With KAREN at the first MICHIGAN PEZ Convention...

It would be strange not to be nervous,

some days before the first Michigan PEZ Convention have started,

JIM BLAINE (the Host) told us he is super nervous,

but hej JIM,
WHY? :)

you have found a super perfect location for your first convention,

you made AMAZING Convention dispenser,

fun and loving games, and you brought a great PEZ family together, 

and for sure PEZ PEZ and lot of PEZ. :)

Jim and Jody Blaine the Host's from the first Michigan PEZ Convention

After watching all the great videos and pictures we see all your hard work over the past few months was worth, its such nice to see so many PEZPALS with a big smile on their face.
We are so overwhelmed that Karen Lynn P. said yes to write us her emotions from the first MI PEZ Convention

Thank you Karen <3 

We are always looking for a convention/gathering guest reporter for our blog, if you would love to share your story to PEZPALS all over the world, then please contact us per email at pezpalz.gmail.com.

here we go with Karen's story 

Ronnie and I left our house on Wednesday, Aug 24th to drive to our Daughter’s home in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I was able to visit with my daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law that afternoon and evening.

Day 1 – Thursday.

My family drove me to Mary and Chris Wiley’s house and I was able to see their wonderful PEZ room – always FUN to see how everyone displays their PEZ and ohh and aww over everyone’s PEZ goodies. Then it was time to say goodbye to hubby and family and leave with Mary and Chris for the 1^st ever Michigan convention! Took us about 45 minutes to get to the hotel. The first person we saw just as we pulled up to the hotel was Kelly Jo Mitchell! – my roomie for the week-end. Our room was ready so we were able to check in and the hotel staff was very welcoming and ready for all of us PEZHeads with welcoming banners and the agendas on all the tvs! Kelly Jo and I started getting our room ready– she made an awesome banner and really cute hearts to hang on our door too!

The hotel is “round” and all of the PEZ rooms were on the 2^nd floor and the registration room was set to open at 4 p.m. – so we were ready when it opened!

These friendly people were ready for us: Jim’s Dad Jim, Sr., our wonderful host Jim Blaine, and Jim’s Mom Patty. You could not ask for nicer people to make you feel so welcome!! Frank Mountford was also around to help answer any questions and he was voted and won “Grand Marshall”at the Saturday night festivities! These goodies were also available to purchase along with all of our wonderful convention swag!

Kelly Jo and I made our purchases and listened as they explained to us about the agenda and told us about “decorating our buckets” (there would be a contest!). We purchased our $2 box game –hoping it was a winner! Then we signed the banners (to be auctioned off for charity) and started greeting everyone who was coming into register!!!! That evening was room hopping, every night from 5:30-7:30 the hotel offered 3 free drinks (PEZzie drinks too) (which by the way is also on the 2^nd floor … ever so convenient for all of us!) – so we enjoyed that, did the wheel spin for raffle tickets, the on-going bead challenge game, ordered dinner, and listened to some live music (all on the 2^nd floor!) and just had a casual mix and mingle evening!

Day 2 – Friday:

Time to begin our day with a free breakfast buffet that includes chef prepared omelettes !! This breakfast buffet was by far one of the best I have ever seen! The staff at this hotel is amazing! More PEZ friends arriving, registration room has now moved to the ballroom today and room hopping is happening all day. Today there is a kid’s pool party. But pretty much the kids and adults can enjoy the pool every day! 1-3 p.m. is a chalk contest outside by the pool and then at 3 p.m. is the souvenir button making contest! More room hopping and visiting ever arriving PEZ friends! 5:30 finds us at the Pez Swap held at the complimentary evening reception (always on the 2^ndfloor – so always just us PEZHeads!) More Beads! We all played another game to win raffle tickets (Jody Blaine and her Brother with the game). Jim’s Dad also took a big group photo!
 

8 p.m. and it was time to head down to the ballroom for the PEZ Bean Bag Tournament!!!! Took quite a while but the winning team was Randy Puderbaugh and Mark Kolbusz (Mark won a BLUE puck for being the first of the four to get one in the hole and then the team won GOLD pucks and bragging rights!) The 2^nd Place Team was Tim Dunn and Jean Tardiff Dougherty and they won SILVER pucks! While everyone was taking their turns tossing bags we could also play Plinko to win more raffle tickets. We could also take FUN photos (also for a contest) and we were going to be able to open our $2 boxes that night too (Becky Mathers had the winning box – but she had gone home to Canada that night and did not find out until the next day that she had won one of the BLUE Pucks)! Silent auctions were also set up to bid on and there were some awesome items to bid on!!

