When your toy collections grow to a massive super size, you really need a very organised way of keeping and storing them.  A fine example is the giant collection of Breyer model horses seen here.  I was comforted to know that my toy collection is considered small when I saw those photos.  I used to collect such Breyer model horses until the local weather ‘killed off’ my collection…

Also read: The weather can affect your toys. 

The spring cleaning I did yesterday got me in close contact with the accumulated dust on the stuff in my room.  I sneezed so much that I ended up with a running nose.  Despite the great discomfort with my itchy nose, I persevered and cleaned up the part of my room according to schedule. I went to bed last night with a flu and though I have not fully recovered today, I went out to do some Chinese New Year shopping for decorations to adorn my home.  The heat outside made me perspire and I think it helped me to recover a little faster.  Tomorrow, I will have to continue spring cleaning the other parts of my room and home.

Spring cleaning in general is harder to do than said.  It is appalling to realise how much junk and clutter I had accumulated over the past year in my room.  Many of these items (e.g. magazines, brochures, reports etc.) were the results of my new found interests last year and I had yet to go through or read all of them before disposing them.  There is always this mentality that I might need them in future, so it is a waste to thrown them away now. 

Then again, a close friend once advised me: any thing that has not be in use for a year will not likely be useful in the coming years, so junk it now.  This is easier said than done.  It is difficult to throw away stuff when we have too much unnecessary emotional attachment to those things.  Nevertheless I have to ‘harden’ my heart and just ’spring clear’ away the useless stuff so that I have available hidden places to ‘hide’ my precious collectible toys.

Yes I have finally started the laborious task of spring cleaning my room for Chinese New Year.  There are loads of papers destined for the recycling bin and other non-recyclables to be disposed.  All my toys that are currently out on display need new temporary homes to hide from visiting kids during February.  I also hate it when non-toy collector adult visitors pass unkind insensitive remarks when they see my toys on display.  Sometimes I lock up my room when there are visitors.  The best solution to such unnecessary stress is total prevention by ensuring zero contact between all visitors and my beloved toys.

The Chinese New Year public holidays fall on 7-8 February this year.  Besides reunion dinners and endless feasting on loads of sweet savoury snacks, Chinese New Year here in Singapore is also celebrated by visiting the homes of relatives and friends to wish one another “A Happy and Prosperous New Year”.  There are no kids in my house throughout the year so my collectible toys have ’naturally’ settled on any available shelf in my room and the hallway.  Usually, I tend to display some of my favourite toys on any place that can accommodate them.

During every Chinese New Year, visitors might bring along their little kids and I never take my chances with their kids.  The best way to prevent unnecessary distress to me and my toys is to hide every single one of them from sight, until the house visiting has come to end, which will be around the end of February.  We usually do a round of spring cleaning, starting from a month before Chinese New Year.  I also use this period to ensure that all my precious collectible toys have been ’safely secured’ in their ‘hiding places’ until ‘the coast is clear’, which will be in the last 2 weeks of February.

Also read: ‘Protect’ your collectible toys from kids and pets.

The photos are uploaded at last.  View them here in my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony”.  Please note that the post may take a while to load.

The pony has dried and I took more photos this morning.  I have re-attached the pony’s tail and head to the body.  Then I re-wet the mane and tail to style the hair and let the pony dry off again as the finishing touch.  The photos should be posted by tomorrow.  Do come back again to view them in the previous post below. 

See my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony” here.

I have just done a curing tail rust procedure on a My Little Pony that I was about to sell.  I used the opportunity to take some photos of the process and I will post them here soon.  Currently the pony is being dried and I still need to take the photos of re-attaching the the tail without having the tail ring.

See my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony” here.

I have little hair styling experience with human dolls.  Compared with My Little Pony, hair care for She-Ra dolls needs more effort as the dolls are smaller than the average ponies.  Hence the She-Ra dolls that I have in my collection mostly have straight hair.  Only my Clawdeen and Glimmer dolls still sport their original curly hair and my strategy is to keep them clean so that I never have to clean up their hair. 

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In my previous post, I mentioned that My Little Pony come with a metal tail ring that is tied inside the pony to secure the tail in position.  Over the years, this metal tail ring can rust.  It could be because the pony got wet before and water had seeped into the pony through the tail hole, or just plainly due to age.

Sometimes the rust is minimal and you would not notice anything amiss when looking at the pony on the outside.  In severe cases, the rust stains show up on the hair near the tail hole.  In very extreme cases where the ponies have very light colored bodies, the rust can even been seen when lifting the pony up and looking at the body against the light.  These are cases when the rusty tail ring and the rust stains must be removed from the inside of the pony.  If you leave the rust inside, the condition will worsen and the pony looks very disgusting to handle, furthermore you know that the inside looks even worse.  Therefore you need to ‘open up’ the pony or perform a rust cleansing ’surgery’ on the pony.

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