Wednesday, September 2, 2009

My new obsession ... the dunny!

I was watching Aces of Cakes the other day and they were making a surprise wedding cake. The couple collected these designer toys called dunnies, so they were replicating two of them into cakes. Of course the cakes were amazing as always, but what I really liked was the dunnies.

I was curious about these toys, so I looked them up online. The dunnies are designed by different artists all over the world, from painters to tattoo artists. Basically each toy is a compact work of art. The three inch dunnies are sold in different series, but they are blind boxes, so you never know which ones you are getting. I am not one to try and collect items slowly, trading, etc, to get what I want, so I looked them up on eBay. Jackpot!

Each dunny ranged from around $3.00 to hundreds of dollars for the rarer ones. I bought a few from the same seller so that I would not have to pay shipping for each individual item.

I should never have made that initial purchase. I have found myself checking eBay every day and seeing what dunnies are up for sale. I check kidrobot's website constantly to find out about the new series coming out. I even have a favorite artist, Amanda Visell. There is just such a huge variety and so many crazy points of view printed on these vinyl toys.

It has been a month and I think I now have 28 dunnies, 26 inch dunnies dunnies and 2 eight inch dunnies. Only three cost more than a few dollars because I am really trying to stay disciplined with what I spend. I spend a little more on one three inch dunny that was designed by a tattoo artist I really like and Rommel bought me an eight inch dunny by Joe Ledbetter, which is the tiger on the top shelf in the picture below.


What I really spent money on was an eight inch dunny by Amanda Visell. I loved the smaller dunnies she has designed and it just so happened that the larger dunny went on sale a couple of weeks ago. I was in a complete tither about buying it because there were only 1500 made and they went on sale at a particular time. I was on the computer with the credit card right at the exact time it went on sale nervously typing in my account name and password. I was so excited that I was able to get a hold of one before it sold out a couple hours later! I love the humor in it with a tree cutting off one of it's own branches.


Here are a few more of my favorites. You can see the diversity of the artists just between these three dunnies.


I am sure that part of the reason I became so wrapped up in them was because I was stressed and it was a good distraction. Well, I good distraction if you do not include the fact that it cost me money. So I am trying to reward myself with them now. Reward for what you ask. I am not sure about that part, but I will let you know when I figure it out.

Project Day

With my anxiety at a bad point, I have been spending more and more time at home. I love to spend time reading of course, but I just can't read 24/7, so I have been looking for a variety of things to do. After not finding a seed catcher for Ziggy's cage at the pet store, I decided that I might as well make one myself.

I just hemmed the top and bottom of a couple yards of fabric, threaded the elastic through it, and then sewed the ends together. It ended up costing more than a pre-made seed catcher would because the fabric was a little pricey, but besides being boring, you can also see all the seeds building up because it is transparent. Next time I need a seed catcher I will plan a little more ahead and buy fabric on sale.