icollectangels

imagine you’re scrolling through tiktok and instagram in 2021. you discover the blind box unboxing reels, and you’re astounded at this new trend. you think to yourself, “people are paying money to get a random toy?”…

better yet, people are hooked specifically on these naked angel baby dolls?

you keep watching as your algorithm feeds you more. it takes about a year, but, finally, you decide to buy one of these blind box toys yourself.

this is the story of how my collecting hobby (or addiction) started.

in December of 2022, i finally decided i would join in on this blind box trend. i legit flew across the nation to California for my first sonny angel blind box.(in all honesty, i flew there for other reasons but that was the first thing i planned to do once i got out there, but, it sounds way cooler to say you flew across the nation for a toy—mind you, a random toy.)

i went to the Giant Robot Store in Los Angeles to find a plethora of sonny angel blind boxes. i remember buying one for myself, and two as gifts. i got myself the animal version 2, my best friend the flower series, and a Christmas ornament one for my mom. i ended up pulling duck as my first sonny angel—which is probably my favorite from that animal series version 2. score!

it wasn’t until April of 2024 that i started to collect seriously. and by seriously i mean, i wasn’t just buying them randomly here and there anymore. i had intentional goals with how i wanted my collection to look.

on April 20th, 2024 i went to my first sonny angel meet-up at the UCF campus. it was so fun. i secured brian from the donna wilson creature series there for $80, and, get this, he was my most expensive sonny angel, at the time.

i spent nearly all of summer 2024 building my dream collection. i would create iso lists that look like my future display and had all the angels i wanted on it. i had invested a lot of time and money and effort into crafting it just how i had envisioned it. it became my #1 hobby.

i even made my instagram account— icollectangels— in 2024. after going to the event in April, i wanted to become part of the community. i wanted to buy, sell, and trade more. i wanted to become a verified seller/trader in the Sonny Angel Community discord (which only happens if you have 5 proofs of successful transactions within the server). so, i started interacting with people, posting content on my social media, and buy/sell/trading often.

before i knew it, thousands of people enjoyed my content. i started getting consistent on youtube. i got my first partnership (unpaid, but it’s a start!). it’s just crazy to me how making those seemingly small or easily achievable goals back then, lead me to having bigger or seemingly impossible goals—like making this website and writing up this story about how i started collecting.

that’s why i love collecting.

i don’t know fully where this obsession is taking me in the end, but i’m just going to keep doing what i do because i love it and it makes me happy. now, this is my journey… and it’s one filled with whimsy, awe, and opportunity!

— alyssa ♡