Toys For A Pound Haul

Hi guys! Here I am again, bringing you a post about another thing that I should have written ages ago. Story of my life... better late than never should be etched on my tombstone some day XD Oops, getting a little dark there... a little too much spirit of Halloween, haha! Talking of Halloween, I can't believe it's only 4 days away. *cry cry* I don't want my favourite month to end! Should we start a petition to make every month Halloween? :) My entire year is filled with lots of spooky goodness anyhow, but I want to hold off the colder months a little longer. As much as Autumn is my favourite time of year, the latter part of the season is usually dreary, the trees loose all of their fiery foliage, and the colourful leaf-littered ground becomes coated in brown, decaying sludge. Oh, and Seasonal Affective Disorder comes along just as I begin to mourn the crisp, crunchy piles of colour underfoot whenever I venture outdoors, making it easier to brave the cold. Well, this is becoming a miserable intro XD I'm sorry guys, but I'M REALLY GONNA MISS ALL THE PRETTY AUTUMNAL VIBES! T_T

So, on a brighter note, today I want to tell you all about a fabulous little online store I stumbled across earlier this year, thanks to an Instagram ad. As you have probably guessed from the title, the website is effectively a pound store, however it has some great bargains on there, a lot that I personally haven't come across in any pound stores I've visited before. I thought I'd share my haul/review with you guys and bring Toys for a Pound to your attention :) Enjoy! 

Toys for a Pound is such a great website for picking up stocking fillers or small gifts for your loved ones. I mean, the intended audience/recipients are children, so it's mostly got toys that cater towards them; however, there are some gems on there that kids who've never grown up, like myself, will love! The standard shipping is £2.99 so it's best to only do an order if you are buying several things, in my opinion. I personally find it a great resource for when I'm looking for some goodies to fill the Christmas shoeboxes I put together for charity each year. Plus, it's nice to have access to a virtual pound store when you're living with chronic illnesses/ disabilities and don't get out as much as you'd like. 

Almost everything on the site is £1 each, although there's sections of items up to £5, but they are such brilliant deals that should be snapped up and put away ready for December :) Just a heads up... they update their stock pretty regularly so it's best to pop anything that catches your eye into your basket as soon as possible. Most of the items I'm sharing in this haul are no longer available (sorry for my delay in posting!). Nonetheless, they have many wonderful items at the moment. I actually placed another order the other day, which I have to thank for giving me the kick up the butt to finally get this post up. Proof that retail therapy has its benefits! 

Well, here's what I picked up from Toys for a Pound... 

Look at all of this adorable stuff that I managed to get for only £10!!! How could I pass up Funko products for only a pound each... that's amazing!! I have seen a few Funko products here and there popping up in my local Pound stores and B&M for the same price but they are few and far between, as well as being for franchises that are a lot less popular nowadays. However, the ones I found at Toys for a Pound were fantastic!! And they even had Pint Size Heroes, another Funko product, too! I've never seen these in pound stores before. Have you? 

As much as I adore Funko, which you'll know if you've been a regular reader of my blog for a while (I own well over 200 products by them now, 107 of them being Pop! vinyl figures... I have a problem XD), my favourite find has to be these Eevee ears!! As someone who enjoys cosplaying, these are perfect! And Eevee is one of my all-time favourite Pokemon. They were an absolute steal at just £1... they are made by TOMY (so they are great quality) and usually retail at around £8.99+. 

So these are all of the blind boxes/bags that I bought; they were the main reason that I visited the website in the first place since the fact that Toys for a Pound were selling Funko products is what popped up in the ad I saw, whilst scrolling through Instagram. Some people get annoyed by ads, but to be honest, I love that they keep bringing products to my attention based on the things I search/buy online. They seem to be a lot more tailored over on Instagram, VS other platforms like Youtube. I respect why people have ads on their videos, but oh my gosh, do they get annoying! Before I go off topic, haha... I was delighted to find that Toys for a Pound had such a variety available, because I honestly expected to find maybe five products at the most. 

Since getting very into my toy photography... I mean I've always been into it but ever since finding the toy photography community over on Instagram and setting up my own dedicated account (find it here), I have found that I am happy to collect figures from franchises that I might not have bothered buying otherwise. This is because it's always nice to have a varied collection of figures to use for different photography themes, etc. I'm finding a lot of cool new figures this way, but my bank account isn't impressed :D My addiction to buying blind boxes has intensified, oops! 

