You guys know how much I love Pokemon, and especially supporting independent artists/businesses who create amazing stuff of things I love. So, today I’ll be merging both of these together to talk about KawaiiKraftsDesigns and my experiencing with getting a custom Pokemon terrarium!
KawaiiKraftsDesigns is a Birmingham based independent business who specialises in creating terrariums, but they do also sell keyrings, necklaces, 3D frames, hand painted, plant pots and more, plus, they’re all kawaii themed too, hence the name!
I discovered KawaiiKraftsDesigns at the UK Games Expo in June 2022 when I went to Dane and our friends. There were quite a few terrarium creators there, but KawaiiKraftsDesigns stood out to me the most, especially on Cubone design in particular. As we’d not long got to the expo we decided to walk around and get an idea for everything before we decided to do any buying. Alas, when I went back to the stall towards the end of the day, the Cubone terrarium I liked the look of had sold. I was gutted but made sure to grab one of their business cards so I could give them a follow on Instagram, their store, etc.
About a week later I decided to reach out to Jade, owner of KawaiiKraftsDesigns on Instagram to ask when she would be working on commissions again as I was interested. Jade was so lovely and replied relatively quickly to inform me she would be opening them again and asked what I was interested in. I’ve also loved the Cubone funko, it’s so adorable and as Cubone is one of my favourite Pokemon anyway, I knew it was one I would love in terrarium form. Plus, it’s the same Cubone I’d seen at the UK Games Expo, so I knew that’s what I wanted from a terrarium by Jade.
I proposed my idea and paid a deposit that covered the cost of the Cubone figure, as well as some materials. I decided to go for Cubone in a Japanese garden themed terrarium, so I was super excited not only to hear of updates from Jade on my commission, but when it was completed! When Jade was ready to start working in my commission she made a unique listing for me on her Etsy, which was the rest of the monies I needed to pay for my piece.
During Jade working on my piece she constantly sent me updates and photos of how it was going and made sure to ask if I was happy/unhappy with anything. Some ideas were proposed to me that I didn’t feel worked with the idea I was going for, so I politely declined these, but did suggest others. Jade was amazing to work with on bringing my commission to life and once it was completed I couldn’t wait for it to arrive!
Before I knew it, my Cubone terrarium arrived and I couldn’t wait to display it!
You get a little stand with your terrarium so you can display it easily without the worry of needing to make sure it stands up on it’s own, propped up against something, and more. I keep my terrarium near my desk at home so whenever I fancy looking at it whilst working, it’s not too far.
I don’t want to mention how much I paid for my terrarium as prices change all the time, and the last thing I want is for Jade to get guilt tripped for putting her prices up. One thing that I stand by with independent businesses and their prices is that they know their worth, and if we don’t want to pay them prices as shoppers, we don’t have to as they’re not forcing us!
The price I paid for my terrarium was incredibly fair, especially for the time, communication and quality of the item too. 🙂
Overall my experience with Jade and KawaiiKraftsDesigns was incredible and I couldn’t have asked for a better one to be honest. As I said previously, Jade was really thorough with any questions or suggestions she had for me with my terrarium and to boot she was also really lovely to talk to! As you all know, I love supporting and talking about independent businesses on my blog, but I especially love to talk about and share ones who are also from Birmingham like myself. 🙂
I know that Jade has stated on Instagram that her next restock is due this month with a date to be confirmed. I can only assume this is restocks, as well as commissions, so if you’d like to get something like mine yourself, or even as a gift for someone else, then make sure to follow her on Instagram. I’ll pop all the links below.
If you have any questions in regards to commissions I highly recommend going to KawaiiKraftsDesigns Instagram page and view the highlighted stories. All the information will be there for you, and if it isn’t, you can always drop Jade a message on Instagram or Etsy. Both are linked below.
What do you think of the Cubone terrarium I got? Would you like a Pokemon or any other kawaii themed terrarium of your own? If you already own one, what do you have in yours? Make sure to let me know in the comments!
Until next time all, take care and have a lovely weekend!
If there is one brand from over the pond I have loved for as long as I can remember, it’s TeeTurtle. I’ve known of their t-shirts and designs for over ten years now, as I discovered them around 2011 when Nyan Cat emerged and they created a t-shirt design inspired by it.
Since then I’ve gone on to buy a second-hand Charmander t-shirt from eBay, as well as some t-shirts for me and Dane from UK Games Expo 2019 (you can check out the designs I bought here).
TeeTurtle is a brand that create t-shirts for everyone, whether you play video games, board games/Dungeons & Dragons, love all sorts of animals, and more! They do also work with Disney to create Disney, Star Wars and Marvel designs, as well as Pokemon in the past. However, due to TeeTurtle being an American company, us guys in the UK cannot get access to view any of those designs, which in turn make me sad.
To add by the way, TeeTurtle are the original creator of the reversible plushies, which have now unfortunately been stolen and replicated by knock off brands.
