Random April Ramblings

I’m curious to know how all of you are doing with self quarantine. I know that numerous US States have closed schools and non essential businesses. I’ve been pretty much hiding in my house since Governor Newsom first announced California’s lock down. When the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Del Norte County, I started to let hubby do all the errands alone. He also handles the retail store’s local deliveries. Originally we planned to do deliveries on Friday and Saturday but I think we may cut back to just Fridays. Would this negatively impact anyone?

Aidan's Toy Trove Free Local Delivery

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The Ragdolls, Abbey and Arthas are bored to tears. Aidan’s cat, Kit, is majorly pissed off that they’re home all the time and I’ve been calling her Miss Grumpy Pants. It also appears to be shedding season. There is fluffy white hair covering everything! Speaking of shedding, Miss Baya is also shedding. She has out shed every horse at the barn 10 – fold and manages to do this every year. Yes, I really did need a hairy Andalusian! If I don’t pick up the hair I brushed off her almost instantly, it all ends up on the barn owner’s front porch, ack! We went on a few trail rides at the beginning of March but now the trails are closed and I really shouldn’t be out of the house so no more rides for a while.

Baya Sleeping

Del Norte Unified School district has done a great job moving courses online. My only complaint is Charter, the internet provider. I think everyone is stuck at home and cruising the internet and boy does it ever crawl. Shipping time has slowed down a lot on both the packages that ship from here and the ones that we receive. I’m thankful to live in a small town where a lot of what we need is still available but toilet paper and paper towels are fairly scarce and for the life of me I can’t find any baking yeast. I even dusted off the old bread maker! And bacon, I’d really like some good bacon ,lol.

Abbey Oops

Breyer wise, the Seattle Soiree event was cancelled. Personally, at this point, I can’t imagine that BreyerFest would still be a go in July. I think that this will depend a lot on the state of Kentucky to decide but even if it does still take place, we’re not likely to attend. I can’t imagine standing in the Special Run line crammed in with hundreds of people or doing room sales at the Clarion with waves of people coming in. Breyer offered a refund to Seattle Soiree attendees or the ability to receive the 2 guaranteed Special Runs and to be entered in lotteries for a chance at purchasing the extra special models. I think that Breyer handled this well and that it would pave the way for a virtual BreyerFest although the task would be much more involved!

Breyer HorseseBay Store

I’ve been listing a lot more Retired and Special Run Breyers to our eBay Store. USPS won’t currently ship Internationally to a number of countries ie. Spain and Italy due to COVID-19. I’m trying to figure out how best to handle this. Oddly, a lot of interested buyers from Italy have been expressing interest in purchasing Breyers! eBay also rolled out a new International shipping option that involves shipping to eBay first and then on to the buyer (this is not the eBay Global Shipping program, we do not use that due to increased cost.) The service offers door to door tracking and insurance. We’re eager to see how long the handful of packages that we have shipped this way take to arrive at their destinations. eBay is also requiring sellers to use Managed Payments starting in July. This will eventually phase out Paypal completely which is both good and bad.

Easter wise, I really wanted to offer some fun premade baskets but ran out of time. We have a lot of fun basket and egg fillers that can be ordered online and deliver for free on 4/10. We have cooler things to fill eggs with than candy!

Free Easter DeliveryShop Easter Basket Fillers

I could ramble on all night but that’s it for now. Once again, thank you every one for your support, stay safe and please don’t hesitate to ask if we can help in any way!

Thank you

COVID-19 Retail Store to Online Store Hiccups

Arthas

Due to COVID-19, our retail store has been closed to walk in customers for over 2 weeks now. School in California has been cancelled for the rest of the academic year and Aidan is home all day. As a family, we’re finally beginning to settle into quarantine. We have been playing lots of board games! We built the retail store’s online website in a matter of days and we’re finally beginning to work out the kinks. We use Square in our retail store and implemented the integrated Weebly online store. To say that it is rough around the edges is a huge understatement. Weebly has been implementing changes almost faster than we can make them. I quickly discovered just how slow and unstable the online store can be and I apologize profusely for this. If it isn’t working for you, please try again in later. I’m hoping that the performance will improve over time. From a personal perspective, I’d like to throw Weebly off a cliff but for now it’s working and that’s all that matters.

