kawai

I wanted to try my luck to get another Toy Story birthday cake but I ended up with this set. It's actually not bad at all because the 2 snack wraps and the balloons are nicely detailed.

Here's a preview of the 5 Re-ment sets that will be coming out in November or December. The Disney ice cream cones are keychains that are also pens. The cats are keychains. Re-ment is doing another zipper pouch series with the Toy Story characters (can't wait till they do a Hello Kitty or Rilakkuma zipper pouch series)! The Hello Kitty pieces are all magnets (I like the sewing machine)! For the Rilakkuma set, those are regular miniature food items. I 'm definitely going to get the Hello Kitty magnets and 3-4 complete sets of the Rilakkuma bakery!

Just received my set of keychains. They're mostly candy charms with either Hello Kitty, My Melody, Little Twin Stars or Patty & James on the packages. What I didn't like about some of the charms is that the material is the same cellophane wrapper as real life candy wrappers. As you know, cellophane wrappers are smooth and glossy when new but once you fold or crumble it, the wrapper gets dull and wrinkly. So as keychains, I don't think the charms with the cellophane wrappers will not be able to withstand gentle use. I would rather hang them on my purse so my keys won't rip the delicate wrappers. The other candy packages are vinyl pouches so they will be slightly more durable than the cellophane wrappers.

Yeah!! I finally received my birthday cake set from the Re-ment Toy Story Happy Birthday Party series. The birthday cake was the only set that I wanted. The other sets had more non-food miniatures and I'm not really in to that. I think Re-ment did a wonderful job with the cake. Look at the textures of the icing and cake! It's o realistic. All the cake decorations are movable so you can take decorations from other sets to mix and match. I also went to Kingdom Cake today to get some cupcakes. Kingdom Cake is just a take-out window so all the cupcakes are pre-packed in fours, eights or twelves and flavors of the day are limited unless you pre-order in advance. These are miniature cupcakes but slightly larger than Mission Minis. They're $2 per cupcake so it's a little pricey but all the cupcakes are really moist. The blueberry lemon and lemon cupcakes are really good. They're sweet and extremely tart at the same time! I somehow didn't like the red velvet as much bec...

  I showed the flawed pieces from a previous post. I ordered 2 more individual sets from a seller on ebay so they can replace the flawed ones. They just arrived and I have gathered my favorite pieces to showcase. I think the best piece is the chocolate biscuit. Very nice details & color front and back. The chocolate details of Kiki & Lala are very sharp and clear. They are just like the Re-ment pieces from way back.  Whenever there are mini bakery items I like to buy more than 1 set. I sort of regret giving away the 4th  Mickey and Minnie mouse macarons. They are actually a perfect size for necklace charms but I don't want to use these 6 pieces since I might need them for a bakery display.   

After a while, some miniature pieces will have their stickers coming off. The edges are usually the areas where the adhesives have lost its tackiness. So I use Mod Podge (the one I used was the pale green bottle because I already had that laying around. Its the glossy one). Using a brush, apply a thin layer on the back of the exposed sticker area. If you apply too much, the excess Mod Podge will creep out from the sides and leave marks on the toy. You will then need to use your fingernails to scratch it off and it takes a lot of work. After application, press the stickers back onto the toy and immediately wipe off excess Mod Podge that has crept out. I like to press it for about a minute before wrapping rubber bands around the item. Let dry overnight and they will be ready for pictures or your display!

A friend just sent these two pics to me. They are super cute!!! I'm just crossing my fingers that the quality will be decent because I would like to purchase multiple full sets (I can't have just 1 of each bun in my mini bakery)! Not exactly sure when these will be released but I guess somewhere between Oct-Dec.

The quality of Re- ment minis have gone down dramatically lately but I didn't expect to get so many pieces w/ imperfections on them. There were at least 1-2 flawed pieces per box. The imperfections were either black marks on the pieces or missed spots while painting. Here are just some of the items: There are 2 missed paint spots. One below Lala and another on the lower left of the purple bear. Those 2 spots pop out more when looking at them in person. I was looking forward to this cake but the overall paint job was very rough. Lots of black or grey spots on top of the cake Near the tip of the dripped icing, there are a few missed paint spots. Lots of dirty marks on the back of the bunny. Even worst, there's a very obvious mark on her ear. The same thing happened to the purple bear or cat in set #7. Another black mark

These cakes look more elaborately decorated compared to the previous cake release but they seem larger too. This one is the Hot Springs series. The only set I realy like is #8. I pretty much already have something similiar from all the older Re-ment series. Since I missed out on the vintage Hello Kitty goods (from Bandai?), I will get this series. This isn't extremely exciting but I don't have any miniature Hello Kitty stationary items yet.

I arrived at the brand new Newpeople store at 7:40pm yesterday and was only able to visit the "goods" section because they close at 8PM. In addition, when we took the elevator up to the "fashion" floor at 7:50PM, they were already closed and wouldn't let us get a peek. Overall, I was sort of disappointed at this brand new center because the local newspapers created such a hype on how it's going to be a huge shopping/cinema complex packed with cute and unique Japanese pop culture goods but the New People store just resembles a small museum gift shop. The basement is the cinema and the lobby has a kiosk selling drinks w/limited seating. The lobby is very spacious in order to accommodate the moviegoers hanging out before/after the movie but looks like a waste of space when not much people are around. As you walk up a couple of steps towards the back of the building, it will be the Newpeople store. I mostly saw books there but there were some cute items like ...

Here are the October re-ment releases: Sushi, Hotel Buffet, Pooh Bear Cafe. I think I will buy the sushi and hotel buffet sets. This sushi set will be Re-ment's 3rd all-sushi series so it would have been better if they were keychains or pendants. Too bad there's no Hello Kitty items in Oct because I'm not really a Disney fan.

First one is the Golden Girls Steak House series. The second set is the Mushroom Stall series. While in Hong Kong this March, I saw the Mushroom Stall sets displayed out but they were not for sale. The employee said they were displayed to gather customers' opinions. I really liked the Mahjong tiles & table but would have to wait for a friend to purchase them for me. Or for a higher cost, I can always look for them on ebay. The 3rd set is the Mimo Cake Shop series. The flier indicates that it's a special edition. Not sure if it means limited time only. The bottom one is the Mimo Bakery.