Sunday, October 12, 2014

Rainbow Collection

Hey guys!  Sorry for the lack of posting last week.  Between Oldest Gal's soccer game, being a guest speaker in chapel for the girls' elementary classes, my writing day with my writer buddies, a day trip out of town, and a day of pictures at JC Penney's, it was one of those nonstop weeks that left little extra time for posting.  I hope to be back to my two-posts-a-week schedule this coming week. ;)

In the meantime, I thought I'd tide you over with pictures of a rather random project I started in my room. ;)  

I've seen several pictures on Flickr and other places of color-coordinated collection displays, and ever since teaching my students about the color wheel last year in art, I really wanted to try it for myself.  There's something so visually pleasing about having colors sorted together in order...at least for me.  Maybe I'm just weird that way. ;)

It wasn't as easy as it sounds.  It took a while to fit everything in a way that as many pieces as possible were visible.  Sometimes I'd get to the end of a shelf and realize I needed to rearrange things all over again just to get them to fit.  The end result was very pleasing, though. :)

Here is the first shelf, composed of reds, oranges, and yellows...with a bit of greens mixed in with the yellow (I went back and forth over where to put my Elfa Zelf, with her yellow body and green hair). ;)

I already had my Fluttershy shelf up.  I decided to place things so the shelf could either be seen as something entirely separate or as an extension of the yellows.

Here we have the green, blue, and purple shelf.  The purples were tricky because I had more ponies than anything, so getting things arranged in a way that felt fresh and varied was difficult.  I also discovered that I don't have all that many plain green things in my collection. ;)

I also did a small shelf of pinks, just because I had so many.  I tried to keep most of my purpley pinks closer to the purple side.

Here's how everything looks together. :)

And here's a closer look at some of the shelves.  It's like one of those "I Spy" books.  How many things can you identify? ;)


I don't know how long I'll keep things like this (I'm usually partial to keeping things categorized according to type), but for now it makes for a fun, unique change, and it makes me smile. :)

26 comments:

Smaller Places said...

In a weird way, the color coordinating makes little things "pop" because it's just so fascinating to look at the mass and pick items out of it.

The Fluttershy cube is just plain awe-inspiring.

Jasmine said...

Your rainbow shelves are so cute! <3 <3 :D
I'm sorry I haven't commented in so long, by the way; I look at all of your posts though. :)
What are your thoughts on the S4 finale of MLP, by the way? I thought it was awesome! :D

Anonymous said...

It looks really nice and seems to 'unify' things. But it must have been a lot of work.
And thank you for the link to the index list of surprise My Little Pony bags in one of your previous posts. That's really, really useful info.
Linda

mags said...

Wow, this is super cool! Love the rainbow idea; such a neat way to display a lot of things. =D
~Adaline

misspiggy=awesome said...

Hey Beastsbelle, quik questione. Have you ever watched the Disney Channel show Gravity Falls? If so, what do you think of it?

JuliaGurt said...

On the first photo, right in the middle, there is Apple Jack with hat, she is very beautiful, is she vinyl? Could you tell me please what brand is she? Thank you

Lissie said...

I love love love this!! So fun and colorful!! You have such a great collection of both old and new!!! Great work!!

Casey said...

Love this idea. Have to wonder though, how often do you have to dust and what do you use? I have a few dolls on a shelf, and it's practically a full time job to keep them clean.

Unknown said...

You unboxed Lime Chiffon!!! that was the first thing I noticed in the green shelf, actually. I really liked how you arranged everything by color though, good job!

Shai said...

Did you unbox the Lime Chiffon?
-Shai

Karina B. said...

Love the overall look!! The pink shelf is my favorite. =)

Farrah Lily said...

Good to see you back! I love your photos...nice pops of color:) It's always fun for me to see other people's collections and I love how you've organized them like this.

Hannah Prewett (beastsbelle) said...

Wow, it was so fun to come back and see so many comments! :)

Smaller Places, I agree. It's kind of fun to sit and look at all of the different little pieces in each color category. :) I had so much fun doing this!

Lol, I love my Fluttershy cube, too. I may have to slow down on Fluttershy stuff now, though, unless I find a bigger shelf! ;)

Thanks, Momo! It's so good to hear from you again. Don't worry about not commenting. It can be overwhelming to try to comment on everything you read. I've become quite a "lurker" myself on most of the blogs I follow. ;) Nice to know you're enjoying the blog. :)

I really loved the MLP Season 4 finale. I'm having a hard time waiting for Season 5!! :}

Hi Linda! It was a lot of work, but I just treated it as a fun project instead of a stressful thing. Hubby kept coming in and laughing, because I kept changing and rearranging things over the course of a few days. ;)

I'm glad you found the index list helpful. Strawberry Reef is my "go to" site for all things MLP, especially when I'm trying to identify them or find a certain Blind Bag pony. :)

Thanks, Adaline! I've always enjoyed seeing other collectors display things this way. I thought it was time I tried it for myself. ;)

Hi misspiggy=awesome. I'm never seen Gravity Falls, just some of the previews, but from the clips I've seen it doesn't appear to be my type of show. A little too dark for my taste. :)

Hello to my next commenter! (Sorry, I'm not sure how to type your username without some sort of translator.) Thank you so much for stopping by. You guessed correctly: Applejack is vinyl. She is from the Funko Vinyl figure line. Funko is the same company that makes the "Funko Pop!" figures. I got this Applejack at Hot Topic, but she is supposed to be available in other places soon. She's also on Amazon.com (you can see her by clicking the link HERE.