Here are the Funko Mystery Mini's that I found inside my boxes. This post is apparently also an unboxing, as well as a haul and review... but I couldn't not show you guys what I got! I am a big fan of fun surprises so I wasn't too bothered about which of the figures I got. Nonetheless I still had my favourites and least favourites. I am very happy with my finds when it comes to the Warcraft and Barbie boxes, but I did get the figure I liked least of all from the Suicide Squad box. Nevermind, that's the nature of blind boxes! 

I was never much of a fan of Barbie growing up, although I did love the horses and would always ask for the sets with them and then just ignore the barbie doll to play with the horse :) I did love the 'working out' barbie that I had when I was around 6 or 7, but that came with a soundtrack tape and so I was bound to enjoy it. Did anyone else have this? But yeah, I was still intrigued by these mystery minis because a) they are adorable, and b) because they have an interesting history based theme. Each of the figures in this collection are themed around a date, and are designed to resemble a barbie doll that was popular in that particular year. 

The ones I loved most were 1971 (which is the one I got!!) because she's dressed in hippie fashion, the 1980 because she is designed after the first Black Barbie doll, 1986 because she's lookin' fabulous in her 80's outfit that makes me think instantly of Cyndi Lauper, and 1992 because it would be cool to have a figure designed after the year I was born :) I feel like I'm rambling... I just get so excited about toys! 

As for the Warcraft blind box, I am super happy with the figure that I got because he looks wicked! If you haven't seen the movie (and played the World of Warcraft game that it was inspired by), this character is Blackhand, he's an Orc and is a warchief known as The Destroyer. The mystery mini of Blackhand is so detailed; I absolutely love it! I think it is brilliant that one of the dragons skulls on his armour has a septum piercing like he does :) I'd love to add more Warcraft figures to my collection because in my opinion, they all look epic! 

I was hoping to get one of the badass women from the Suicide Squad: Harley Quinn, Katana or the Enchantress (I like the Captain Boomerang figure, too), but I got Diablo and I just don't like his design at all. Oh well! Hopefully, I'll be able to trade him for another figure some day :) 

I couldn't not get a couple of pint size heroes. There were a few different ones available at the time but I opted for a Power Rangers bag & a Street Fighter one. These two franchises are super nostalgic for me! I had a lot of fun playing Street Fighter on my PlayStation back when I was a kid, and loved the Power Rangers as well. I absolutely adore the design of Funko's Pint Size Heroes! They might be one of my favourites of all the figures that he brand has brought out, and would love to see more in the future! 

So the figures that I wanted to get most from these blind bags were the yellow Power Ranger as she was my favourite. There's two versions of the characters available... in their full suits and also without their helmets so you can see their faces. I would have been happy with either versions of the yellow ranger. I got the green guy though, which is still cool. Green is my favourite colour at least :) For the Street Finger figures, I wanted Chun-Li or Ryu the most as I always played as them in the games. I got Guile, who I didn't really care for as I think his design is the worst one from the collection. But again, that's the catch with mystery toys, and he'll still be fantastic for photography, especially when I get some of the other characters. 

It was lovely to find some other non-Funko blind bags on the Toys for a Pound website. As soon as I spotted these Super Mario keychain/dangler charms, I immediately popped one into my shopping cart. I was trying to keep as close to a tenner as possible or else I would have bought more of these cuties. I wish I had now! Out of all of the available keychains, I wanted Toad in the Tanooki (Raccoon/Raccoon Dog) outfit, Mario riding Yoshi, or Tanooki Mario. Toad is my favourite character from the franchise so I was over the moon that I got him!! 

Awww, how sweet is he!!? I really love his design with the Racoon ears and tail, and he is surprisingly detailed for such a tiny figure. I am a little scared to actually attach him to my keys or one of my bags because I feel like he'd be so easy to lose. Those chains with the little balls aren't very sturdy either. He's just going to live on one of my shelves :) Which figure would you have most liked to get in this blind bag?

