Orcara Miniatures

Hello friends!  I couldn't help it. I bought another Orcara set off eBay called Cooking with the Master. It took forever to get here from Hong Kong. It was so slow, I think someone swam across the ocean with it instead of putting it on a ship.

But it was here! I was super excited to open it. I didn't have a chance to open each little thing, just enough time before bed one night to make sure it was the right set.

Then, the next night, without my knowledge, Haley got out the scissors and opened everything herself.

I was really disappointed. The little kid in me wanted the joy of opening everything. You don't get that much as an adult. So, it's not the end of the world. She didn't mess up anything, but jeez I waited a MONTH and didn't get to open it. Boo.

So I did the next best thing crazy busy people do. I set it aside in the closet until I forgot what was in it. And THEN I opened it up to see what I had!

The set is cute, lots of kitchen goodies. A toaster oven. Bread. Pasta. A blue Le Creuset style pot of spaghetti sauce. Coffee. Salad. Mucho Cuteness! Haley and I played together with some dolls and the new goodies in the Barbie kitchen.

I'm starting to think about reclaiming my old Barbie kitchen set and getting Haley a different kitchen. I really like my old Barbie kitchen. (That's why I kept it!)   I can picture all this cuteness together in a room box, a playscale kitchen full of baking. I certainly don't need another project, but the kitchen minis are calling me!

Re-Ment Lover

A few years ago I discovered these awesome miniatures from Japan, made by Re-Ment.  Their level of detail and realism is impressive.

I went bonkers and fell head-over-heels in love with these miniatures. I bought most of my sets online.  However, I realized that when we travel, I can pick them up in San Francisco at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Japantown. I'm sure I can find them elsewhere. We have set places we like to go in SF and that place is convenient.

I have a few complete sets and also some individual boxes from other sets.  It's kinda fun and disappointing to get the blind boxes. I almost always get the ugly one. I find it more fun to hunt down the one set I really like online. Sometimes, they cost less online than in the store.

For example, last year I bought one blind box from the set "Grandma's European Dinners" while in SF. I ended up with set #4, the nasty-looking brown fish head stew. I would have jumped for joy over any of the other sets!  To console myself, I bought a secret set with a chocolate bundt cake on E-Bay and the regular bundt cake set.

I have a few other blind boxes. The best one by far was the cupcake set from Heart Shaped Sweets.

I also have Hello Kitty Hannari sweets, crepes, the whole Elegant Sweets set, and one from Teddy Bear's Housekeeping. I have collected a few mismatched things, too, thanks to mystery lots on eBay.

Speaking of eBay, I was very excited to get the complete set of the conveyor belt sushi. I kept in the box hidden in my closet for at least a year. When I was ready to open it, Haley helped me. Then we played sushi for a little while together.

Re-Ment isn't the only one out there making great stuff like this. You can find great stuff by Orcara, Bandai, Mimo, Mega-House, and T is for Candy. This set is one of the Megahouse sets for their bakery sweets set, My Cake Shop.

I bought the Orcara fish market set to go with my idea for the garage-turned fish market and sushi bar. Scale-wise, the fish can fit in just fine. Here I have mixed some different fish sets for fun. The crab in the ice packed cooler and the salmon are Orcara, the other pieces are Re-Ment.

Normally, these miniatures are considered play-scale, which means they fit fashion dolls, like Barbie or Blythe.  These toys roughly work out to be 1:6, or twice as big as my 1:12 stuff. Do you think I'm going to really worry about the scale? Nope!

For Christmas last year, my dear hubby Justin completely surprised me with the entire box set of (discontinued) Puchi Petite Mini Sweets! It was the best present I got!

I absolutely recommend these if you are into tiny food. I'm currently eyeballing another Orcara set, this one is a street food collection. I may even need to assemble a room box cafe.

See you again real soon!