I made my Niece Dream Valley for Christmas. I definitely went overboard and spoiled her rotten, but, I don’t regret it all. I honestly started out with a modest idea, but I got carried away...
Here’s my little story...
(If you don’t want the back story skip to the picture links at the bottom)
The first time I gave my niece a pony was two easters ago. She was two at the time and it was Easter Sunday. I put together an Easter egg hunt and at the end of the hunt there was a 35th anniversary Pretty Parlour with Peachy for her. I wasn’t sure if she was going to like ponies, but to my utter delight, she LOVED Peachy and the parlour. (I was so happy to say the least, I grew up LOVING ponies and really want to share that joy I had for them with her)
I slowly gave her a pony here and there when I saw her, mostly the 35th anniversary ponies Firely, Medley, Twilight, Applejack and Bowtie etc, and a few G3’s I’d find at flea markets including a MIB G3 celebration castle I found for cheap. Her favourite pony are still definitely Peachy and Firefly, because they were her first.
She is in love with the original MLP movie from the 80’s and the two specials, so I wanted to get her Dream Castle as a present as she loved playing with her ponies and having them run away from the smooze or dinosaurs (Stratadons). So I thought Dream castle would be perfect for a gift as she could act out the movie.
It was February 2020 and I ended up finding Dream Castle, Lullaby Nursery and the Baby bonnet school of dance for a great price on eBay all near complete and in good condition (for about $130 American, I’m Canadian BTW), I bid on the auction thinking I was going to lose but weirdly ended up winning. I was super pumped to clean and fix them up as they needed a little work and I had to buy a few missing pieces. (Yay, Project!)
This all happened before Covid and I didn’t realize how bored I would be or how much time I would have at home to really fix it up.
I started with Dream Castle and restrung the drawbridge and pulley, got new mirror stickers for the dance studio, bought the missing horseshoes, pulled off half stuck on stickers, repainted a few things and even cut out new felt for the throne and ribbons for the castle in multiple colours. Everything looked great and I thought I was done, but covid wasn’t going anywhere so I thought, well, what else can I do while I’m stuck at home.
...so I made pony crowns with ribbons, star wands with bows, and pony gowns, and my personal favourite “the rainbow of light” heart necklace. Even after all that I was still bored and stuck at home.
So I made a wooden popsicle stick bridge for the ponies. After a YouTube video later, a glue gun, three packages of popsicle sticks some paint, and two days later. I was done.
The boredom continued so I also built trees, bushes, a walkable rainbow of light bridge, a waterfall, and a cliff (inspired from Firefly’s first flight with Megan) and I bought a buildable garden which would represent “Flutter Valley.” Most of the stuff I made out of cardboard and glued it together with a glue gun and painted it, but the flowers were just easier to buy.
By this point it was actually almost Christmas and I had also bought many ponies, specially from the MLP movie and specials to add to her gift as I thought they would resonate with her most.
I ended up making a MLP book that had a picture of all the ponies I had given her already, and all the new ponies she was going to get for Christmas. Each page either a different place in Ponyland or a picture of a pony with her name and backstory on it. All of the picture I found online, but I created and wrote the backstories.
I actually set up Dream Valley in her playroom the night before Christmas and set up all the ponies and playsets nicely.
On Christmas morning, I gave her the book first and she ran into the play room to go show her ponies and she was surprised by Dream Valley.
It was so cute seeing her overwhelmed by pony magic. I’ll never forget that.
Here are some of the pictures of what I created.
These pictures were me test setting up “Dream Valley” at my house to give myself an idea of what I had to recreate at my sisters place. (Forgot to add in the waterfall here)
https://ibb.co/M5bggcNhttps://ibb.co/Ws3fM9zhttps://ibb.co/fYjpRCrhttps://ibb.co/b1nw4qjhttps://ibb.co/bPXbWBLhttps://ibb.co/grjx1DVhttps://ibb.co/3cZCmZ6https://ibb.co/Sy4HP9ghttps://ibb.co/ySdTwPpThese are some of the pictures I took of the Wands, hats, gowns and felt pieces for Dream Castle I made:
https://ibb.co/PDB0dynhttps://ibb.co/KwMQndMhttps://ibb.co/h1CjXtmhttps://ibb.co/crj7nryhttps://ibb.co/wSnqPZrThis is the set up I made of Dream Valley on Christmas Eve. I included her original castle and many of her ponies she already had.
https://ibb.co/kHqbFwghttps://ibb.co/DQXkPzHhttps://ibb.co/MMHMmCHhttps://ibb.co/LZ10D35https://ibb.co/K2HHz6bhttps://ibb.co/vdbJJHfhttps://ibb.co/ZBwV529https://ibb.co/6njLSL0https://ibb.co/9r40PD6https://ibb.co/gzzprjghttps://ibb.co/7QZGnTBhttps://ibb.co/fnvP2dDhttps://ibb.co/2Fx7pQphttps://ibb.co/h2bkn3SHope you enjoyed my little story. I wanted to share my pictures with you all. Thanks to everyone here I bought ponies off of and helping me create my pony vision. I feel like I gave my dream pony present to my niece and I’m happy I get to see her enjoy the magic of ponies just like I did.
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