When visiting UK Games Expo 2022 almost a month ago, I knew that TeeTurtle would be there and sort of made it my mission/goal to go and check them out and pick up some t-shirts for both me and Dane.
The stand wasn’t as big as it was back in 2019, which I thought was a shame. I’m also pretty sure in 2019 they had two stands, a small one to sell the games and a bigger one to sell the clothing items. This being said, they still had plenty of amazing designs to choose from and gave you a book to flick through for any designs you wanted to buy. We saw loads we loved, but at first we limited ourselves to two each, like what we did back in 2019. We were given offers last time too of, “buy three get one free”, which we snapped up!
One of the things Dane noticed fairly quickly was that a lot of stock was limited, as TeeTurtle had faced some printing/stock issues prior to coming to UK Games Expo, but that didn’t put me off! They offered to ship the goods for a £5 charge, which I assumed was shipping from within the UK. Alas this was not the case and our order actually shipped from America! More about that later though.
T-shirts were priced at £20 each and as we were offered, “Buy four get one free” we decided to go with it! Dane picked out two designs and I picked out three.
I don’t know why, but I felt like there was a lot more variety at 2019, so I was a tad disappointed about the variety at 2022, but this being said there was plenty for us to choose from and if anything, it’s made me want to place an order from TeeTurtle in the future to grab some more fox designs. All designs that were at UK Games Expo were convention exclusive, however if you look on the website, there are some similar designs to choose from!
As mentioned previously, we paid £20 for each design and £5 for shipping from America. We also bought all t-shirts in a men’s size L, which is probably a little too big for me, but that being said I love my baggy t-shirts!
The t-shirts that TeeTurtle use are amazing quality, which feel really soft when worn and are very comfortable due to that. I highly recommend them to be honest if you want some geeky and cute t-shirts.
Send Noods
This is definitely one of the first designs I picked up as it’s just me all over! I love foxes and I love ramen and noodles, so it was a no brainer really! This is on a navy t-shirt and it works so nicely! This is definitely one I’ll wear whenever me and Dane plan to go for ramen again… Because why not! I’m just going to feel so odd wearing a t-shirt that asks you to send noods. 😛
Pew Pew Kitsune
I love kitsune foxes, they always hold a bit of a soft spot in my heart, mainly due to them being a part of the fox family and a Japanese folklore. Dane actually has a cat version of this design, pew pew included, so it made sense for me to grab this design so we can wear them together when going to games based conventions and such.
Anxious Raccoon
This t-shirt is me all over and I really love it! It’s the first one out of the three I picked up that I decided to wear, just because. I love raccoons, they’re my spirit animal and as I have anxiety, I’m also an anxious soul. When I went to pick my third design Dane literally said to me, “You have to get that one!”, so this is definitely a t-shirt design I’ll wear often, maybe more so at home than out and about. I don’t really want people to ask, “Aww do you have anxiety?” but even do, yes I bloody do! So, maybe this design will be great when going to places I’m nervous of.
Hippity Hoppity Your Soul is My Property (Glow)
This is the first design out of the two Dane picked up that he chose. This design glows in the dark and is now the second glow in the dark TeeTurtle design he has added to his little growing collection. When in the dark, the design will glow to show a skull on the bunny, which I love! It’s right up Dane’s street and such an adorable design to boot. I’m so glad he went for it.
Dragon Master
Finally we have the second design that Dane went for, which just made sense really. Since 2019 Dane has been a dungeon master for D&D games on and off and recently has decided to DM for a game of Vaesen for me, my best friend and her boyfriend. It’s a perfect design for anyone who would like to wear a TeeTurtle design, without it being in your face cute. Dane wore this t-shirt last week and commented about how soft, roomy and great it was!
So, there we have it! Our TeeTurtle haul from UK Games Expo. Delivery wise these were shipped about less than a week after purchasing from the UK Games Expo and from then until now they took just under two weeks to arrive, which I thought was really good! What I especially thought was good was the fact they only charged us £5 for delivery. They could have easily asked for more, so massive thumbs up for TeeTurtle for that!
I really do love TeeTurtle’s designs and would love to own more in the future. Due to this, I thought I’d add a couple of designs below that I’m hoping to pick up in the future, whether it be at another convention, or from their website itself.
Happy bank holiday weekend! I’m not going to say too much about it, but I just hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I’m going into a week off with Dane, which I am SO ready for now!
As I said on my monthly favourites, May really did fly by for me and I can’t believe we’re already four days into June! At the time of this post going live, I’ll have been to UK Games Expo yesterday and chilling with my best friend and her boyfriend today. Back in 2019 I did a blog post all about the UK Games Expo, those three years have flown by, honestly!