The Toys for a Pound website even has a party supplies section, which is where I came across packs of the prettiest confetti ever!! It's table confetti so it's a lot bigger than other types of confetti and is made from cardboard so it's more sturdy and durable to be used on a party table where there are likely to be lots of mayhem, such as spilled drinks! I just had to get a pack of these mermaid ones (they also had fairy and unicorn themed packs), because they are so colourful and cute! You get lots of confetti too, and I've seen similar packs in craft stores for £3+.

I'm going to using them in both my photography and also to add a pinch into any snail mail I send :) I say that, but then I don't know if I'm going to be able to bring myself to use them as they are so gorgeous!! I also picked up the unicorn pack in the recent haul that I mentioned earlier... it was a bargain that I just couldn't ignore, especially after seeing how much more pretty the mermaids confetti was in person. I even picked another mermaid pack for my sisters birthday as she's a mermaid lover! 

So that was my entire haul from Toys for a Pound. I was very impressed with the products that I received. They all arrived in great condition, however I feel like I was just lucky because there wasn't any protective packaging inside the box such as noodles/bubblewrap/ brown packing paper, and in my latest order, my items were sent in a much bigger box and one of the item's packaging arrived all squashed, which wouldn't have been great if it was intended for a christmas present. But based on my first order, everything was fine and I was pleasantly surprised that the Funko mystery mini boxes were in such excellent condition considering they were being sold for £1, when their RRP is anything from £4.99 upwards. I was super happy with everything I received and I would certainly recommend them! I will definitely be doing more orders in the future :) 

Oh, as usual, I forgot to individually photograph an item, and this time it was the Triceratops figure that you can see above. This wonderful little dinosaur is an official Jurassic Park figure, and sort of arrived like a mystery bag considering you couldn't choose which dinosaur you wanted on the website. I wanted a Raptor because those are my favourite species. Nonetheless, I'm glad I got a Triceratops because they hold a nostalgic place in my heart, due to the amazing Land Before Time movies. Even though Cera the Triceratops wasn't my most loved character, I loved that she had the same name as me! Although, I know now as an adult that it was spelt Cera, I didn't at the time so I thought it was fantastic! Maybe I should start spelling my name as Cera….. 

I'll finish up today's post now before I get carried away even more than I already have! Thankyou to everyone who reads my posts because I know they are long! I can't help it, it's so hard for me to stop writing once I get going :D Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed reading all about my haul. Let me know if you place an order with Toys for a Pound, I'd love to hear all about what you buy :) Also, let me know in the comments guys.... which were your favourite items from my haul? Which of the mystery figures would you have liked to get? 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥ 

What have you been buying lately?

What's the best bargain that you've ever found in a pound store? 

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Funko Harry Potter Mystery Box

Hi guys! We are now in September, I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by! But yay, it's the start of the spooky-season, as I like to call it. A time when all the cool kids are way too excited for Halloween (and Autumn) to accept that there's actually another month left before it is upon us. I am one of those people :D Halloween starts today, in my eyes! And if you're a fellow potterhead, you'll know what else is special about September 1st.... 

It's Back to Hogwarts Day! The day when all witches and wizards head to King's Cross Station in London to board the Hogwarts Express and begin their school year! And even though I am still waiting for my apparently navigationally-useless owl to find my house and deliver my acceptance letter (fifteen years late, oops!), I can't not celebrate this day like the absolute nerd I am! I decided that it's also the perfect excuse to finally get around to blogging about something that I've been meaning to for a while now. And show you all what I got inside my Harry Potter Mystery Box! 

I bought this box back at the beginning of July, after wanting it for months and months! Being from the UK can really suck when it comes to Funko Pop collecting as the headquarters for Funko is based in North America and many of the stores exclusive to the country team up with Funko to create Pop's that are only available there! We either never get a chance to get them, other than by buying them directly from US collectors of course, or we have to wait for months for European retailers to get hold of some. This Harry Potter mystery box was released by GameStop, so it took a while for it to become available over here! 

Many months after first hearing about the release of the box, I notice that Pop in a Box had it on their website but couldn't afford to spare £29.99 for it at the time. I was very lucky in July however, because they announced a special sale to mark the company's anniversary/birthday. I couldn't resist grabbing myself a box whilst it was reduced, and being a subscriber to the Pop in a Box monthly subscription, I get 10% off all my orders and free delivery, too. I managed to get myself one for just £16.19!! Which is an amazing price for a box that contains a Funko Pop! (RRP £10-12), a Mystery Mini (RRP £6.99), a Five Star figure (RRP £9.99) and a Pop! Pen (RRP approx. £3.99). It would have been silly to not snap it up at that bargain price! Here's exactly what was inside... 

