Monday, 10 July 2017

Build-A-Bear Pokemon Plushies

Hey everyone! Apologies for my lack of posts last week; our internet got cut off for a few days, oops! Since I've been back online, I have had a hard time getting back into my blogging schedule, mostly due to my mental health. It hasn't been great lately and I've had such a lack of motivation. All I've wanted to do was catch up on episodes of my favourite TV series and sleep. It's so tough to get stuff done when you're drained of energy, achy and experiencing brain fog. Oh, the joys of spoonie life!

I've been really looking forward to sharing this post with you all :) I was going to wait until I'd completed the whole collection, as the Build A Bear Workshop are yet to release the Bulbasaur plushie (I can't wait!), but I just could not wait any longer! I hope you all enjoy reading, and have a lovely rest of the weekend! 

Build A Bear Pokemon

The Build A Bear Workshop is an amazing international store that sells cuddly toys. It is special because of the interactive/hands-on experience it offers it's customer. When you buy a plushie there, you have the option to make it yourself, which is something that children, and fellow cute plushie loving adults like myself, find really fun! Check out my instagram post for photos of the process.

The shop floor is set up like a little workshop, with seperate sections for the different stages of the plushie-making process. When you first enter the store, you are greeted with a display of various plushies, in so many styles and colours and some based on popular children's characters. Once you have choosen with plushie you want, here's where you choose the 'skin' which you will be able to help fill with fluff/stuffing later. For the next step, you can choose clothes and accessories for your new cuddly friend if you want. The shop is filled with all sorts of outfits, and there's usually special clothing for any character plushies available. Next, it's time to stuff your plushie with the help of one of the staff. Before you queue up in line to do this, there's a station where you can also select a sound to go into your plushie, and you can even had your own recording. If you've decided to pick a sound for yours, you take the little devices with you to the stuffing machine :)

There's some little fabric hearts available and if you buy one for £1 the money goes to charity so I always get one. The shop assisant manning the stuffing machine will ask to you to kiss the heart and make a wish before they put it inside your plushie, which is adorable! They hold the plushie to the machine and fill it with fluff for you, but you get to put your foot on a pedal to control the fluff coming out of the machine. Once your plushie is the perfect snugglable size for you, they pop your sound device inside or heart and then sort out of the stitching to complete the plushie. The next section is a little grooming table with a cute hairdryer and a collection of brushes, and finally, you go to the computers to create the birth certificate for your cuddly toy. It's an lovely experiences and I love it! 

I got my first Build A Bear plushie when I was a teenager at the store in Manchester's Trafford Centre. They had Hello Kitty available and as you all know by now, I'm obsessed with her so I couldn't not buy one! I bought her an adorable outfit... pink boots, a black skirt and a little trendy top, and I named her after my best friends :) Any of my fellow Build A Bear fans, do you remember your first plushie from the store? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. So, the rest of this post is going to be pretty picture-heavy! The Build A Bear Workshop so far have released four Pokemon plushes: Eevee, Pikachu, Charmander & Squirtle. Warning: expect very high levels of cuteness! 


Build A Bear Pokemon


Build A Bear Pokemon


Build A Bear Pokemon

Look at my Pokemon babies; they are too cute! They are fabulous quality, made of lovely, soft material and have such a great design. I love the cute facial expressions on each of their faces. I am really impressed with them, and I'm so looking forward to seeing how the Bulbasaur plushie looks :)


Build A Bear Pokemon


Build A Bear Pokemon


Eevee was the first of the Build A Bear plushies that I bought, and he's my favourite of all four of the plushies. I really love the design of his big squishy tail and his long fennec fox style ears. I'm impressed with the size of the plushie and his cheerful facial expression. You know the special clothing that I mention earlier for specific characters? Well the Pokemon plushies also come with their own clothing. Eevee's pokeball onesie is just amazing! I really like how bright and eye-catching it is, and how it has a hood with holes for his ears to fit through. He's perfect! I decided to name my Eevee 'Rainer' after one of the Eevee Brothers from the show, the brother who had a Vaporeon (one of Eevee's evolutions) since Vaporeon is my most favourite Pokemon ever.