When we first built the online store, Delivery wasn’t an option. Now, Delivery is an option but we can’t turn off the Pick Up option. Oi! For now, we are offering Free Local Delivery only. No shipping and no pickups but we hope to expand on this. Deliveries are being made on Friday and Saturday after 4:00pm and we will deliver within a 20 mile radius. We appreciate all of those that have offered to pick up their purchases in person to save us the drive but honestly, at this point, delivery is the easiest option for us. If you need something sooner than Friday, please don’t hesitate to message us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

Another issue that we have been dealing with for the past week is the inability for the online store to import categories of any sort. We have slowly been adding categories and populating them but this is very much a work in progress. There is a search function at the top of the website, and while not perfect, we recommend trying it if you don’t see the item that you are looking for within a category. Up until now, we were using Square exclusively for our retail store. When our inventory migrated from Square to the online store, there were no item descriptions and many of the Point of Sale photos were far from pretty. Descriptions and updated pictures are also still being added. Lastly, any item without a photo is not visible in the online store. If you remember us having something and don’t see it, please ask! It’s quite likely that it is in stock but lacking a picture.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our wonderful customers that have purchased from us during these unprecedented times. Stay safe everyone and please don’t hesitate to reach out if we can help in any way.

Aidan's Toy Trove Free Local Delivery

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Retail Store Temporarily Closed – FREE Local Delivery

In compliance with Governor Newsom’s statewide stay at home order, our retail store is temporarily closed.

We are offering free local delivery on select in store merchandise.

This includes a fantastic selection of jigsaw puzzles, boardgames and STEM activities.

 

Aidan's Toy Trove Free Local Delivery

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Please read the delivery terms carefully. We will be offering orders over the phone and scheduled pickups in the near future but are only offering local delivery as an option at this time.

Items are not available for shipping at this time, however we will be offering delivery.

Due to current Covid-19 restrictions, all items selected as *in store pickup* will be delivered if you live in the Crescent City or Brookings area or within 25 miles of the store location FREE OF CHARGE. For delivery outside of a 25 mile radius, please email aidanstoytrove@gmail.com to check availability.

Deliveries will only be made to customers that have pre-paid online via Credit Card and for total purchases over $20 for free. All other items selected for *in store pickup* that are under $20 dollars will be held until we are allowed to open again.

Deliveries will be made on Friday or Saturday only and you will be called with an approximate time. Please be sure to leave your phone number when you order. If your billing address is not your shipping address you will need to contact us via email or phone to provide the correct address this is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

All items will be subject to sales tax, and un-opened items may be returned within 30 days but YOU will be responsible for returning the items to the store and calling for a time schedule and then refund after the items have been returned.

Please direct any questions to aidanstoytrove@gmail.com as we are not always at the store to answer the phone.

Thank You.

BreyerFest 2019 Glossy Hero’s Welcome Surprise – Sales Pieces

BreyerFest 2019 Glossy Hero’s Welcome Surprise – Sales Pieces

BreyerFest 2019 Glossy Hero's Welcome Surprise

 

I enjoy sharing sneak peaks of the models that we receive.The majority of them are slated for the sales block. I put a lot of time into editing taking and editing photos. However, I’ve noticed something, particularly over the last few months. The horses are selling before I finish making the listing and all the pretty pictures that I’ve put time into are never seen. I am in absolutely no way complaining but hey, time is money! So here’s an official heads up, we will have a GLOSSY Dapple Grey and a GLOSSY Chestnut Pinto Hero’s Welcome Surprise for sale. We have the matte versions as well. We are asking $350 for the glossies. The Glossy Rose Grey is already sold as is the Pinto Diana. And we are asking $125 for the Matte Dapple Grey. I still need to verify that the we have a Matte Chestnut Pinto and I didn’t mistakenly think that the glossy version was the matte version. I was likely having a bit of heatstroke at the park when I opened him =D Raw, unedited (read, not pretty) pictures are available of the glossies, the mattes do not have pictures available. Please send an email to aidanstoytrove@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing.

