UA-100768763-1 Jump to content

Birthday Elephant 2014: The Elephantaning


Recommended Posts

You demanded it, so it's back! The annual MMMV Birthday Elephant gift exchange is officially a thing. 2013 was a success, with more members participating, and seriously raising the bar on amazingly generous gifts! Once again, I'd like to give a heartfelt thanks to all of last year's participants. I will be posting positive feedback for all of the board members who took part in the 2013 exchange.

On with The Rules:

Participants in the MMMV Birthday Elephant gift exchange will be assigned a "birthday elephant," another board member who remembers your birthday and sends you something special.

1) The most important rule: Elephants. Do. Not. Forget. This will be a little trickier than Secret Santa, as you may not be in gift-buying mode when your recipient's birthday rolls around. Nonetheless, you will be expected to remember his or her birthday and send your gift within an appropriate mailing timeframe (2-3 weeks for US members, 3-4 weeks for international members). I'll send you a reminder email one month before your recipient's birthday, but if you're planning a time-intensive gift like a custom, you'll need to schedule your time accordingly.

2) There is no minimum trading feedback needed to participate. However, if you have been on the board for less than six months you need to contact me prior to signing up so you can be approved.

3) There will be two groups you can participate in: those who only want to ship within the United States and those who are willing to ship outside of the United States. See below for specific shipping dates.

Signing Up

If you want to sign up, please email minimatebirthdays@yahoo.com with the following info (with Birthday Elephant Info and your MMMV board name as the subject). For ease of recordkeeping, please don't send your information via PM.

Minimate Multiverse board name

Your birthday

E-mail address

Name and address for packages to be shipped to

Special shipping instructions (if any):

Are you willing to be a backup Elephant?

Do you want to only ship within the United States or are you willing to ship internationally.

Anyone you DON'T want to be assigned to for whatever reason.

Items you're interested in receiving or absolutely do not want.This should be a general list of reasonable items. Because this will be going on all year, new items may crop up on your wish list; if you'd like to send an updated list, please do so at least one month before your actual birthday.

Any additional info your Birthday Elephant should know.

This info must be submitted no later than Friday, January 10, to participate. Once I have everyone's information, Ill send out emails to each participant by Wednesday January 15th. Youll be responsible for the name you receive (no trading allowed). People will be paired up randomly from within the pools of "US shipping" and "International shipping" participants.

Sending and Receiving Your Gift

As mentioned above, you'll need to remember when your recipient's birthday is and send his or her gift with an appropriate amount of shipping time:

International packages should be sent with a three- to four-week lead time (e.g.: if your recipient's birthday is Monday May 12, you should send no later than Monday, April 21).

US packages should be sent be sent with a two- to three-week lead time (e.g.: if your recipient's birthday is Monday May 12, you should send no later than Monday, April 28).

The sooner you can send the better; nobody hates getting an early birthday present, but a late one is kind of lame.

In order to give people with January birthdays a fair shot, the official gifting period will run from February 16, 2014 through February 16, 2015. So, if you want to participate, but your birthday is, say, tomorrow, don't worry, you'll still get a gift (it'll just be a bit of a wait...)

When you receive your gift, please post in this thread with pictures, guesses of who sent it, and thanks to your Elephant. By posting here, itll be easier to keep track of who has received their packages. And for those who cant guess their Elephant correctly, Ill reveal all in one year, in February 2015.

The minimum amount to spend is $10 (US).

There is a minimum, but no maximum. If you want to shower someone with gifts, thats awesome, but just make sure youre prepared to possibly receive a gift from someone who can only afford $10. And however much you spend, please be considerate and not send anything that could be deemed offensive.

Worst case scenario

If you can't send your recipient a gift, please, please, please contact me as soon as possible.

By signing up, you are expected to send something. If you feel you can't live up to your end of the bargain, please don't sign up. This event is running over the course of a year, and I know circumstances can change a lot in that time; if something happens after you've signed up and you are unable to fulfill your duties as a Birthday Elephant, please contact me as soon as you know that you won't be able to send a gift so that an alternate Elephant can make sure your recipient gets a gift.

Again: please, please, please contact me as soon as you can if something goes off the rails and you can't send a gift. I plan to make sure every participant gets a gift one way or another so please try to be respectful of everyone else. For anyone that is unable to (or chooses not to) send something and doesn't work it out beforehand, you'll be banned from future Birthday Elephants and you'll receive appropriate feedback in the Feedback Forum.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or PM me if you need to. Thanks in advance to everyone interested in bringing birthday surprises to their fellow 'Versers and making this the coolest forum on the internets!

Edited by Lobsterman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 123
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

All of the elephant assignments have been sent. If you sent me an email to participate and did not receive an assignment, please let me know as soon as possible. Also, remember to post your birthday gifts in this thread when you receive them.

