K. A. Cook's Author Blog

[image description: multiple squishies and a few other stim toys housed in a white plastic weave basket sitting on a blue, white and black tree-silhouette-on-night-sky quilt cover. The squishies include: a large red and green watermelon slice; an orange carrot; a red apple; a small yellow and orange peach; a light pink strawberry; a white tofu square; a yellow, green, pink, blue and white alicorn; a smaller red and green watermelon slice; a red apple inside plastic bag; two white tofu squares, also inside plastic bags; and a large white, pink and green peach. Non-squishy toys include a blue and clear cactus shaped gel pack; a rainbow plastic slinky; a white fabric star made from white and silver mermaid sequin fabric; and a clear plastic ball filled with glitter, the word “smiggle” printed on the top in white text.]

Stim Toy Storage - Open Basket

This has become known as the Basket of Squish, and for good reason!

I find storing squishies in an open basket is good for two reasons. One, this sits on my bookshelf, meaning that the squishies are easily grabbed when I want one without squishies ending up all over the house. (Since I tend to get panicky when things don’t have their proper spot, a basket solves the problem.) Two, it lets the scents fade. Not all squishies come with scents that fade over time–I’ve had to give several away because the scents haven’t faded enough to be tolerable–but an open basket helps expedite the process for those that do.

I don’t recommend this storage style for mochi squishies, because it is difficult to remove the dust (and they attract dust like a computer monitor, honestly). For foam squishies, especially those that aren’t tacky, a duster or even a new, dry toothbrush works just fine.

The white plastic means that there’s no colour to stain the squishies inside. I have had a few squishies stain (the metal chain attachments tend to stain the squishies that press up against the metal) so choosing a colour with no dye avoids this. I’d avoid dark-dyed wicker or anything else that might leech the colour of the basket into the squishy.

I love books, as a reader, writer and book-hoarder extraordinaire, but this privileging of book as the superior format is wrong and damaging, and like you, I don’t see the need to force reading books on people just for the sake of reading books.

You’re not better than the rest of us if you read more books or more “literary” books. You’ve just read more books, and if you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point?

Whichever way you absorb information best is the right way for you.

[image description: three craft items sitting on a round red and green watermelon slice pillow: a cardboard spool of rainbow rattail cord, wrapped in plastic; a clear plastic bag with a yellow swing tag reading “value craft jewellery findings“ containing bright silver lobster clasps; and a clear plastic bag with a white swing tag reading “craft glass jars” containing eight small glass jars with white plastic hole-punched stoppers. Yellow price tags on all three items read “Arthur Daley’s Clearance Craft $2.00”.]

Craft Items - Arthur Daley’s Warehouse, $2 AUD each.

This one’s very much an FYI for my local Melbourne-and-close-to-Melbourne Victorian stimmers! If you’re into the DIY side of stim toys, I recommend checking out the craft section of Arthur Daley’s on Swanston Street in the CBD.

They stock bottles for scented vial necklaces, glues, glitter, jewellery findings, split rings, necklace cords, beads, pom poms and rattail cord. Most things are $2 or $2.50 AUD; it’d be easy to get the makings for scented vial necklaces, bead ring necklaces or roller bead lanyards here. I’ve never seen the thinner rattail cord available this cheap before, and the thinner stuff is a lot easier to work with for bead lanyards and Kandi pieces.

I also saw jars (glitter jars) and chenille dust mitts, and for folks less into DIY, they stocked the usual assortment of stress balls and spinners.

Here’s our DIY master posts if folks are after ideas for things to make:

DIY Stim Toys Part One

DIY Stim Toys Part Two

@horribleprotagonist: I am so sorry for being slow on this–I’ve been away from Tumblr for much of a week or so and I don’t seem to be getting all of my notifications. I didn’t know I had anything in my inbox for a few different blogs until this evening when someone else sent me an ask on another blog!

I can tell you, unfortunately, that it’s pretty common. I’ve been having it with both Zuru and Tangle Creations Tangle Jrs, although it seems to happen more often on the Zurus (and my worst-creaking TC Tangle Jr is really well-used and has been subjected to experimental boil treatments, so a lot of that is my fault).

I find that Tangles that have been pulled apart (especially the custom Tangles where you pull apart a few to make solid-coloured or custom design Tangles) tend to be more prone to this than unmodified ones. (I have a blue solid FrankenTangle that is just unusable for this reason, even though I’ve lubricated it–practically soaking it in petroleum jelly–a few times.) This said, I have some custom Tangles that are perfect, and I have a few unmodified ones that become just so creaky oh my god.

My success in fixing this is partial at best, I’m sorry to say. Some of my Tangles have been fixed via lubricating the pegs, although there’s others where it’s only decreased the sound a little. My current-favourite way of doing this is by using petroleum jelly (brand name version by Vaseline, but should be available in no-brand versions at most chemists and supermarkets). I dip the peg into the jelly so it’s lightly smeared and click it back into place before repeating eighteen times*. Coconut oil may also work, but it’s often more expensive (least here in Australia it is). A less hand-intensive approach (that doesn’t pull the Tangle apart) is using a spray lubricant–a silicone-based sealant is best–and spraying at the joints of the Tangle before wiping clean with a damp cloth.

(I’ve always used Selleys RP7 spray, the kind that comes with a straw nozzle, with no problems a year later, but I’ve no idea if that’s available in the US.)

This usually results in loosening the Tangle, which sometimes helps with the creaking if it’s occurring because of stiffness, and I find it worth trying even on looser creaking Tangles* (please see below proviso, however). Aside from the risk of pulling a Tangle apart if that’s your lubrication method, it doesn’t usually harm the Tangle, even if it doesn’t work.

It may be worth checking to see how much dust, dead skin sells and other gunk has caught up around the Tangle pegs: if you use a Tangle a lot, and it spends time on open benches or in pockets, dust will gather in the sockets and around the pegs. (It’s a kind of sticky, clingy, fine greyish lint-dust–pretty gross, to be honest.) A damp cotton bud/Q-tip will wipe this off pretty easily, including inside the socket, and I’d make sure the Tangle is clean before lubricating. I don’t think it too much a factor in noise-reduction, but it’s worth removing before lubricating to cut down on the lubricant worsening the dust clumps if it’s very bad.

However, if lubrication doesn’t work and the Tangle still creaks? That I haven’t yet found a fix for. Boiling–which hasn’t worked that well for me–is said to make the creaking louder, and I agree based on the Tangle I have boiled, so I don’t think I’d try it here.

This is not much more than a fleeting observation as yet, as it only occurred to me the other day, but I have noticed that the Tangles I shove into a pocket or leave at the bottom of my bag also seem to be more likely to be creaky; the Tangles kept in a basket on my desk or inside a pouch tend to be quieter. This may be coincidence as opposed to correlation at this point, and I have Zuru Tangles that were brand new and creaky, but at this point I’d loosely recommend not shoving a new Tangle into the bottom of a backpack where it can get bounced around, just in case. I’ll do some experimenting on this point with a couple of new Tangles to see where this leads me.

In all honesty, it may be easier to get a new Tangle than it is to lubricate an old one, if you have reasonably easy access to them.

I’m sorry for the lack of a good answer, but I’m yet to find one myself. The best response I can give is a reassurance that you’re not alone here–this is really common issue, and unfortunately for those of us who grow attached to specific Tangles, solving it isn’t easy.