This Harry Potter Mystery Box offered a 1/2 chance of getting certain figures: a mystery mini figure of either Boggart Snape or Professor Trelawney, and the opportunity to get a standard or chase variant of the Sirius Black Pop! vinyl figure. The other two items were the same for every box. I'm not gonna lie, I originally wanted this box just to get my hands on the Boggart Snape! Severus Snape is one of my favourite characters from the franchise, and I needed this figure in my life :D I was so thankful when I opened my box and it revealed the mystery mini I was hoping for!! Let's take a close look at the items. 

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll be able to tell that this entire box is Prisoner of Azkaban themed! This movie is a particular fan favourite, and to be honest, it's my favourite movie of the lot, too. It is also one of my favourites when it comes to the books, along with the Half Blood Price and the first book, which will always hold a special place in my heart. Anyhow, before I go off on a tangent, this pen is of Dre Head, a Shrunken Head who is introduced to us when Harry rides the Knight Bus. He is a movie only character, but still very cool. He reminds me of these little voodoo doll keychains I used to collect when I was a teenager, as you do, haha! I love how detailed the Pop head is, considering if just for a pen, and I like that the actual pen itself is purple in colour, just like the Knight Bus. Everytime I look at this pen, I imagine Dre Head shouting 'Ernie!'. I'm very happy with my first Pop! Pen :)

Another new addition to my Funko collection is this Five Star figure. Before getting this box, I was yet to own one, and what an adorable first one to get! I was putting off buying any because I already have over 100 Pop's, as well as collecting Funko mystery minis and pint size heroes, and after giving in and finally getting a Rock Candy figure last summer, I didn't need to start anymore figure collections. Not that I can stick to this figure ban for very long, because I'm now collecting Banpresto QPoskets... I have a serious problem! 

Receiving this Quidditch Harry might have started something :D The design of these Funko Five Star's is just too cute, and I love that they come with little accessories. The detail on Harry's quidditch uniform is so brilliant for such a small figure; I am certainly impressed, and I can't wait to get him out of the box and photographed. Oh, and if you enjoy toy photography, you can check out my dedicated Instagram here :) 

So, it's time to reveal which version of Sirius Black I got!

YAYYYYY! I CAN'T BELIEVE I ACTUALLY GOT THE CHASE!! 

If you were super observant when looking at my photo above showing all of the contents of the GameStop Harry Potter Mystery Box, you'll have been able to make out the chase sticker on the front of Pop! box ;) Let me know if you actually did! I was so surprised that I got the chase, I am never this lucky! Not only did I get the mystery mini I wanted, I got the special Sirius as well ^.^ I was gobsmacked, as the saying goes, to be honest! I so prefer this sepia version of the Pop and I am over the moon to have another chase in my collection. It's so cool!! The box and Pop both arrived in perfect condition too, with no scuffs or marks, or paint job errors as far as I can see. Eeee! 

I really love this Pop of Sirius! It's just fantastic!! His hair looks excellent, definitely not as dishevelled as it was in the books :D How awesome are all of the little details!? Such as the tatty, frayed look of the bottom of his pants, the letters/symbols on his prison identification plaque, the colouration around his eyes and the tattoos on his neck... everything is just so intricate. 10/10 from me on the design of this Pop! 

And lastly, lets talk about the star of the show! Just look at Boggart Snape!! Isn't he fabulous!? The scene involving Professor Snape's hilarious outfit makeover always makes me laugh so much! Alan Rickman did such an amazing job bringing this scene to life so perfectly, don't you think? It's wonderful to receive another figure that is so well designed and fantastically detailed, down to the buttons on the dress. The best feature, other than Snape's unimpressed facial impression, has to be the vulture hat! The impression of the vulture just makes it look like it's in on the joke, if that makes sense, which makes me chuckle even more as I remember the scene. I couldn't be happier with this mystery mini!

