can usually find them cheaper on line. Also, if you find an artist you like, check to see if they have their own on line shop. I get a lot of things directly from the artist. I will post a list of some shops I like and places I've purchased from in the past here soon. I absolutely love to support these shops in any way I can. They are all hard working awesome people. 

Have an amazing day! Thank you for stopping by!
XOXO

-Sara

THANK YOU

Just a little thank you to everyone that follows me on whatever you follow me on :) Means a lot to me. I will be a little slow over the next few months with posting things because BIG THINGS will be happening in the future with me and this toy house of mine. Stay tuned! I'll share more as time goes on.

XOXO

-Sara

HAPPY WEEKEND

I have a whole set of these awesome vintage carousel glasses and love them all but the giraffe may be my favorite right now.  I hope everyone has a great weekend! Cheers!

xo

-Sara

BREATHE

Hello, my name is Sara and I'm a workaholic. I guess it's at least good I know this about myself. I have a lot of self imposed projects on my plate along with work and daily life tasks. Figuring out how to keep up with a blog is something I'm learning as the days go by but it can be a frustrating process when you have other responsibilities that need to get done. Working from home is wonderful to me but the work I do never seems like work so I have a hard time doing everything else. I can get so carried away with projects that I eat and sleep at really odd times. Not the best for your health. I purchased this "breathe" sign from Etsy years ago from Oh Dier Living. Its good to remind myself to just breathe. 

Top photo © Sara Harvey, bottom three photos property of Oh Dier Living 

I hope you had a great weekend! 

-Sara

TOY A DAY'S

Years ago I started a Tumblr that was entirely for my toy collection. I've collected toys pretty much my entire life. I was the kid that could never get rid of anything so I guess technically I was a child hoarder. My collection didn't really turn into a collection until I left for college and had more of my own space to display them. Most of what I collected back then were Todd McFarlane toys and action figures but as the years went by and more designer toys were being created, my collection started expanding. I collect all types of objects but toy are my favorite. Currently I have over...honestly I have no idea how many I have. If I were to guess, it's in the thousands. 

When I started posting a toy a day post on my Tumblr, it was for the purpose of documenting my collection and I had started numbering them so I could count them all. That became a bit overwhelming to keep up with so I stopped counting but still continued to post toys. Then that migrated to Instagram where the photos are currently just the toy in front of a white background and me holding it so you can see size relation. 

I organize everything into a rainbow whenever possible so it was just a matter of time before this happened. Enjoy!

Have a wonderful rainbow toy Tuesday!

-Sara

DOLL HOUSE : PART 1

I've shared photos of my home for many years since I purchased it back in 2008. I didn't have a blog or website to really document the things I did so I used my Flickr to share photos as my home progressed. I spend a lot of time in my house and wanted to make it someplace I wanted to be, someplace that made me happy. I've always loved interior design and love to decorate with things I've collected over the years. Here are some photos of the front rooms of my home the living room and dining room. I've always wanted one huge wall that I could display my toy collection on and my dining room just became the place to do that and have it visible but not too intrusive. I collect a lot of things but I also get claustrophobic easily so I have to organize everything! 

There are more photos on my Flickr if you want to check them out. The photos here and on Flickr are unfortunately a few years old and things have moved and changed, so I will be taking some new photos soon to share. I will also be adding more detailed photos that share who all the artists are in each photo. 

In 2011 I did a little interview for Apartment Therapy that you can see here if interested as well as one for Etsy. 

Thanks for looking!

Have a great day!

-Sara