May was a strange month for me, with the latter of it being absolutely amazing due to My Chemical Romance and finally meeting Emily (Totally Emily) after knowing each other for six/seven years! The start of June is going to be equally as good and I’ve been really looking forward to it for as long as I can remember. Me and Dane haven’t had any time off together like this for a while now, since Christmas in fact so it’s long overdue. We have some stuff planned during it, including a trip to Manchester, as well as spending some much needed chill time together. It’s our nine year anniversary and as we weren’t able to do anything for it last year (we went to Wales in September), we wanted to make sure we did this year. Can you believe we’ll have been together ten years next year? Those years have flown by, it only feels like yesterday that I was meeting Dane for our first date in Birmingham. 🙂
Alongside June being an exciting month of doing lots of fun things with Dane and friends, it’s also an expensive month for me. My car service is due, as well as the tax renewal so that’ll be a lot of money at the start of June for me, but with us going to Manchester, we might spend a lot of money there too!
Last time we went to Manchester in 2019, we did spent quite a bit of money. I don’t know if that’ll happen again, as we appear to be quite good with money since the start of 2022, but who knows! I’m not planning to spend a lot of money, but my mood is if I see something I like and I can’t get online easily, I’ll probably buy? We shall see! I remember in April we went into Birmingham town centre for Dane’s birthday and we bought nothing… Apart from food. xD
That being said overall, this months wish list was incredibly hard to do! Some of the items mentioned are ones I’ve already ordered as I honestly couldn’t think of anything else to add? I keep a list of stuff I’ve pre-ordered and I’ve not got a lot for a while now, which for me is weird? I think it’s mostly Kickstarter items I’m waiting on now. 🙂
I’m hopeful content this month will be a mixture of our Manchester adventures and something kawaii! That aside, I really hope you enjoy this months wish list! 😀
Loungefly Disney Lady and the Tramp Hat Box Mini Backpack – (link)
This is an item I recently discovered through Double Boxed Toys and I was over the moon! It’s a Box Lunch exclusive Lady and the Tramp backpack, with Lady in her hat box! As regular readers of my blog and friends will know, Lady and the Tramp is my favourite Disney movie so whenever I see merchandise from Disney that I really like, I do end up buying it. This being said, if there is one Loungefly bag theme I don’t own, it’s Lady and the Tramp and the reason for this is due to Loungefly just not bringing out a design I like… Until now! I really love the look of the Lady hat box style and it’s a design I don’t really have currently? I’m definitely toying with getting it in the future, but as this month is an expensive one, I’m going to hold off until I can justify it and purchase through a US seller.
Anna Marine My Chemical Romance Inspired Prints – The Foundations of Decay and House of Wolves – (link) and (link)
Anna Marine’s MCR inspired prints have been on my radar for quite some time now, and one of the reasons I was put off ordering was due to the size being A4 or A3. Of course, as regular readers will know, I went to see MCR a couple of weeks ago and since then my younger MCR fan girl self has come out of the woodwork, so I’m accumulating some MCR merchandise, especially fan made pieces so I’m supporting smaller businesses. I’ve always wanted the Like Phantoms Forever print, but when Anna Marine opened up her store again last weekend, I opted for The Foundations of Decay and House of Wolves, as these are two prints I adore and really want! I’m so excited for these to arrive already, and I plan on putting them on my plushie cabinet so I can look at them when I settle down for bed, as well as when I’m getting ready in the morning for the day ahead. If I could have it my way, I’d buy all the prints inspired by The Black Parade and do a scatter wall somewhere in the house. Maybe I can do this in the future if we ever buy a bigger house and I can have an office of my own? 😛
LilPawie Genshin Impact Yae Miko Sakura Fox Stickers – (link) and (link)
First of all, I’ve never played Genshin Impact and I don’t really plan to anytime soon, as it’s not my type of game. This being said, I keep seeing the Yae Miko sakura fox character everywhere and it’s so adorable! So, when LilPawie brought out two sticker designs for the character, I knew I had to add them to my wish list! I love LilPawie’s designs anyway, so seeing them like this is a bonus. I may have to order some of the stickers sometime soon.
Finally we have a figure on my wish list this month. I’ve been seeing this chubby Cinnamoroll making the rounds online recently and I think it’s so adorable! I don’t know whether or not I’d buy it but it’s definitely something I’d get if it was at a good price. We recently sorted out our office and rearranged/decluttered a lot of stuff away so that we could have everything the way we wanted it, so it would be lovely to bring in a Pompompurin and/or Cinnamoroll figure eventually to add into the mix!
So, there we have it, my monthly wish list! I know it was a little scarce this month but honestly my brain is fried for what items I’ve bought/wanted to buy this month as a whole.
Even with visiting the UK Games Expo yesterday, we didn’t buy a whole lot really.
What items do you guys have on your wish lists for June? Make sure to let me know in the comments!
Until next time, take care all and I hope you have a great bank holiday weekend!
Another month is due to end and with that we of course have our monthly favourites! I can’t believe it’s June in four days time, the year is just flying by and I’m not liking it… But I am sort of liking it because excited things are coming up at the start of June!