Overall, this box is certainly worth the money, even if you don't receive the chase variation of Sirius. You get a lot of value for your money, and surprise boxes are just so much fun to open! If I had more money available at the time, then I totally would have paid £29.99 and been delighted with what I got for that :) Pop in a Box unfortunately no longer have the item available but I'm sure they will get it back in stock again! I hope you all enjoyed checking out what I got inside my Harry Potter EXC/GameStop exclusive Mystery Box! I'd love to know, what was your favourite item that I received? Would you have preferred to get a mystery mini of Professor Trelawney or Snape? I hope all of my fellow potterheads have celebrated Back to Hogwarts Day in some way! I am currently waiting The Philosopher's Stone as I write! I wish you all a marvellous month; I will try to get back to sharing regular posts :) 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥ 

If you got accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 

which subject would you look forward to most? 

Also, what's your Hogwarts House? 

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I am a Ravenclaw!

If you're ever interested in signing up for a Pop in a Box subscription, with which you are sent a mystery Funko Pop! figure from your wishlist every month, then it would be wonderful if you could use my referral code :) It's 'SARAH-R1Z'. 

Funko Harry Potter Pocket Pop Advent Calendar

Hello guys! Well, it's the last day of the year, and wow I feel like I blinked and somehow ended up at December 31st! :D Is anyone else feeling the same? Christmas went by so quickly! And as much as I love the festive period, I am still really glad that we will soon be seeing the back of 2018; I know I've mentioned it quite a few times but this year has been such a hard one! I just want to move forward into a new year, with an optimistic mindset and a determination to try my best to make 2019 a good year, or at least as much as is in my control! Before I end up going off on a reflectionary tangent (hahaha, I totally think I just made up that word XD but it sounded right), I want to share with you all the fantastic advent calendar that I bought this year! 

I was really excited when Pop in a Box announced the arrival of an advent calendar made for toy/figure lovers! For years, I'd seen so many awesome calendars online, designed for adults and filled with things other than chocolate. There's advent calendars available that are packed with all sorts of goodies, from makeup to washi tape! They all looked fantastic but none of them appealed to my personal interests much. That was until Funko created this amazing Pocket Pop calendar!! Most of you by now will have heard of Pop! Vinyl figures, well, Pocket Pops are a series of miniature versions of those. As you can see above this calendar includes 24 days worth of these fantastic little characters, and just like a traditional advent calendar, there's one waiting behind every door :) Before I reveal which Pocket Pop I got for each day of December, I wanted to talk to you guys about how brilliant the packaging and overall presentation of the Funko Harry Potter Pocket Pop calendar was! 

So much attention to detail has gone into the design of this advent calendar. It is so aesthetically pleasing, and every single part of it looks fabulous. The calendar itself came within a sleeve, and the colours on the back of this sleeve are gorgeous! I've actually been using it as a background for my toy photography throughout the month :) I really love all of the gold, silver and white, dotted with shiny snowflakes, it's like a little piece of how magical the Wizarding World must be at Christmas Time! 

How gorgeous is the Hogwarts castle scene printed across the calendar!? All of the shades of purple are so pretty! I really like the pop-up style of this calendar too; it came with two cardboard cut-outs to set up a scene for your figures, one being Hagrid's Hut and one the Whomping Willow tree. That is such a cute idea! I also love that these cut-outs are snow-covered to add to the wintery theme. The Funko calendar looked so cool set up next to my Christmas tree. 

The calendar was expensive, but it was actually excellent value for money because you get 24 different figures and it is a lovely calendar! It was £49.99 to buy from the Pop in a Box website, however because I'm a subscriber, I got a discount (and also free shipping) and only paid around £44. I am so happy that I bought it because I had a lot of fun opening it, and now I have lots of pretty little Harry Potter figures to add to my toy collection. I'm hoping that Funko release another Pocket Pop calendar next year, and fingers crossed it's filled with characters from a franchise that I am a fan of. Oh, and I pre-ordered it in late October/early November which I'm glad about because it sold out quickly closer to Christmas. 

The rest of this post is going to be very picture heavy as there's a lot of figures to show you! I have photographed them in the order that I received them :) Apologies to those of you that are not fans of pic heavy posts, but I wanted to showcase the figures as is deserved! 

