Stim Toy Review: Unexpected Surprises

Image Description: from left to right, a robin’s egg blue gift box wrapped with robin’s egg blue ribbon, a pink gift box with navy blue ribbon tied around it, a light-pink polka-dotted-box with dark-pink ribbon tied in a bow on top

This year I’m going to attempt to write one Stim Toy Review per month, this is to make sure I pace myself, I have the unfortunate habit of over-committing and biting off more than I can chew, but it’s also to make sure I limit my impulsive online-shopping tendencies.

How it’s going to work is that I’ll post a review of a single item on Tumblr and hopefully remember to post a connecting link here on my WordPress-blog, however, there are times when I want to review multiple Stim Toys at the one time and Tumblr isn’t really conductive for long posts. So long posts or posts involving two or three Stim Toys will be reviewed on my WordPress-blog instead.

Also, as a possibly related side-note, I’ve been adding Alt-text to all my pictures, but when I test it with Chrome, it doesn’t show up. On one hand, my laptop is currently using XP as an operating system, so that might be the reason it’s not showing up, however, if anyone could give me some feedback on the Alt-text involving the pictures, I’d super appreciate it.

On Tumblr, Stimtastic were having a Give-Away and Kim sent it my way, I entered thinking I didn’t have a hope of winning but I enjoyed reading all the text on people’s special interests (it was super fascinating to see so many different varieties but also to notice how some of them interconnected).

Much to my surprise, I was selected as the winner of the give-away, and I wanted to talk about the items in detail:

Out of all the possible variations of Stim Toys, Beaded Item such as jewellery and lanyards are my favourite (second favourite would be Squishy Items). I have attached beaded lanyards to both my main bags (a Nightmare Before Christmas Messenger-bag and a black-white-and-red backpack), coloured co-ordinated of course, and I love playing with beaded necklaces that Kim has made for me. So naturally, this stim toy is my favourite of the collection.

I really like the teal colour of this, unfortunately my wrists are already occupied and I often find that rubber bands like these tend to be a little too loose for me.

As demonstrated in the second picture, the chewable bangle bracelet is loose around my wrist but it is flexiable in nature, I have a feeling chewable bangle bracelets aren’t going to work for me, I think that chewable necklaces might be the better direction for me to go in.

I love these as Fidgets, I constantly play with the sleepers already in my ears, however, I have my fears. These are clip-on ear-rings, which means the possibility to fall off, then me frantically searching for the other half (while trying not to panic) then practically crying with frustration when I can’t find it immediately,the despair at concluding that the second ear-ring is “Lost Forever To The Sands of Time” like all the other things (then the joy when I find it located somewhere random). I’d like to avoid all of that, especially since I already have a collection of ear-rings missing their other half. So, as I have access to the Connected Community HackerSpace (located in Hawthorn, Victoria), I will alter these so that their connected to sleeper ear-rings, should be simple enough for me to do (I’ve made a hammer out of metal before so this should be doable). Besides, I’ve been meaning to get a second set of ear-piercings for a while now.

This one feels nice, but I have the feeling I would need to attach it to something so that I don’t lose it, which is simply a matter of when not if. The only challenge here is that I have absolutely no sewing skills whatsoever, however, by some element of twisted coincidence, I happen to have a few friends who are very talented and proficient with sewing that I can ask for assistance.

I really like this, the cinnamon crystals (is that the right word?) smell lovely but I can see them being slightly overwhelming or over-powering for others. The little canisters are tiny but I think it might be possible to put dried herbs or powdered herbs inside of the canisters (if that’s preferred), for example: I adore the smell of rosemary and basil (together or separate is good).

I also had my mother over the other day so that she could give me my Christmas present and I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to show her all the awesome stuff that Kim got me for Christmas as well. As my mother enjoys colouring-books as a way to relax and meditate, I figured my mother would be more likely to understand the appeal, and it turns out she did, in fact my mother appears to enjoy using fake kinetic sand almost as much as I do:

My mother also loved my collection of Squishes, in fact, I have ordered for her a Squishy Tofu and Squishy Strawberry. I plan on doing a video with Fake Kinetic Sand, but I believe I’m going to need a bigger tray and a tripod to hold my camera. It seemed a little surreal (in a positive way) to talk about Stim Toys with my mother and watch her play with and solve one my Smiggle Snake Puzzles.

I have also ordered some Chewable Necklaces from Stimtastic, I intend to give one of them to my sister as she has spoken of getting chewable jewellery but I figured it might be easier if I get it for her and see how my niece reacts to it, because right now my niece has the unfortunate habit of grabbing and yanking on any nearby items of jewellery and attempting to eat them.

This may only be amusing to me, but I can’t help but giggle at the slow-but-steady infiltration of Stim Toys into my family lives, Mwuhahahaha. Today, my family, Tomorow, the world.

Links:
Ambiguous Pieces (Tumblr) –
~Stim Toy Review – Kawaii Macaron Squishy
~Stim Toy Review: Food For Thought
~Stim Toy Review: Squishy Peach

Stim Toy Box (Tumblr) –
~Snake Puzzles
~Beaded Animals
~The Pink Conspiracy
~Squishy Fruit Toys
~A necklace made from seven aqua hexagonal silicone beads strung onto an aqua cord with a black breakaway clasp

Eldritch Esoterica (Tumblr) –
~Pink Drawstring Dice Bag
~Large and Mini Drawstring Bags For Dice
~Rainbow Bead Bracelets
~Peyote-stitched bead-woven rectangle made from pony beads