May was a weird month for me, it was full of bank holidays, and annual leave which left me wanting more four day weeks at work. As well as that, last week me and Dane went to see My Chemical Romance and let me tell you it was amazing! I haven’t been to a show that big to date. The atmosphere was great and took me back to when I’ve seen them live twice previously, as well as to how I used to be when I was younger. If it wasn’t obvious enough, I was a little emo kid. 😛 I’m going to save more details for later on in my monthly favourites, because it obviously counts!
Aside from that, June is looking to be an exciting month for me and Dane! We have the UK Games Expo coming up with my best friend and her boyfriend and then me and Dane have a week off together for our nine year anniversary, which in itself has flown by! For our anniversary this year we’ve decided to go to Manchester for a few days, which we’re so excited for! Like MCR, I’ll talk more about it later in my monthly favourites, as whilst it hasn’t happened yet, it’s something I’m excited about, so it classes as a favourite… Right?
Me and Dane also finished our first Dungeons & Dragons campaign too, which lasted for three years! We had so much fun playing it and can’t wait to start a new campaign in June/July.
On top of all that I’m going to be bloody skint this month, with MCR, UK Games Expo, Manchester AND my car needing to be taxed and serviced… It’s a good job I have plenty to keep me busy. 😛
Content wise for June I’m hoping to bring you some kawaii AF stuff, as well as some future posts about our Manchester adventures, especially geeky places to shop, fun things to do and good places to eat. I hope yah’ll are excited for it!
Anyhoo, on with the monthly favourites! I really hope you enjoy this months post, I feel like it’s going to be full of me being excited about adventures and MCR. 😛
Favourite Beauty Product – Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask in Berry.
I was planning to write a blog post showing off all the goodies I picked up from YesStyle a couple of months ago, but I decided against it as I thought I’d end up showing off the goodies in monthly favourites posts anyway (which I have!). One of the items I picked up is the Laneige lip sleeping mask in berry, which I have wanted to try for as long as I can remember. It’s recently started to hit the UK beauty stores, so it’s becoming more available to us in the west, however the price for the pot is a bit of a joke… Hence why I turned to YesStyle. From memory I only paid £10 for my lip sleeping mask, whereas here in the UK stores will charge £19 for it. Anyway, I’ve been using it for almost two months now and it’s definitely safe to say I LOVE it! It has definitely made an improvement to my lips, which is great with summer coming around. I don’t just use this at night like it’s known for, I use it in the morning before I start work (if I’m not wearing a lip tint that is), and I apply it before bedtime too. The mask is said to work best overnight as it “dissolves” all the dead skin on your lips, so you wake up with lovely soft lips. A lot of people claim it does what it says, but others claim it’s just Vaseline in a fancy jar, with some colour added to it. As someone who uses Vaseline on a daily basis, this is thicker than Vaseline and really does feel like it’s moisturising more, but that may just be me? To add a little bit of this stuff goes a long way, and due to that, I’ve not really made much of a dent, which is good! To add here, I picked up the Berry scent and it doesn’t really smell or taste like berries to me… But that doesn’t bother me, it would be a plus but yeah, it’s one of them. I’d say if you’re thinking of trying the Laneige lip sleeping mask, go for it, especially if you suffer with dry lips and live for lip balms! If you buy from YesStyle you could always get some of the little “sample” pots too to see what you think of it before buying a bigger jar.
Favourite Film – Jackass 4.5.
This is a recent addition to Netflix and one I was super excited to see! As many regular readers and friends will know, I’m a MASSIVE Jackass fan. I mentioned last month how I’d watched Jackass Forever and that I didn’t love it as much as the previous films they’d made. Jackass 4.5 really did make up for that, I laughed so much and even had to look away a few times in the fear of feeling (or being) sick! It was amazing, I just enjoyed it so much. The amount of times though that both me and Dane said, “Why didn’t they put that in Forever?” was crazy. I need to buy Jackass Forever and 4.5 at some point to add to my collection. If you have Netflix and love Jackass, definitely make sure to check it out! You find out a lot about the new crew members too, which I really liked. I’d love to see them come back and do more now after watching 4.5
I’ve been a mixture of excited and nervous/sad to watch Moon Knight, but me and Dane decided to binge watch it one day over the last bank holiday in May and I can honestly say it’s my favourite Marvel TV series to come out to date! There was so much I loved about it, but the thing that made me sad was the fact it’s one of Gaspard Ulliel’s last acting role before he passed away in January. That being said, the show itself was amazing and I need more! The story of Steven/Mark and their role as the Moon Knight, as well as the dark themes and character build up were just incredible! Everyone did an amazing job and honestly, I loved it. Let me say this without spoilers when I say, Steven must be protected at all costs and he’s now up there as one of my favourite Marvel characters alongside Deadpool.
Favourite Music – My Chemical Romance.