I got so many wonderful figures; each and every one of them has an awesome design and they are so photogenic too! I was very happy to get so many of my favourite characters, especially Professor Lupin and little Hedwig, because I wasn't sure if they would make it into the calendar! Even though there's a few things that I didn't like about the calendar, the pros outweigh the cons and it made me happy each morning when I woke up to see who I'd gotten that day. I am a big fan of Harry Potter so you can imagine how excited I got :D What do you think about the selection of figures above?

These five are my most favourite that I received inside my Funko Pocket Pop advent calendar. Severus Snape is my favourite character from the entire Harry Potter series so I couldn't not love his figure! Another of my favourite characters is Remus Lupin and this is one of the reasons why Prisoner of Azkaban is my favourite of the books and movies. The magical creatures have always been something that I adore about J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World and Thestrals are one of my favourites; I thought it was epic that they added one into the advent calendar, because I didn't even consider that they would. It was a great surprise! 

How could I not choose this figure of Hermione as one of my favourites!? This version of her from the beginning of the story reminds me of myself, and I think it captures book Hermione a lot better than the movies, even though it is obviously designed after those. I love the pile of books in her arms, it's such a lovely detail. Finally Hedwig has made it into my top 5 because awwww, she's so tiny and adorable! I love owls and she just looks so sweet! 

So what did I not like about the Funko Harry Potter advent calendar? 

Well, mostly it was the design of some of the figures. It look me a long time to take this photo, and some of the others in this post, and this is due to the fact that so many of the figures refuse to stay upright. They continuously fall over, because their legs are either too narrow to withstand the weight of the upper body/head, or because they've not been designed properly. 

For example, almost every single person I've seen with the calendar has found that their Moaning Myrtle Pocket Pop won't stand up! You can see in my close up photo showing her and two other figures, that one of her feet is raised and this is what causes the problem. As well as Myrtle, the Dobby figure has a very heavy head compared to the rest of his body, and so I mostly have to lay him flat on the display. My George Weasley figure also has a problem standing up and this is why Fred & George are leaning against the cardboard at the back of my photo above. Whenever I walked across my bedroom floor, some of the figures fall over :D It can get very annoying to have to keep propping them back up. As well as this, some of the figures have small paintjob errors but this is common enough with the standard Pop! Vinyl figures, so I kind of expected that!

Another issue that I had with this calendar isn't really too much of a reflection on the design itself but maybe more due to personal preference. Although a few people have told me that they agree with the fact that I am a little unhappy that we got multiple versions of the same character. If Funko hadn't have included these extras, then they could have added others in their place. Like I know it's all about Harry Potter, the protagonist of the franchise, but did we really need three versions of him? I would have liked to get a Voldemort figure at least! I know that some of the exclusive versions in the US got Voldemort, usually instead of Professor Lupin. I'm happy I got Lupin, but I'm not too keen on Hermione's Prisoner of Azkaban figure, so I would have liked a different figure. What do you think? 

All in all, despite the few things I would change about the figures.. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention! The figure of Nearly Headless Nick has a completely attached, almost fully upright head, whereas my figure of Snape has a lob-sided one! It's just typical that the character I wanted most of all isn't perfect, ugh! It would have been really cool if Funko would have been able to make Sir Nicholas' head moveable in some way. But anyhow, back to my conclusion! :D So issues aside, I really did love my Harry Potter Pocket Pop calendar and I would still recommend it to anymore who loves the franchise themselves, as well as to anybody who just likes cute figures :) I know that a few places had some of these calendars on sale after Christmas, so you might be able to find one if you're still interested and you could totally put it away for next December. I am super happy to have lots of Harry Potter characters to use for my toy photography throughout 2019. I can't wait to see what Funko release next Christmas! I hope you all enjoyed reading this post and having a nosey at what I got inside my advent calendar :) Happy New Year guys! May next year be filled with happiness for you all! 

Thankyou for reading!

♥

Are you a fan of Harry Potter?

 If so, I'd love to know your favourite character/movie/book! 

Which is your favourite of the Pocket Pops that I featured in today's post? 

