Most
little girls love their tea parties and teddy bears. They're so cute and cuddly...oh, just so
adorable. But what if you're a nerd or a
geek or a Goth or just straight out not a normal? Well then teddy bears just don't cut it. Vampires, zombie ponies....ahhh, there's the
sweet cuddly-wuddly you want. Luckily
someone thought of that. Today I'm going
to introduce you to the most adorable undead plushies you've ever seen. The Vamplets are the simply the cutest,
gore-fest cuddlies you'll ever want to squeeze.
And unlike the non-plush variety of undead you see in movies and TV, they don’t squeeze back.
In
the year 2000 a company based out of Clearwater, Florida founded itself with a
small investment centered on 6 Vampire babies.
Each had their own cute name, box shaped like a coffin, and you could
even buy a baby bottle full of blood to go with them. The names just made them even more adorable;
Count Vlad Von Gloom, Cadaverson Nightshade, Midnight Mori, etc. What started out as a s mall scale start-up
quickly went off into a flurry of activity thanks to the wonderful world of
Conventions. ComicCon, DragonCon, etc…the
Con circuit spread these adorable undead plushies throughout the masses and
they quickly caught on like wildfire.
Now there are multiple lines of undead cuties to choose from.
The
first run- which currently remain in a sold out status on the web site thanks
to the huge popularity of these adorable creatures- was that of a series of
vampire babies. Each has their own
morbidly cute name and instructions for you, the crazy human deranged enough to
adopt the undead. The boxes they come in
just add to the awesomeness; a black and pink colored cardboard coffin that, if
you extract the doll from carefully, can still be used as a bed for the
plushy. That is if you are not snuggling
with it nightly anyway. What? I'm thirty-seven and I think they're adorable
enough to borrow from my daughter and cuddle with. Don't judge me! You read a blog about geek culture, toys, and
wrestling, ya freak!
Ahem. Anyway....
The
Vamplets are tagged with wash/care instructions and a tag with their names,
plus each has their own creatively decorated Gothic diaper and a bio to tell
you all about the crazy little quirks of your adopted creature of the night. The stitch work is flawless and the detail is
a mixture of adorable and downright creepy; sad and adorable baby eyes with
dark circles around them that give them the sunk-in look of the dead. Teeny tufts of hair that are oh-so cute held
together by hair bows made out of bats or small hair bonnets shaped like
spiders. The second Vamplet run added
not only two more vampire baby variants, but they decided that on top of this revenant
based cuteness they needed more monstrous creatures. The second run added wereroaches, Cyclops,
zombie vampire kittens, rabid rabbits, and even a werewolf. This run truly steps it up a notch. The new creatures are covered in fur that
make the baby alien from Chicken Little
look like a bald newborn. They began
experimenting with color pallets unheard of in the realm of the creepy, adding
something the Gothic world had never seen before; items that they wanted for
their Gothic pad that had pinks, tans, even teals. And if you are wondering if this change in
the norm worked, this second Vamplet wave stays sold out on the web site as
well. Both of these lines you have to catch
at Conventions or whenever they get a fresh stock in on any online retailers
that sell them. That is how quickly they
fly off of the shelves.
You
can look at the two newest lines and tell just how much the detail has
increased from run to run. Mummies,
Vampire Bat babies, you name it. They
manage to balance out the cute and the scary, the colorful and the Gothic, and
make both the children and the adults want every item in their line. They became so popular that Whoopie Goldberg
even reviewed them live on The View,
and they expanded their sales into cell phone cases, graphic novels, bracelets,
and even temporary tattoos. The web site
also has a SAVE THE BAT! link, which directs to an area selling wristbands to
raise charity money for bat sanctuaries. The website is interactive, giving you the chance to experience the nursery in which the babies live digitally, pull up their bios, even go the town hall to print up the official adoption certificate. There is also a blog for site updates and the online store itself, as well as their social media links.
My
teen once saved four hundred dollars’ worth of allowance during the year for
DragonCon spending money to use as she pleased.
Over two-fifty of that she spent at the Vamplets booth and she still
stops by every year to check out their new stuff and to see about grabbing
anything she missed. Whether you are
straight laced or Gothic, nerd or normal, freak or a geek, the beauty and
detail and fright of these undead cuties will make you spend every bit of cash
you have. Vamplets are the new snuggle
buddies of the century.
 |
| Rogue and Jessica of famed Dark-Wave band The Cruxshadows, treating their angel to some Vamplets. |
Find
more from their website (I will link ya at the end of this piece,) as well as
looking on ThinkGeek, Ebay, and Amazon.
Much like the supernatural in general…they're everywhere.
Christina Sizemore is trained in only four
things: writing, fighting, paranormal
investigating, and being a mom. At this
point in her life she truly feels that she is not qualified to attempt to learn
any new field. A twenty year martial
artist, mother of three, and writer who is working on the publication of her
first book titled “Finding Your Way: A Guide To Your Path In The Martial Arts,”
she spends her days working out, writing, making fanvids, going to DragonCon,
and playing board games/video games/out in the yard with her kids and husband
who are just as geeky as she is. She is
convinced that one day her skills will be of assistance in the Zombie
Apocalypse and that while she is of no use in the kitchen, she can Buffy that
zombie for ya or teach you the best way to get the blood stains out of your
clothes (Psst…the secret is mixing Crown Cleaner and Shout. Just sayin’.)
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