Okay, the part of this months favourites I know some of you have been waiting for! At the time of writing this post I am still struggling with some post gig blues and I don’t really know when they’ll go away? I just crave more after last Thursday’s gig and I wish I could go see them again already! First things first, the show was amazing. Gerard dressed up and the band played a lot of popular songs from all their albums to date, including “Helena”, “Teenagers”, “Welcome to the Black Parade”, “Famous Last Words” and of course “I’m Not Okay”. We got to the gig shortly after doors opened, got some merchandise, drinks and headed to our seats. Our seats were shit as they were high up and all the way at the back, even with the screens you couldn’t see fuck all. This being said, I didn’t let it affect my experience of the gig, I was so in my element singing along to the words, watching the screens, the stage and everyone else around me that I was past caring after a while. I almost cried whilst listening to “The Foundations of Decay” due to how proud I am of the band, as well as how happy I am to see them back, as well as almost crying singing “Famous Last Words” and “Welcome to the Black Parade” as they both mean so much to me. MCR are one of the bands that were always there for me when I was struggling with my mental health growing up and especially the day my gran died. I went home to be on my own to grieve and ended up putting on The Black Parade so I had something to occupy my mind. When the song “Disenchanted” came on, I couldn’t stop crying and since that day, it always makes me sad to hear. Alongside all this the show was just incredible! Everyone was so friendly to talk to (when we did) and the atmosphere was one I’ve missed from previously seeing MCR play in 2007 and 2011. I’m just dying to see them again now… Maybe standing tickets next time for shits and giggles or at least closer seats! I was going to write a blog post about the whole day, but I feel like this is enough. 🙂
This is a game Dane has been pestering me to play with him for as long as I can remember and finally in May I cracked and bought it, which made him so happy! Valheim is a Viking style game where you need to gather resources, build a base, defeat the enemies nearby and ready yourself to defeat even bigger enemies! We spent a weekend playing it together and I soon got my bearings with how the gameplay worked and was. However, tragedy happened when not only did I lose a lot of my stuff in a tomb (and couldn’t get back!), but then some boars we had captured and bred were all killed by an enemy! We both rage quitted after the latter and didn’t touch it for a week or so… Until one of our friends came to join us one evening to play and since then we’ve been playing it more. She’s really helped us build our base, defeat more/bigger enemies, as well as teach us a lot more about the game as she’s been playing it longer than we have. It’s such a fun little game to play, more so with people than alone and I highly recommend it!
Just a few of my favourite things…
Picking up old games/game completion goal – Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX and Persona 5 Royal.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned on my blog since the start of 2022 how I have started working on completing games I currently own and making note of them on a Twitter thread here. This is something I was inspired to do by my friend Connor, who took part in it last year. I have a lot of games I’ve bought, played for a few hours and then never picked up again. Some games I could sell, whereas others I can’t as I’ve bought on stores/Steam. I decided to start spending less time sitting online window shopping and more time playing the games I love, but have allowed to gather dust!
The first one I want to talk about is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX. This game is a remake of the original Mystery Dungeon games that came out in 2005 on the Game Boy Advance and DS, I still own both of these and loved them to death! The remake DX came out in 2020, just before Animal Crossing: New Horizons so I told myself I would try and complete it before Animal Crossing came out, which didn’t happen. However, what did happen is I got stuck on the second boss (Moltres) and no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get past them, so I ended up resetting the game and starting again. I grinded for ages to make sure I was ready for that boss battle again and last weekend I felt ready to take the boss on! I turned to Dane prior and said, “If I don’t beat this fucking thing, I’m selling the game.” Thankfully it wouldn’t come to that as I beat Moltres, as well as the boss after that too (Articuno), so I look like I’m going to be fine from there! I’m so glad I’ve picked this game up again, it’s making me feel so nostalgic to between 2009-2010 when I picked up both of the original games to play.
Alongside playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX, I’ve also started playing Persona 5 Royal again, which is something I also picked up in March 2020! I hardly played it due to Animal Crossing: New Horizons and only played the first palace and some of the second. I decided to play it over a bank holiday weekend and haven’t looked back since. I genuinely forgot how much I love Persona 5 and the characters behind it, it really means a lot to me as the original game helped me through some dark days. So far I’ve completed the second palace and I’m probably near to beginning the third one from memory. I always recommend Persona 5 to people to play, but these days I often suggest people playing Persona 5 Royal, just because it has more to the story than the original. I’m probably going to focus on completing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX first and then on Persona 5 Royal, depends on my mood I guess. Currently my PS4 is in the living room, which I’d love to move temporarily to my desk in our office so I can play it with Dane in the background as company, but we shall see!
As I mentioned at the start of this post I have lots of exciting things booked in and planned with Dane and some friends at the start of June, which I’m really looking forward to!
