About

In less than a year I became an adult collector of these fuzzy cute models, following on from the discovery of the subversive Forest Friends Facebook/Twitter posts. They have since moved away from Sylvanian models to less cute critters, but not me - I'm sticking with them!

I created this blog for numerous reasons.

A different outlet for my creative writing. I am working on longer projects - primarily fantasy stories - and write poems, lyrics for my music compositions (I am a member of Lytham St Anne's Shanty Crew, and we supplement traditional shanties with original sea songs), parodies to existing songs. This blog allows me to write shorter "flash-fiction" stories with the bonus of illustrations.

Photo editing. I find it quite creative to modify and enhance photos, and including Sylvanian models is fun. I don't use Photoshop, although I assume many techniques are similar. I use a package called Xara Designer on a Windows PC, which I use because it evolved from a program (Artworks) that I used on an Archimedes RISC computer years ago.

Crafting and sewing. This is a comparatively new addition to my hobbies. I started to make interior walls for my virtual Sylvanian houses, and some furniture and accessories were needed before I succumbed to buying some. The sewing was to make some clothes for unclad Sylvanians I bought, but I only do that for a few as my collection grew and lack of time persuaded me to buy some bundles of clothes to take up the slack.

Thank you to Sylvanako for the map

World building a fictional Sylvanian village. Creating an imagined home for Sylvanian models became an interesting project, becoming more complex as the requirements for a little community developed. Consistency in geography, social history were important for detail in storytelling.

The placement of Mellowdene on the wonderful map created by Sylvanako helped me visualise where we were in relation to the main geographical features and to the villages from other collectors. The river and mountains helped shape my stories.

To document my collection of Sylvanian Families models. Many of the names of the characters are the pre-established ones, but not all. Having acquired most of the figures from eBay (i.e. pre-owned and not usually in mint condition) I accumulated some duplicates. Accordingly, I gave these figures new names, and they will be clad differently. A proportion of my purchases came in non-original clothes anyway. When available I have tried to re-establish the original clothing.

Many relationships echo the official ones, but not all. Orphaned cousins may become additional siblings. Duplicate figures lead to extended family trees. The majority of occupations will not match the official ones. This is a consequence of the world building. I don't need workers for cake shops, shoe shops and fashion emporiums when one needs effective waste management, dock workers, and other practical occupations!

I've joined the Sylvanian Families Collector's Forum, and it's nice to see that I'm not alone in this comparatively recent hobby. I adopted the persona of Jackson Butterglove for the forum, and it seemed natural to extend the character to become the nominal writer of this blog. I hope you enjoy the experience.

Steven
April 2019