Funko Photo A Day Challenge

Hi lovelies! Some of you guys may know, if you follow me on my social media, that a few months ago, I set up a separate Instagram account completely dedicated to my toy photography hobby. It has been absolutely amazing and I've made lots of friends in the toy collector community, especially in the 'Funko Family' as it's affectionately called. People within the community run daily photo challenges, and there's even some run by Funko's official account. Funko are the company that make Pop! Vinyl figures (and lots more!) if you didn't already know :) As you've probably guessed from the title, this post is going to be all about the recent Photo-A-Day challenge run by Funko *it's going to fairly pic heavy*. They host them a few times a year and they usually run for 15 days; December's went on through 1st-15th and each day had a different theme. It was super fun taking part and I wanted to share my photography with you guys! Enjoy! 

Above is the list of daily prompts for December 2018! It is not compulsory to stick to the theme, but it's interesting trying to come up with the perfect shot to match the prompt each day so I always do! It can be a challenge too (I instantly thought, well duh! to myself writing that, haha!), to think outside the box and come up with a photo that is going to be different from everybody else's. If you are fellow toy and/or vinyl figure enthusiasts then I would love to know in the comments that you would photograph for each theme! Without further ado, here's what I came up with...

Day 1 ~ Make A List 

Day 2 ~ Something Blue 

Day 3 ~ In My Mug 

Day 4 ~ Treats 

Day 5 ~ Something Red 

Day 6 ~ Jolly

Day 7 ~ Pyjamas 

Day 8 ~ Pets 

By the 8th Day, my favourite photograph to take had been my one of Luna Lovegood, standing on top of my Harry Potter Honeydukes Sherbet Lemons candle from Primark (it smells so delicious; I'm a big fan of circus scents)! If you follow me over on my personal/blog Instagram, you'll know that all this month I have been opening a door a day of the Funko Harry Potter advent calendar, and this Luna figure came from inside that. It was pricey but so worth it! I'm really enjoying unboxing a new Pocket Pop! figure each day. 

Anyhow, I had really struggled to think of something unique to share for the prompt 'Treats' because I knew everyone else would be posting Christmas sweets and chocolates. I had those in the house but I wanted to do something different! Then an idea suddenly popped into my head on the morning of Day 4 when my mom asked me if I wanted her to pick me up any snacks from town. I love how all of the colourful beans go so well with Luna's eclectic outfit :) My favourite day thus far to follow was Day 8: Pets because everyone in the community was sharing the most adorable photos of their pets and there was also an abundance of Pop figures wearing Santa hat's like mine! The hat I used is actually a hair clip version that I got to put on my rabbits' fluffy head's for some festive photos I took a few years ago :) 

Day 9 ~ Lights

Day 10 ~ Not A Pop! 

Day 11 ~ Cheer

Day 12 ~ Home 

Day 13 ~ Shelfie 

Day 14 ~ Funko Fashion 

Day 15 ~Happy Holidays!

It is so tough to choose a favourite for the last half of the challenge, because I feel like the quality of my photographs improved as I got more confident with my ideas! I always get a little nervous that my photos are going to be crappy compared to everyone else's, however I felt better after that first week :) I really like how my shot for Day 14 turned out, especially because it took me all day to think of what to photograph. It was the perfect excuse to photograph my new Coraline Pop! and in my caption I wrote that she & Georgie want to start a yellow raincoat club, which made me think the photo was even more cute, haha! I want a yellow raincoat!! 

I was really happy with how my photograph for the 9th of December turned out using my galaxy background (photography tip: it's a wallpaper sample!) because I hadn't yet bought the lights for the little Christmas tree that I put up in my bedroom, so I had to make do with some random ones that we use to light up a festive glass vase each year and the batteries were running out so they weren't as bright anymore T_T However, it was really surprised by how well they showed up under my studio light. Also if you're curious, the background I used for Day 12 is actually my Quality Street chocolate advent calendar! I love utilising random things to make an idea really come to life.

So, there are my entries for the December Funko Photo A Day Challenge! I hope that this post was interesting, even if you're not particularly into figures, and if you are, then you can find my toy Instagram here :) I'll be posting every single day of this month, since I'm currently taking part in another photo-a-day challenge co-created by one of my friends :) Please let me know in comments which of my shots is your favourite & why, I'm really curious to find out! To all my fellow toy lovers, keep your eyes out for some other toy themed posts that I have planned this month!

Thankyou for reading!

♥

Do you collect any figures?

If not, are you collector of anything else?