What do you do with your ponies?

[Sweet_Stuff]

I buy, sell and trade ponies. Most in my collection are from my childhood, although I think now the nonchildhood pony count is slowly getting close to outnumber the childhood ponies!

They on are display in my bedroom, with a few on display on my home computer desk. I give them spa days and for the ones who need a little more help that what I can give them, I ship them to my pony restorer friend who works on them for me. I talk to them sometimes and play with the babies over in the nursery (rearrange them, brush their hair).

A few people in RL know about my pony collecting..everyone knows on Facebook (if they pay attention LOL), since I display pics every now and then..but for the most part, I don't really share much. I tell whoever I'm dating about them (only if they ask.. it eventually comes up when we discuss hobbies and such), usually they are fine with it and think it's cool or neat.. ironically my ex bfs actually thought it was 'weird' and 'crazy.' And that's why they are idiots and I don't talk to them anymore anyway. 
  

[Epona]

I clean them, style them, trade doubles and play with them with my daughter.
New arrivals go on display for awhile. My favorites are always on display. I change the displays as new ponies come in, or when a set outgrows its shelf. Most are displayed lined up but my blind bag sets are set up in little scenes.
Most of my ponies are in storage in totes under the bed or in a large wardrobe as I have limited space for display.

[Tulips]

Second hand ponies I clean, style and display upon arrival. Sometimes it will take me hours to reorganise the display shelf to fit the new pony in nicely, and sometimes I've already cleared a spot in anticipation. My general display shelves are set up aesthetically without strict rules of sets or poses. My army shelf & MIB shelves are more organised.

New ponies are styled and displayed in a similar fashion. Until recently I had an entire bedroom to display in, but I've moved in with my boyfriend and have had to leave my collection behind at my parents' house. For the time being all my ponies are wrapped and stored in dresser drawers, but some day I'll have proper shelving to display on again.

I don't really play with my ponies. I never had MLP as a child so I don't experience any nostalgic joy from playing with them now.

[Tiara546]

I buy and sell or trade them, clean those which come right out of attics and such, fix their hair if it is frizzy, style them, compare with those who are already there and sort out duplicates again. It happens that after having helped a pony back to her former beauty to the best of my ability and she turned out really well, I talk to her and tell her how beautiful she is. Or I tell very poor ponies who I'm going to help that help is on their way. I also love to give them high quality repro ribbons in their original colour to complete their colour scheme again. Generally also trying to complete them with their original accessories.
After sorting them out, only very special ponies get displayed and only until I have seen them long enough. Most of the time, after a longer drying period, they go into individual plastic zip bags together with a desiccant bag or two and get stored away by series and/or origin in cardboard boxes. I seem to be acting like an archivar, feeling like I am their keeper and take the job quite seriously.

In order to display them apart from one or two ponies on an exposed spot here and there, I had created a virtual pony shelf on my homepage so that I could look at them whenever I wanted without them taking up space while being displayed. That solution really suits me, but I have to update that photo area as it's around the double amount of ponies in the meantime, I have a better photo cam and everything... will definitely update those virtual shelves once my life gets a little more settled again.

[Cough Sirup]

At the moment I am preoccupied with cleaning up and restoring my herd since I didn't have time to get around to a lot of them since I got them. I store them all on a shelf, and I like to sit with them and brush them.

[Pheasant]

The only thing I really do is occasionally take some out for photo shoots. Most of them are kept in storage, but a small handful of them decorate my room. G1 Stardazzle is used to store small jewelry, such as earrings.