The U.S.S. Flagg,Defiant Space Shuttle,Tacticle Battle Platform and the Terror Drome all had one thing in common-I never had any of them! I had lots of figures and a few vehicles here and there but no playsets. No worries, though. My OCD coupled with an imagination that would make most kids my age question my normalcy, would never allow for any of my Joes to go HQ-less. That’s when my brain would kick into overdrive. It was commonplace to walk into my room and see quilts folded and fluffed into makeshift caves. Or mom’s wicker spice rack, which served as a lookout post for Cobra! But my all time favorite, miscellaneous “found-around-the-house” item was the oh- so versatile packaging Styrofoam ! I realize that today many action figure backdrops and dioramas are made of similar Styrofoam materials,to a degree of realism where it’s hard to tell if your looking at an actual brick wall, or an elaborate creation made out of insulation foam boards. I’ve dabbled in that myself. The only problem with those is that once they are sculpted and painted,that is all they can ever be . As an adult collector who relies on backdrops for picture purposes, these dios really come in handy,but as a kid , a couple of oddly shaped packaging Styrofoam/cardboard inserts served as blank canvases and could be anything I wanted them to be. Standing upright or laying on their side, those Styrofoam blocks could morph into everything from an elevator shaft to a computer terminal!I recently unpackaged a brand new mini cup cake maker to do some baking with my daughter, when I stumbled across these Styrofoam blocks inside the box. You never know where you’ll draw your next little bit of inspiration from and in this case, a night of baking with my baby girl resulted in the following set of pics! Enjoy 🙂
AF&T 