First we have UK Games Expo the first weekend of June, which is a board game convention in Birmingham. Me and Dane went in 2019 and spent WAY too much money (which you can read about here), but we had an amazing time and always said we’d go again, but of course Covid happened… That being said we’ve finally plucked up the courage to go again this year. Due to my anxiety of Covid still, I do still wear masks in shops, as well as around the office at work, so I’m not 100% sure if I’ll wear my mask or not at the convention yet… I’m worried it’ll be really warm and I could maybe die from the heat haha! We’ll see how it goes though! There’s going to be some amazing vendors there from years before that I’m excited to purchase from and support again, plus I’m hopeful we can all play lots of board games and have fun! I’m so happy my best friend recently got into board games, because it means we can all venture to cafes and play games more! Me and Dane got into board games before Covid and then Covid happened… And we couldn’t play board games with many people. 😦
Then as I mentioned before, for our nine year anniversary we decided to go to Manchester as we’ve booked to go to Point Blank Shooting with a voucher I was gifted for my 30th. Point Blank Shooting is a simulation shooting range and bar, offering food and drinks whilst you play on the shooting simulation games! We plan to go and have a day of shopping in Manchester and then head to Point Blank Shooting, finishing up at some themed bars on the way to our hotel. The next day we plan to have some breakfast, more shopping, a big lunch and then heading to Bury for The Arcade Club! My friend Daysei is always telling me how much fun it is there and after showing Dane how many floors of arcade games they are, we booked it in to do! I’m honestly so excited for our gaming and shopping days away for our anniversary, it’s going to be so much fun.
I’m hoping to write Manchester guides and reviews of places we go to, so keep eyes peeled for those!
My Chemical Romance merchandise.
I mentioned earlier about how I went to see MCR last Thursday, well of course I had to grab some merchandise as well and man I bagged a few bits, one which has been semi sought after since. I want to state now, none of these are for sale. xD I also want to state, I apologise for how shit the photo is!
I decided to grab both the tour t-shirts, as well as the Boy Zone t-shirt as well. I couldn’t decide which tour t-shirt I wanted as they were both cool in their own ways. I’m so glad I picked up both after trying them on as they’re so comfortable! All of the t-shirts are in a men’s size large and I could have probably gotten away with a medium, but I like my t-shirts baggy!
The tour t-shirts have the tour dates on the back for their shows between 16th May until 18th June which is always a good t-shirt to have. On the front of the short sleeved is an updated version of the bloody bride and groom from the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge album, which I just had to get for that alone! On the front of the long sleeved there are some skulls and bones, as well as “Decay” written backwards. I LOVE the long sleeved t-shirt the most and already can’t wait to wear it. I’m really into my long sleeved band t-shirts lately to wear with joggers, skirts and trousers for a relaxed look.
Finally the Boy Zone t-shirt that everyone has gone mad for! I knew I had to pick this up and even though I probably won’t wear it out and about, I’ll definitely live in it at home on lazy days. It was designed by Kerin Cunningham with support from Gerard Way. It honestly reminds me of my early teens where I would always buy the music magazines that was full of bands, love quizzes and more. I honestly love it so much!
So, there we have it guys, all of my favourites from May! I honestly can’t believe we’ll be going into June in less than a week now, it’s really flown by. The whole year is, Christmas is just 6 months away now… How crazy is that?!
What were your favourites from May? Did you go and see My Chemical Romance in May too? If you did tell me all about your feelings, thoughts, etc! I’m eager to hear everyone’s stories and experiences. 🙂
Until next time all, take care and have an amazing weekend!
I am very much skint after the UK Games Expo that was on a couple of weekends ago and I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry… So instead I thought I would write a blog post about it! 😛
This was the first time me and Dane went to the UK Games Expo and we loved it so much! Not going to lie, it’s definitely the busiest con we’ve attended to date and definitely one we’ll talk about for a while for various different reasons. I’ll be mentioning them here too of course.
So come and have a nose at what we bought, as well as read about what we thought of the convention. 🙂
Our initial thoughts on the convention was that it wouldn’t be as big as it actually was for a start and as we walked through the entrance and looked around, we were shocked and a think a tad nervous that we wouldn’t get around everywhere. Spoiler, we did! 😛
Something we noticed quite heavily as we walked around was just how fucking rude people attending were. If they weren’t shoving past to get to stands and stalls, they were not even using, “please” or “thank you” as and when necessary. It pissed me off something rotten and depending how rude people were, depended how rude I was back. This put me off immensely but this isn’t due to the people hosting the convention.
This being said we will definitely be attending again next year, maybe on the Friday as we heard from quite a few people how this day is the best out of the three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) as well as maybe Saturday so we can get two days in.
We wanted to play some games whilst we were there but due to how much is going on at the convention – we were far too tired for it, which was such a shame as there were loads of games we wanted to have a go at.
