On Customizing

 You know what, I bet I could do this and make this thing a little better...

I think we've all had that thought at least once.  Not everyone acts on it.  Tweaking, kitbashing, customizing...whatever you want to call it.  Some make a business out of it.  Some of us do it for fun (yours truly).  Some go all out and make their own from scratch based on the original object (Froggy, for example).  My mom was one of the latter type.  She made full-on furniture out of junk mail, leftover cardboard, yogurt cups and just about anything else that would normally go "in da trash".

It runs in the family.  I've brought this up elsewhere (hi, Miss Tammy =p).  My great-grandfather used to make trips to islands off the coast of Georgia back in the early 1900s and salvage furniture left behind when hurricanes hit.  He repaired it and in a lot of cases, combined some orphaned bits with others to make new and full furniture pieces.  Mom grew up during the Great Depression, and that creative streak plus the "make it do or do without" mentality led to a lot of adventures.  That's where I got it from.

Myself, I actually started with a Fashion Star Filly.  Mom was smart.  As a kid, I didn't have access to knives, or permanent glue, or even the kitchen stove.  I had basic scissors, nail polish, nail files and string.  Dad had taught me to whittle, though.  I knew what I wanted to do, so I got started.  Slimming the legs, dishing the face, sharpening the hooves... No technique, no video tutorials, just a general vision.

That project never got finished, and eventually I moved on to simply designing my own animals, which is a whole other story and in at least one case, involved a trip to the natural history museum.

Later on I trimmed and repainted some plastic horses, of the generic army-man variety, which I'd splurged on because I liked the special poses they came in (and like all girls of a certain age, I was hoss-crazy).

By high school, I'd finally been allowed to get my hands on some of Mom's precious "shirt cardboard".  You know, the sheets of cardstock that came in dry-cleaning, back when people still got that done.  It was always in short supply in our house.  At that point, I had a part-time job and had pocket cash, as well as a budding obsession with miniatures (thanks, Mattel).  Michael's used to sell these blister packs of quarter-scale plastic dollhouse furniture.  I couldn't afford an actual dollhouse, so I decided I'd make my own to fit the furniture.  Sadly, I don't have any photos of it, though it was far from a masterpiece.

From what I remember, it featured a number of moon gates as doors, and at least one room had been painted to look like a night sky.  It got handed off with all its tiny furniture to a friend of mine when I went off to college and hasn't been seen since.  R I P.

I decided to look around on google and see if I could find out what brand that tiny furniture was, and if they still made it.  For once, one of my nostalgia hunts paid off.  I like a good info hunt, but often curse past-me for having such offbeat tastes.  Come to find out, this stuff was made in either China or Hong Kong and sold by a company called Aztec Imports.  You can still find these being sold on ebay (tagged as vintage...is 1990 vintage now??) and on a few dollhouse supplier sites.

seller's photo, not mine.

I don't remember if this was the exact packaging, but I'd know that table anywhere.  This is definitely one of the sets I had - they also sold a bedroom and a living room/office one.  Aside from things like the hurricane lamp, dishes, and that water pump there, the pieces are all brown plastic with gold accents.  Now that I have the right tools and some better experience, I'm itching to reacquire some of these and repaint them...maybe build another house or a roombox - they're small enough for that if I find a big enough shadowbox frame.  I'll be sure to post updates :)