Here are pictures of the Glossy Rose Grey who is already SOLD:

BreyerFest 2019 Glossy Hero's Welcome Surprise Glossy Rose GreyBreyerFest 2019 Glossy Hero's Welcome Surprise Glossy Rose Grey

Here is a picture of the wonderful Pinto Diana who is also SOLD:

BreyerFest 2019 Pinto Diana

Come See Our Booth During BreyerWest at the 2019 Northwest Horse Fair and Expo

Come See Our Booth During BreyerWest at the 2019 Northwest Horse Fair and Expo

2019 Northwest Horse Fair and Expo

We will have a booth in the Willamette building at BreyerWest (the first building on the right when you enter) and will have HUNDREDS of Breyers and related merchandise spanning 3 booths. We will be setup to take cash or credit. We will be offering a cash discount. We won’t be at the swap meet or room sales. We will be open to purchasing large groups of Breyer and Peter Stone Horses, please email us at aidanstoytrove@gmail.com if you have a bulk lot or collection to sell. We will also have a fun selection of Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty, Squishies, Unicorn: plushies, slap bracelets, slime and everything unicorn, dinosaurs, cars, Lego minifigures, stress & fidget toys, musical jewelry boxes and more!

BreyerWest is held at the Northwest Horse Fair and Expo in Albany, Oregon on March 22nd – 24th 2019

BreyerWest 2019

https://www.breyerhorses.com/pages/save-the-date-for-breyerwest-2019

http://equinepromotions.net/northwest-horse-fair/

This is a small sampling of what we will be bringing:

– 2019 NIB Breyers: Cascade & Caspian, Catch Me, Best of British Foal Set, Truly Unsurpassed, Protocol Gift Set, Dominante, Enzo, Thunder, Cloud’s Legend Set, Cupcake, Malik, Paint & Play Unicorns

-Other current run NIB Breyers: Lil Ricky Rocker, Xavier, Valegro, Secretariat, Justify and more

-Retired Porcelain Horses (if you have a specific want, please let me know)

-Stablemate Blind Bags including Spirit, Unicorn & Mystery Surprise (Mystery Surprise Foal boxed sets as well)

-BreyerFest 2017 & 2018 Single Day Stablemates

-Breyer Mini Whinnies & Pocket Animals

-Collecta Horses

-Recently and long discontinued NIB Breyers some include: Illuminati, Rhapsody In Black, Zena, American Pharoah, Celestine, Sugarmaple, many older NIB

-Breyer Stablemate Club Horses many NIB

-Hundreds of loose Breyer in all sizes in all conditions

-Simple Breyer Customs Shelf Quality to LSQ (nothing high dollar unless requested)

-Breyer Barns, Dolls, Tack & Accessories new and used

-Older Breyer dealer catalogs

-Breyer Pony Pouches

-Retro Style My Little Ponies

 

Here is what we WON’T be bringing but can upon request:

*Free delivery of any model purchased privately or on the website*

-Breyer raffle model Truffles

-Breyer Glossy Banks Vanilla, Glossy Totilas, Glossy Grullo Pinto Ethereal, Glossy Gypsy Vanner, Glossy BHR Bryant’s Jake, Glossy Hickory Hills Wall Street

-Breyer Vintage: Glossy Grey Appaloosa PAF, Glossy Alabaster PAM Night Light, Glossy Alabaster PAM, Glossy Honey Bay PAM, Alabaster Indian Pony, Glossy 4 Eyed Misty

-Breyer Glossy Grulla 1730 Anniversary AQHA

-Breyer Gettysburg, Rialto, Acadia, Juniper, Eldora & Sol, Hawthorn, Murphy, Charlie, Ivy

-Breyer Premier Club: Duende, Croi Damsha (possibly other PCs please send wants)

-Breyer YHS Phar Laps

-BreyerFest NIB Nazruddin, Imperador, Brass Hat, Old Ironsides, Icabad Crane, Lonesome Glory, Glossy Foiled Again, Dali and Spanky, Diablo DC

-BreyerFest Diwali, Haute Couture

-BreyerFest Stablemate Anniversary Commemorative Set NIB

-Breyer NIB Blossoms complete set

-Breyer Fruitcake Fillies all colors

-Breyer Customs from our personal collection. Some are located in NJ and cannot be brought but others can be

-Unpainted Resin Fritz & Orinocco

-Unpainted Cube Equine & Feral Mare Medallions by Sarah Minkiewicz

-Nikon 3200 SLR Camera with extras

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