As this post shows from the photo, we bought a LOT of stuff, so I thought I would write a haul today so I could show you everything we picked up. I hope you enjoy this haul from us. Prepare for lots of geeky items! 😛
Also, as some of these (well maybe half actually!) items are Dane’s too, I’ll get him to write here when it comes to anything of his and why he decided to buy it! I’ll pop a “D:” when it comes to his sections so you know he’s talking instead of me. 🙂
The first thing we bought were D&D dice. Hey, you don’t go to a board game convention without buying some dice, am I right?! This was the first stand we really looked at properly as it wasn’t stupidly busy. They had the Chessex dice there and I had a specific pair and style in mind. These weren’t there, but the Borealis style I was after were! They had a couple of pairs (a pink and lighter blue pair) but I fell in love with these light green set and decided to pick them up!
Dane also bought himself a pair of dice too and opted for these blue and red ones. They’re so damn pretty and he doesn’t have anything like this so it’ll be cool for both him and me to try our new dice out at our D&D session on Sunday.
D: When we were walking around the convention the one stand that really caught my attention was the one for Barpig, a card game about pig adventurers in a bar. Even before I spoke to the people running the stand I was pretty much sold on buying the game anyway. They had a pretty good offer that both myself and my friend couldn’t resist after talking to the people running the stand, as well as being given a quick demo. I was sold and couldn’t walk away without buying the game. The day after the convention me and Nat played this game together only to discover it’s between 3-7 players, which is a shame as we were looking forward to an evening of playing it. This being said, we’re now especially excited to play it with friends!
For the convention they had a special price and goody bag for this game. For £19 you got everything in the photo including the game itself! This is what I was sold on the most and didn’t hesitate to pick it up.
They currently have the expansion pack BARPIG: After Hours up on Kickstarter until Monday 1st July. I’ll link it here so you can go and check it if you like the sound of the game.
These were some of my favourite items I picked up from the convention, just because they’re Japanese goodies and from some of my favourite things. I stumbled upon this stand about halfway through the day and spotted some Nendoroid figures, so knew I had to go for a nose. When I spotted two official Studio Ghibli puzzles on the table I KNEW Dane had to come and have a look around the stall too! I quickly snapped up the puzzle from the table and shouted for Dane to come over. As soon as he saw the puzzle he told me to get it, but not before I had a nose around the rest of the stall. It was amazing to be honest with you and was by far my favourite at the convention as they just sold so much stuff I love. I saw they had the Pokemon Centre Eeveelutions bell charms for sale too as a decent price so I decided to pick one up. I ideally want this for an ita bag I plan to put together sooner rather than later. It’s so cute, the perfect bag companion.
I honestly cannot wait for me and Dane to work on the My Neighbour Totoro puzzle together and hang up! I’m feeling like it can go up in our bedroom by my side of the bed. 🙂
Just when we thought we weren’t going to actually pick up more than one game, we found a stall where we fell in love with all the games on sale! We decided to pick up half of them and since then have played the one. The games are both by Jason Anarchy, who was a lovely guy to talk to as we looked through the games, asked questions in regards to them and even had a joke as we were paying and such.
I spotted Pretending To Grownup, a card game about doing adult things and scoring points through it. I spotted it through the artwork, which is by Megan McKay (Doodle For Food). She’s currently one of my favourite doodlers on the internet right now and I especially love her Dogs with Jobs sketches that she draws! Me and Dane have since played this game and it’s so much fun! It would definitely be more fun with friends to be honest with you, but considering just me and Dane played it, it was fab and I honestly can’t wait to play it more!
D: I was after a good party game, so as Nat had a look through the game she wanted I asked Jason what Drinking Quest was all about. He told me it was pretty much Dungeons & Dragons but with lots of drinking involved. This sounded like my sort of game so I knew I had to pick it up. I think I would have regretted it if I didn’t. Whilst I was paying for the games (it was £20 each or two for £35!) Jason wrote a little message and signed the lid of the game. As you can see he wrote, “It’s dangerous to go alone… Drink this” and drew a little drink as well as signed his name. Very cool! 😀
D: If there is one board game I really love it is definitely Zombies!!! I can’t remember where I bought this from but Nat has a feeling it was a spontaneous buy from Waterstones years ago. Since then I’ve wanted to buy the expansion packs and have added them to birthday, Christmas and anniversary gift ideas for years. It’s taken me going to the UK Games Expo to finally get at least 2 of them and from the actual creator of the game. He was lovely to chat to and even did us a cheap deal for these. Instead of £12 each he did them both for £20, bargain eh?! I regret not buying more in all fairness. Me and Nat played this game on our first evening together during our week off and we both forgot how hard this game can be, especially now we have more pieces and zombies to play with! We love this game however and cannot wait to play it with more people.
If there was a stand I really did enjoy shopping at during the convention it was at Oathsworn. I feel like this was the stand I spent the most time at as I was overwhelmed by how many miniatures there were, as well as how cute the little animals were. Everyone was looking at miniatures throughout the day, even though me and Dane struggled to find out D&D characters from one of our campaigns (I’m a Dragonborn bard and he’s a half goliath, half half-elf ranger) and had zero luck.
