If you been into a toy department in the last few years, you’ve probably noticed that mini things are big business. Super Impulse have their World’s Smallest Toys and Micro Toy Box lines, and Zuru have their Foodies Mini Brands, Toy Mini Brands, Disney Store Mini Brands, Mini Fashion and Mini Brands Books series. Needless to say, I have lots of these. However, as most of the Micro Minis and Zuru toys are blind box, I usually only buy one, then try and swap or buy the toys I want from friends or at doll club meetings. The Zuru toys also present a packaging dilemma, packed in shrink wrapped plastic balls that can’t be recycled – another reason I’m hesitant to buy them.
More recently, MGA have released their own range of minis, but with a twist. Instead of fully formed miniature items, these require some assembly using the supplied resin. These seem to be aimed at kids, but the resin is hardly child friendly. Even older kids would need adult supervision or intervention, and I know a few adults who are reluctant to use resin. There are food series, as well as ‘life style’ series which include plants and decorator items like candles and fish bowls. I’d love one of the fish bowls, but I’ve thought they were blind box, so haven’t bought any – until recently.
A few weeks ago I noticed there was a Christmas themed series. There are only three different minis in this series – a gingerbread house, roast turkey and chocolate Christmas drinks – and deciding I’d be happy with any of them, I grabbed one for me and one as a present for a friend. I randomly selected one for myself, and opened it to discover it was the chocolate drinks. I now know that these Christmas minis are not blind at all, the second, red shrink wrap layer, visible under the outer layer shows which mini is which. And now I’m wondering if the other lifestyle and food series are the same. I’m going to have to check next time I’m out and about.
These minis come in the ubiquitous plastic ball, but these balls are half clear and come with a little table that fits inside the bottom of the ball and a snowflake handle for the clear half meaning they can be used to display the finished mini. Nice try MGA, but I don’t think many are going to do that, and the table is a bit small to use with 1/6 scale dolls. There are also reams of safety instructions in several languages, but the instructions for making the minis use a series of pictures, some of which are not terribly clear.
The minis themselves are in several paper bags (more waste) and a tiny set of tweezers is included too. The best part of these minis is that each food component comes in packaging that can be reused as a mini in its own right. The resin comes in a chocolate milk container, and this is where things got difficult for me. I don’t know if it’s because it was a really hot day when I made my mini, but I found it incredibly difficult to get the resin out of the container. The instructions showed to half fill the cups and to add a little around the rims to stick sprinkles to. I had so much trouble getting the resin to flow, and when I did manage to get any out by shaking and squeezing the life out of the container, it was in blobs that still didn’t want to flow or spread. Consequently, I was just happy to get any resin into the cups, so just added the marshmallows and sprinkles over the top. I also had trouble getting the resin to set. Admittedly, I probably filled the cups more than I should have, but even putting them in strong sunlight and under a UV torch, they wouldn’t completely set. It took three or four days before all the resin set, longer for the little bit remaining in the carton. I didn’t use all of the marshmallows or sprinkles, I was able to reseal the leftover marshmallows in the bag, so they will both go into my mini stash. I have some handmade candy canes, so they’ll go into the empty candy cane box and into the stash too.
All up, I’m pretty happy with this set. Although it cost $13, with the craft element and the ingredients minis as well as the glasses of Christmas milk, it was well worth the money. Now I’m just hoping the lifestyle minis are not actually blind box and I can get my fish bowl.
The end of the year has come around again so quickly. I’ve been MIA for a while, the stupid weather here has been playing havoc with my allergies and asthma, and the fact I’ve been putting in new garden beds and possum proofing (furry little locusts), hasn’t helped. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to get back to posting regularly.
Until then, I hope your Yuletide is merry and the New Year a happy one.
Don’t forget, I’m now on Instagram – @jenjoysworld(and a non-doll photo art account @jenniferbs_world). There’ll be some unique content and behind the scenes stuff, so head over and follow.
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