Day 3 – Saturday:

Woke up Early because Kelly Jo had a table in the ballroom so she had to be there early – but I got to go back to sleep.
I was still pretty excited to see how everything would look all set up. I went down for the amazing breakfast and enjoyed the company of Thomas & Ruth Ream and Sue & Frank Mountford and then headed to the show at 9:30. It was amazing – the ballroom was packed with dealers and looked amazing. So much FUN to see wall to wall PEZ. And, what was going to be even more FUN was that my daughter and son-in-law were going to come because they wanted to see just what a PEZ convention exactly was!!! Of course my hubby and my granddaughter know what a convention is but they came along too and it was nice to introduce all of them around!

Next up was the group dinner (still on the 2^ndfloor) with a special raffle – we were all given a ticket with 3 lucky chances to win a maha, a sheik or a Captain Hook (all donated by Chris Jordan!) More beads! Then it was a big surprise for Heather Johnson! A special 40^th birthday celebration, gifts and a special dispenser, followed by an egg baby cake (downstairs in the ballroom)!!

Then it was back downstairs for the Live Charity Auction, the raffles and the awards! This is where we were able to use all the raffle tickets that we received from playing all the games! Woo Hoo. There were a lot of lucky winners (some multiple ones)… and I was lucky enough to win a raffle too for some special candy packs. Contest winners were announced for Best Decorated Bucket: ME Woo Hoo! Button Contest: Kelly Jo Woo Hoo! Photo Contest: Winner was Eric Petro – but then had to be a tie when another certain photo was spotted of Chris Jordan and Ruth Ream! Chalk Contest: Tied: Xavier Camden and Lacey Ash and the Bead Contest (you had to have the most beads – they were randomly thrown out) – Thomas “the wallet” Johnson won! The charity auction – had some amazing items and raised an astonishing amount of money that Jim will announce. It was an amazing convention! The charity “Lake Louise” was there the day of the convention and the night of the auction also! And Doc Sweets Candy was a sponsor and supplied the lariats and had their van in attendance too!

Day 4 Sunday:

Morning arrived very early – I don’t think Kelly Jo and I went to sleep until about 3 a.m.! Too much to chat about – everything we bought and saw and how much FUN we had! Jim and his “staff” did an amazing job and I know that I can’t wait for everything they plan for next year.
Then it was downstairs for one last amazing breakfast, Kelly Jo and I enjoyed the company of Frank & Sue Mountford while we waited for Ronnie to come to pick me up for the long ride back home to Indiana. Goodbye PEZ Friends – until we meet again next year in Michigan (I will certainly plan on going again and I would ask anyone “why aren’t you?”) … or some of you I might see at PEZ on the River !!!

p.s. I even got Hugs from the Hotel staff as I was leaving!

Karen's super great PEZ goodies <3

THANK YOU KAREN FOR YOUR AMAZING REPORT AND THE PICTURES<3

for more info please visit mipezcon.com

getting Ready... for year 2!

Pez Pictorial Checklist, 3rd quarter 2016

When we have started to work on our
second PEZ pictorial checklist for 2016,
we were wondering how many NEW PEZ dispensers we got till now this year,
and BAM

 that are a lot more that we have thought :)

what would you guess???
more on that later :)

We are sure, there are two groups of PEZ Collectors out there,
the one who are not up to date with all releases,
and the other group who is super lucky to have
all the new dispenser's and boxes.

However hopefully you like our new checklist
January till August 2016
maybe the list can help you to find the missing PEZ dispenser's and gift sets :)



Thanks to MOMO for all your AMAZING work you are doing for all of us <3
MOMOPEZ.COM

here you can find our checklist from
2014 & 2015

...and now some facts that we have mentioned in the beginning
 of our post.

from January till the end of August we got

62 NEW PEZ DISPENSERS!!!

YES 62 official made by PEZ,

you think this year US and Euro Collector's have mostly

the same releases? 

Well, from all 62 dispenser's

ONLY 11 dispensers

where released in the USA and Europe as same. 

(with the new coming Trolls they will be 14 dispenser's by the end of the year)

28 dispenser's are coming from PEZ International

(include Barky's and Ben Pakulsky)

and

23 new dispenser's have come from PEZ Candy USA
(including TMNT Connectible's, Iron Man with light up eyes and Capt. America spinning shield ) 

and YES :)

that's still not at all

14 different crystal "lovey's" that we saw until now

(Sweden lovey will come in September, German lovey in 2017)

plus the

3 crystal Emoji's Convention dispenser's from the US

(Pezcific, NE, and PEZamania) and not to forget

the EXPO dispenser at the end.

So in total

80 PEZ dispenser's

 officially made by PEZ!

would you guess that??? :)

But now you know, that's still not at all :D
they year is not over and more great new releases will come to us
 *lol*

We will update the checklist, and the facts in December, so stay tuned...