Instead I decided to pick up an animal miniature for any future campaigns me and Dane might go into or do in the future. NOW we’re working on some new characters for another campaign we’re doing with friends and my character for this will be a fennec fox rogue. I’m so excited to create my character for it already!
One of the stands I was rather excited to by from was TeeTurtle, a brand I’ve wanted t-shirts from for years! I actually have one t-shirt from them which is a Pokemon themed one with a Charmander sat in the a pocket on the chest. I picked this up on eBay years ago and still love it to this day.
We decided to take TeeTurtle up on their buy three t-shirts for £75 and get the fourth free. If you work this out you technically get all four t-shirts for less than £20 each. This may seem really expensive but TeeTurtle are an American brand and to ship to the UK costs a bomb! So we made sure to stock up at the convention whilst we had the chance. TeeTurtle were at the EGX convention in Birmingham September 2018 and I regret not grabbing any t-shirts there.
We decided to get two each and I regret not picking any t-shirts up earlier in the day. We picked these up a couple of hours before the convention was due to shut and the quantity of all sizes was very much small. Most of the sizes that me and Dane wanted had gone, which was such a shame. But this being said, we managed to grab some sizes in designs we wanted. The two on the left are Dane’s t-shirts and the two on the right are mine… Obviously the foxes are mine! 😛
Dane was actually going to buy me the Foxy Nerd design last year for Christmas but due to the prices for shipping etc he left it in the end.
The two designs on the bottom are both t-shirts we intend to wear during D&D session and we can’t wait to rock them this weekend! Honestly we could have bought so many t-shirts but due to most sizes being out of stock we didn’t get much choice of what we could buy. I hope to see them at another convention in the future so I can get the chance to pick up more designs.
This is a geeky beauty company that I am so happy to have discovered at the convention. Geeky Clean is a beauty company that sell bath bombs, soaps, bubble bars and more! I walked past the stand during the convention but didn’t think much at first. Dane went for a nose at a stand opposite so I decided to go and have a sniff of the goods at Geeky Clean. I fell in love with the bard scent, which is EXACTLY the same scent as Lush Snow Fairy. It’s a gorgeous bubblegum vanilla scent and I knew I had to pick some goods up with the scent. When I showed the soap to Dane he also really liked, so I made sure to pick it up. These weren’t expensive in my opinion (£4.00 or the soap and £4.50 for the bath bomb) and I’ll definitely be buying from the store again the future! When I’ve given these a go I will DEFINITELY be reviewing them on my blog.
D: We’ve been eyeing up plenty of miniatures and need a way of painting them. These brushes are pretty fancy and excellent quality feeling. I was going to go for the more expensive ones but as it’s going to be our first time painting miniatures I thought best not to just yet. Just need some paint now! I’m actually rather excited to help Nat bring her fennec fox miniature to life with some colour.
D: I want to start being the Dungeon Master with a couple of our friends that are new to Dungeons and Dragons and been looking to try and find a nice easy way to lay out the map for everyone. I have seen plenty of grid paper, laminated maps, DIY solutions and expensive pre-made maps but these seem like a good option. Hopefully, our group will be able to try them out soon! They cost me £30 and are by a company called Role 4 Initiative. I didn’t think £30 was a bad price considering the brand is American and it would have cost me a hell of a lot more to import from there.
This is the final item I picked up on the Saturday and it was actually from Collectormania which we were allowed free access to after 1pm due to attended UK Games Expo. I thought this was pretty awesome! Looking back I don’t fully know why I bought these lanyards… I used to use one on my house keys last year so it was easier to get them out of my handbag but after I was made a key holder in my old job I used said lanyard on my work key, only to have someone break it a few days later. I was gutted as it was a Deadpool lanyard. Now I’ve kind of replaced it with either a My Neighbour Totoro or Eeveelutions! I’m sure I’ll find a use for these sooner rather than later. 🙂
We actually went back for an hour on the Sunday just to buy a gaming table from Moby Geek! We actually saw this table on the Saturday and enquired about it and was offered it for £230 if we took it away that weekend. We decided against it and said we would order it at home. We fast changed our minds Saturday night/Sunday morning and ended up contacting the company to see if we could attend the event late Sunday to just come in to pay for the table and then take it away. They were more than happy with this and come 4pm I went into the event to pay, get Dane in and take away.
Since then we have not only used the table to play games, but to also eat on! The lid comes off of the table so that you can play games inside of the table – which is amazing. We are yet to give it a go without the lid but we are excited to start being able to have proper game nights with people.
So that was our (very expensive!) haul from the UK Games Expo! We really did enjoy ourselves and had a blast! We were shattered that evening however and couldn’t wait to be back at home and tucked up in bed.
I’m especially excited now to rock our D&D t-shirts to our next session, as well as use our new dice.
Did you attend the UK Games Expo? If so what did you pick up? Are you interested in board games, D&D etc? If so let me know which games you love playing, what your D&D character is like etc in the comments. I’d love to hear all about it!
Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a lovely week so far. 🙂
There Might Be Coffee 