I hope this helps! :)

Thanks so much, Lissie! :)

Thanks, Casey. It was so much fun.

As to the dusting, um, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it should in my house. I don't let cobwebs start forming or anything, but let's just say it's a good thing the lighting isn't the best in our room. ;) I also enjoy rearranging and making displays, so things pretty much get dusted when I'm in a rearranging mood. ;)

Nice observation, Cure May! I was wondering if anyone would notice. ;) Yes, I decided to unbox her for several reasons. First, her packaging was pretty worn, so it's not like she was going to be worth a lot in the package anyway. Also, her packaging was so large that I couldn't ever put her on the shelf with my other SSC dolls. The deal breaker, though, was that I really needed something else for my green section. ;)

I did, Shai! :) I also unboxed my vintage Orange Blossom and my San Diego Comic Con Strawberry Shortcake (that one was the one that I thought about the longest before succumbing). ;) I hope to have a few more detailed pics of my newly opened dolls in a later post. :)

Thanks, Karina B! :) I don't know if I could pick a favorite...I love them all! ;)

Thanks, Farrah Lily. It's nice to be back. ;) It's been really fun trying something new on my shelves. It makes me smile to look over and see a rainbow of collectibles. :)

Sydney said...

I've come to the conclusion that you and I have pretty much the same taste in toys. LOL. I have Ponies, Zelfs, Pinypon, Strawberry Shortcake and Lalaloopsies, too. I love your shelves! They look great.

Mora L said...

http://theadventuresofanannadoll.blogspot.com/ is my blog adress

Hannah Prewett (beastsbelle) said...

Hi Sydney! Sounds like you and I are kindred spirits! ;) Glad you liked the shelves. :)

Thanks, Maureen, I'll check it out! :)

Alice said...

Wow, that looks really pretty! I think having it color coordinated makes the shelf transition "smoother" and nicer... it also looks cool. I would almost never have enough patience to do that (I say almost with caution.)

Manta said...

I LOVE the rainbow organization! It looks really cool.:) My first thought was that it was like a picture in an I Spy book, lol...before I even got to the part where you said it was like an I Spy book. Lol:)

Gracie said...

Wow it looks so good! I wish I could arrange my shelves in a fun way, but whenever I try to display something, my cat finds a way to knock it over XD
Thanks for the post!!!

Anonymous said...

I love how you did this! It looks so cool! Right now I am packing up all my dolls and toys temporarily because we are about to have our roof replaced and I know everything is going to be covered in dust and dirt otherwise. I'm thinking when I unpack, I will have to rearrange everything anyhow so I might try doing something like this.

jSarie said...

I love the way this looks!

I'm always looking for ways to display eclectic and smaller toys together in a way that keeps the display organized-looking, and this colour matching is a perfect solution for it. Brilliant!

Hannah Prewett (beastsbelle) said...

Hi Alice! :) Thanks, I think it's pretty in this set up, too. I think the key for having the patience to set it up is to do it little by little and not make it too stressful. I did this over the course of a couple of nights, so I was able to take my time with it and try some different ways of arranging all of the toys. :)

Thanks, Manta. :) I never liked looking for the things I was supposed to in the "I Spy" books, but I always loved just looking at all of the toys and knick-knacks and how they arranged them. ;) I think it's the same type of thing here. It's fun to look and see all of the different toys peeking out next to each other. ;)

Lol, Gracie, that would make it difficult. ;) We don't have any pets, so I don't have to worry about them knocking anything over.

I hope you try it, sailingintheark! :) If you do, maybe you could leave a link to a picture in the comments or email me a picture or something. I'd love to see what you do. :)

Thanks, jSarie! :) It's a fun way to display them and helps me use as much space as possible on each shelf. :) I hope you try it for your collection, too. Like I told sailingintheark, I'd love to see a picture of your collection if you try it. :)

Mark Patraw said...

Color is a neat and attractive-looking way to arrange your toys (I also love your Fluttershy-centric display). I've seen similar photos before, but usually with small toys/figurines molded from a single plastic color. Like yourself, I generally prefer to organize my toys by franchise/manufacturer [all my Marvel Super Heroes/Villains together, all my Transformers together, all my Liv dolls together (with the smaller McDonald's ones separated out into their own bag), etc.] I think this would be neat to try, but my toys are scattered all over the place, and many of them are in storage, so it'd be a huge undertaking just to wrangle them up. That, and my OCD-tendencies would cause me to have all sorts of silly internal debates with myself about their placement (toys that are roughly 50% one color and 50% another contrasting hue, like red-and-blue Superman or Spider-man, would seem to be particularly problematic, although I suppose one could exclude them altogether to prevent that dilemma).

Hannah Prewett (beastsbelle) said...

Lol, this made me laugh, Mark. There were several of my toys (Zelfs especially) that caused that very problem for me. (Does a Zelf with purple hair and a green body go in the green section, or the purple?) ;) Glad to know I'm not the only one who over thinks these things. :}

Glad you enjoyed the displays. I've loved seeing the bright rainbow arrangement when I walk into my room. :)

GeckoLass said...

I love the displays and will have to spend some time naming the toys. The toys look perfect- you obviously have an eye for colour.

Hannah Prewett (beastsbelle) said...

Thank you, Megan Rose. :) It was a lot of fun arranging them, although some of the toys with a combination of colors were difficult to set up. It was hard to tell where they should go! ;)