Build A Bear Pokemon

Pikachu was the second of the plushies that I bought. At first, I thought I was going to miss him in stores and he was going to sell out, but when I went to Blackpool to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show Musical with my best friend, she spotted him in the Build A Bear store. I might have squealed in the middle of a shopping centre. He was a present to myself for my birthday last year, and I just love how happy and vibrant he is! His open-mouth expression just makes me think of the anime character everytime I look at him, shouting 'Pika!'. This is why I named him Pika :) There's always an online exclusive edition of the Pokemon plushies available on the Build A Bear Workshop website, and if purchased online you could get Pikachu with a super cool Charzard costume! I would have loved to get this outfit, so I decided not to buy the hooded pokeball t-shir that was available in store. 


Build A Bear Pokemon


Build A Bear Pokemon


I think the Charmander plushie is so cool! I'd seen Eevee and Pikachu cuddly toys before; I'd even owned a few of the Pikachu ones as a kid, but I had never seen a Charmander plushie and I fell in love with it! I forgot to get a photo of his tail, but it's fantastic with a yellow & red bushy fluffy part on the end to represent the flame on the tail of the cartoon character. I also really like his blue eyes. Charmander is supposed to be available with a blue hooded pokeball t-shirt but they didn't have any available in the Manchester Arndale store when I bought him in December last year. I named him Flamey, and he's my second favourite of the Build A Bear Pokemon collection. Whenever you purchase one of the Pokemon plushies, you are given a special Build A Bear Pokemon card which I think is such an awesome little additon. I unfortunately seem to have misplaced my Charmander one, haha. If you had a Charmander plushie, what would you name him?


Build A Bear Pokemon


Build A Bear Pokemon

Squirtle is the lastest Pokemon to be released at Build A Bear; I took a trip to Blackpool last month to buy him as that's one of the closest stores to my hometown other than Manchester. A worthwhile trip, it was lovely to walk along the seafront and nosey in the seaside shops. I very much wanted to buy the online exclusive Squirtle set, since the plushie came with the sweetest pokeball raincoat that I really really wanted. However, the exclusive set cost £45.50 (probably plus P&P as well), so I couldn't afford it with my £35 budget :( I'm still very happy with my plushie so I don't mind too much that he's not wearing his raincoat. I love the shade of blue they've used for this plushie. Additionally, the material is different to the three previous plushies, very smooth and velvet-like. I'm not very keen on the colour they've used for Squirtle's belly as the original character's is a cream/ pale brown colour. I also thought that they would have made the shell on his back much bigger... it's  more flat than I was expecting. He's still a great plushie and I was going to name him River originally. I then thought it would be cool to learn how to say River in other languages and choose my favourite. In the end, I chose Joki (pronounced Yoki), the Finnish word for River. I think it's a super cute name! 

Build A Bear Pokemon

I hope you guys enjoyed looking through all of the photos of my Pokemon plushies, I know there was a lot of them, haha! They are actually really photogenic. I'm eventually going to have so many plushies that I can't get into my bed, and I have no regrets! Which is your favourite of the Build A Bear Pokemon plushies? 


Thankyou for reading!


Are you a Pokemon fan? If so, who's your favourite Pokemon? 

If you could have the Build A Bear Workshop create any plushie of a character you love, 
Who would you choose?

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4 comments

  1. I love your little collection of the BaB Pokemon plushies! I would love to do the same for when I get a sofa bed put into the spare room.

    My only issue with them is the Pikachu, I think it's so ugly and looks nothing like the old skool or new looking Pikachu, which makes me sad. :(

    https://theremightbecoffee.wordpress.com/

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    1. Thankyou! Eeek yeah the Pikachu one is definitely my least favourite of all the ones I have! It doesn't look as cute as the others and I'm not keen on the design of it's face much either. Oh well :(

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  2. OMG how adorable! I had no idea they did these. I really love your picks, these are probably the ones I would have gone for too. I remember when I was a kid I had a big Meowth doll and I loved it so much. Another awesome post as usual hun xx

    Sophie Elizabeth
    www.popcornandglitter.co.uk

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    Replies
    1. Thanks :) They really are such cute plushies! Aww how sweet & Thankyou so much x

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