My New Build A Bear Bulbasaur Plush | Blogmas #31

Yay! It's really not long now until it's New Year! So, Happy New Year guys! I hope you all have a wonderful night, whether you're out celebrating at a party with your friends and family, or like me you're snuggled up at home, watching movies and staying snug :) Bring on 2018! I hope that it's an amazing year for all of you! For today's post, I thought I'd share a post all about the latest addition to my Build A Bear Pokémon collection. I was so happy when the store finally revealed that their next plushie in the Pokémon collection would be Bulbasaur. He's always been my favourite of the starter Pokémon; he's just so adorable. This is a post for my fellow Pokéfans and lovers of all things cute & cuddly! 

One of my favourite things about the Build A Bear Workshop's Pokémon plushies, besides the fact that they are such good quality and super cute, is that they each come with their own Pokémon card! It takes me back to my primary school days everytime I see one, to the times when all my friends played with the Pokémon trading cards on the playground :) They've done a great job on the design of these, and it's just a really nice little addition! I have all of mine up on my art wall in my bedroom and they look so cool lined up side-by-side. 

Last time I was at the Build A Bear store, buying my Vulpix plushie, there was an awesome offer on gift cards that I just couldn't resist. It was only £5 for a gift card worth a tenner! I'd been saving it for when the next plushie was released so of course, I used it for my new Bulbasaur. With it being Christmas time, everyone has been busy and so I couldn't visit the store to get my plushie this time around. I was a little disappointed about this because I enjoy the experience of choosing the plushie myself, and watching it get put together. I'm such a big kid! However, the advantage of buying it online was that I got to get the exclusive outfit for once :) For most of the other plushies, there has been another version of the outfit that is sold in the store, but with the unique shape of the Bulbasaur plush, there isn't a hoodie or a t-shirt available. Instead, the online exclusive outfit is a hat and scarf set, which is such an awesome choice considering the plushie was released in Autumn-Winter. 

So without further ado, here's my new Bulbasaur...

Omgosh seriously though, how adorable is this Bulbasaur plush!? I love how eye-catching he is! His eyes especially just stand out so well against the green colouration of the rest of the plushie. I love how Bulbasaur's bulb on his back looks! It's squishy too and made of a different material to the body of the plush. It sort of has a felt like texture, whereas the rest of Bulbasaur is super smooth and soft. It's a really cuddly plush! I love his big smile too :) 

As part of the online deal, you have to get both the outfit and the Pokémon's specific sound and I have to admit that I wasn't happy about this at first, because I prefer to have my plushies without a sound in them. Just because I hug them and sometimes use them as cushions when I'm watching movies in bed, etc., so I don't like the idea that a sound might go off each time I move or something, haha! However, I was very happy to discover that they put the sound box thingie into Bulbasaur's foot so I can still hug him without pressing it. To be honest though, I actually really like his sound because it's one of my favourite Pokémon voices!  As any other Pokémon fan will tell you, it's very common for us to intimate a Pokémon's sound whenever we see it, or don't in my case XD I make random Pokémon sounds all the time, because I'm just so cool, hahaha! It's very cute, and I'm definitely happy it came with a sound now. 

I absolutely adore his hat & scarf set!! It has the sweetest leaf and Pokéball print! It looks really good on him, and I think they did a fantastic job in coming up with this unique outfit perfect for his body shape, considering he can't have a hoodie or whatever :) What do you all think of it? 

I think the entire plushie set, including the outfit & the sound was around £40, however I got £10 off with my voucher card. It came with the house box that you get if you buy them in store, which is what you can keep your plushie in if you want :) I use them for storing my magazines in though haha because they are great boxes! I did say that I wanted a 'birth' certificate with my plushie like I usually get in the store, but they didn't put it with my order so that was a little annoying. I named him Leafy, because I'm so original XD (And my Charmander is called Flamey, haha!). If you had your own Bulbasaur, what would you name him/her? 

Overall, I am very happy with my new plushie, and he's definitely one of my favourites that they've made. If Eevee & Vulpix weren't in my top five favourite Pokémon of all time, then he'd definitely be my favourite! I just love his design and he's larger than the others too. Meaning more surface area to hug! Let me know if you want me to share an update post, showcasing all of my Pokémon Build A Bear collection so far? I'm really hoping that they release more. I would love to see a Mew one! 

Wow, I can't believe that I actually made it to the end of Blogmas (and a few extra days too! Because I'm now sure that everyone else stops at Christmas Day, oops!). I'm definitely a little proud of myself for managing to blog every single day of the month. It's been a challenge and I don't know how some people do this all year round! Go you if you do; you're amazing! I'm certainly in need of a rest now, but I'll definitely have one or two posts up this coming week. I hope you've enjoyed reading today's post, and all of my other Blogmas 2017 posts. Please show them some love if you haven't already, it would make my day! :) 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥

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

Do you have a plushie from the Build A Bear Workshop?

I'd love to hear all about it! 

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! 

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! 

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 :)

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.

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. 

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?

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! 

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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