Thanks again to everyone participating! Happy Elephantaning!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Bam! My Birthday Elephant strikes first! Which is good because my birthday is this week.

post-66-0-11888500-1392838245_thumb.jpg

I got a package from my Birthday Elephant last Friday, containing all sorts of birthday goodies. Lots of peanut butter candy goodness - M&Ms, Reeces Pieces and Reeces Hearts - and lots of Minimate goodness, including a Through the Ages Hulk set, an extra scorpion and a Sun Queen. But my favorite part was a repainted Battle Beast snake in cool icy blue. This snow serpent was nicely redone - love the color choices and the dry brushing. No one ever makes the customizer a custom, so I appreciate the snake greatly.

post-66-0-76948500-1392838250_thumb.jpg

As for who my Birthday Elephant is, I say it's Fatcow, because I recognized the snake from his customs thread. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My birthday elephant package just arrived, and I had to open it right away. First up was a $15 gift certificate to Amazon, which is much appreciated. Then he made me an awesome set of zombies of me and my wife, along with a cyborg zombie pet called Z.O.M.B.I.E., and a delorean for us all to travel in. My wife loved it, and these will have a permanent place on our order-packing desk. My kids also got a very big kick out of it, and immediately put me and Heidi into the delorean, while Z.O.M.B.I.E. had to sit on Mr. Fusion.

And lastly, my elephant got me a bourbon/whiskey sampler pack, which was an incredible surprise. I was wondering why the box was so heavy when it arrived! I really like this selection - there are some of my favorites, and quite a few that I have never tried before. I love how the tiny Maker's Mark bottle gets a tiny wax seal. I have a friend coming over tomorrow who is also a bourbon fan, and we are going to start sampling these then. I might end up with a new favorite!

Thank you VERY much pk13 - this present is amazing!

100_5969_zps3aabdd50.jpg

100_5973_zpsc296b948.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad you liked them, Happy Birthday Luke! You were originally going to get much larger bottles, but due to what I came to call "the slosh factor", I couldn't keep everything quiet enough to be able to get through the mail. I was watching the tracking on the package and it was held up for an extra day and I kept thinking that a bottle had busted or something. Glad to see it made it through.

MiniFiend UK: It really depends on how you prefer your whiskey. If you're more of a mixed drink fan, then regular black label Jack is tough to beat. But that's just me... I do love a Jack & Coke. If you take your drink neat or on the rocks, the Single Barrel is a good choice. Since it's a TN whiskey, it's already pretty smooth. But the Single Barrel has a little more flavor to it and is a little more smooth than even the Black Label. Good stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bam! My Birthday Elephant strikes first! Which is good because my birthday is this week.

attachicon.gifbirthday_2014_01.jpg

I got a package from my Birthday Elephant last Friday, containing all sorts of birthday goodies. Lots of peanut butter candy goodness - M&Ms, Reeces Pieces and Reeces Hearts - and lots of Minimate goodness, including a Through the Ages Hulk set, an extra scorpion and a Sun Queen. But my favorite part was a repainted Battle Beast snake in cool icy blue. This snow serpent was nicely redone - love the color choices and the dry brushing. No one ever makes the customizer a custom, so I appreciate the snake greatly.

attachicon.gifbirthday_2014_02.jpg

As for who my Birthday Elephant is, I say it's Fatcow, because I recognized the snake from his customs thread. Thanks!

I tried. :) Glad you didn't hate it. I wasn't sure if the Reeces Hearts would take our indirect internet communication to an uncomfortably close level...but here's to hoping. ( my wife thought it would be hilarious...but from the sounds of it you just ate them without regard for what form the pb and chocolate took ) Hope you enjoyed your birthday and the Hulks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WOW-O-Woweeee! I got a nice big box in the mail yesterday from my birthday Elephant.

Upon opening it I was overwhelmed by the amount of awesomeness it contained

heres the rundown:

a superman hat

a Marvel comics t-shirt

a pack of Aves fixit putty and solvent

a pack of Luke's decal paper

the TRU Expendables 4 pack featuring Chuck-fricken Norris

a deck of Marvel playing cards

two Ironman 2 drones

an Extremis soldier from Ironman 3

a pile of custom fodder pieces Individually bagged into groups of Arms,Hands, Torsos, Hips, Legs, Feet, Heads, Hair/Masks,Flight stands, circular stands,Belts, and Torso covers/capes etc..

some fodder mates -Mandarin, Nimrod, White Tiger, Sabretooth, Iron Patriot, and three 2.5 Bodies

all that is extremely cool and a most impressive collection of loot but the last item is just over the top

I received the most beautiful piece of original artwork, Based on a custom I did some time back, of a Black and White Image of Batman, I love it sooooooooooo Much I will be framing it and Hanging it in My room.

Not much for clues other than the return address and the aforementioned art but I deduced my Birthday Elephant to Be Donny B, to whom I must give a really big THANK YOU SIR! the time you must have spent collecting the items as well as creating the art and the sheer amount of items is Amazing, I am truly lucky, thanks. -Matt

DSCN8934_zps703dfd3c.jpg

DSCN8940_zps87cf1bc3.jpg

batBnW5_zpsf4897d66.jpg

Edited by Mattallica
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, wow it looks like a lot more in your photo than what I thought it was as I was packing the box! I'm glad you like everything, and I hope you can find great uses for all of it. Also, great job guessing! I didn't give any clues, and I didn't sign the drawing, just to make the guessing a bit more difficult (but I figured the return address and the drawing were enough by themselves - and indeed they were) wink.png

Happy Birthday!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...