Limited 2016 PEZ Sweets and Snacks EXPO, PEZCIFIC, NE & PEZMANIA dispenser's

Limited 2016 "LOVEY'S"

New PEZ Halloween Witch...

Some of our US PEZ friends were lucky enought to find the new

2016 Halloween Witch

all of our European PEZ Collectors still need to wait till

they are official out in the shops, but for all of those who can't wait,

we can report that PEZ International have them NOW to order in their Online Shop, which can be found
 here
 

We are wondering why the cool and great looking

Halloween Bucket was not added to the Online Shop too?

 

So please PEZ International add them to the Shop,

we want to order, and to have them in our Collections :)

Pictures PEZ International ©PEZ AG

"Witch" "Vampire" "Pumpkin" "Ghost" the 2016 PEZ Halloween assortment

 

YES WE LOVE SPOOKY SPIDERS :)

 

Wild week of PEZ bidding for the official UK dispenser

UH.. WOW!!! 

4 more days to go on our dear friend Kelle's auction for her official Pez from her UK gathering. Only 100 were made by Pez International. We will definitely be keeping a close eye on it to see if it breaks the all time record high which was set by our friend Luis with his official Portugal Pez Ball ($565.55).

Whatever the outcome of the auction 

we will be sure to pass the news on to you!

you can check out the ebay listing 

HERE

www.ebay.uk

item # 272348618441

Pez on "The Profit"

On the season 4 premier of “The Profit” Our beloved Pez survived Marcus Lemonis and will remain in Farrell’s Ice cream Parlors for sale. Only 4 Farrell’s remain in California, Marcus was contacted to help save the company from going completely out of business.

The Profit is a reality television show in the USA about Marcus Lemonis a billionaire that rescues failing businesses.  

 

photos: google images, the profit CNBC

The first UK PEZ Gathering in a special colorful pictorial...

Kelle, Daryl, and their friends and families have all 

worked so hard over the past few month's to make the

First UK PEZ Gathering

happen.

We are so happy to present to you this wonderful 
pictorial of the very special day, 
the First UK gathering was held in Norwich on Saturday.
Kelle has been working and planning the event for over a year now, so much time and effort have gone into creating a special experience for each of her guests and seeing all the photos with all of the smiles, we know for sure that it was for sure a wonderful time for all!!

Here are the best PEZ moments of the gathering,

colorful in a PEZPALZ PICTORIAL

hope you like it <3

.

Big Thank You to Kelle, Daryl & Lee; Momo, Weronika, Michael & Esa

for all of the wonderful pictures :D

The first UK gathering dispenser is NOW ON
EBAY

Official Gathering Dispenser for the UK 2016

OFFICIAL UK PEZ GATHERING DISPENSER....

It's been months since we heard for the first time about

the first UK PEZ GATHERING,

we have been waiting so long :) 

and Kelle has kept the secret till the end,

 the day has finally arrived to unveil

the official first UK PEZ gathering dispenser.

here it is <3



Thanks to MOMO for the great picture :)

 

 

a crystal "lovey" with SILVER stem, and a wonderful black uk flag and 2016 print on it.

100 pcs. where made by PEZ International.

 

New PEZ LIP BALM arrived to the shops...

Keep your lips tasting as sweet as your favourite PEZ Candy...

 

Today I was lucky to find the new

PEZ LIP BALM,

as we reported in June,

 the packaging is so nice and colorful it’s simply stunning!!

 

available as a 8 piece party pack of deliciously

fun flavored PEZ lip balms in

Strawberry Vanilla

Cola

Raspberry Lemon

Peppermint

Grape

Orange

Strawberry

& Cherry

now in Europe @ CLAIRE'S

 

 

or as a single pack with

 

Strawberry Vanilla 
&
Raspberry Lemon

 

Check your local Claire`s store, and get this new great PEZ licensed item

seven PEZ Portugal "Lovey" 2016 Gathering dispenser now on Ebay...

we need to report about this,
because this is a great chance to bid on one of the (150pcs.) limited & rare

PEZ PORTUGAL 2016 gathering dispensers

now on EBAY
 

7 auctions are running for the next days,

the only thing is that the blister on all 7 cards are not the best,
but still a perfect way for those who collect just the dispenser loose.

 (dispenser is in perfect condition)

good luck to everyone

Pictures from Ebay

 

 

With THE LANDON at the Dairyville PEZ Gathering...

As we love PEZ gatherings and conventions,

we are happy to share with you another wonderful review, this time from

the Dairyville PEZ Gathering, written by PEZ PAL

THE LANDON

 

enjoy it :)

 

 

 

Pez Gatherings and Conventions are usually more about the people who collect dispensers than they are about the Pez.

Yes of course there is Pez buying new and selling and trading and chatter and news all about Pez but seeing old friends, meeting new ones and seeing someone who you talked to for years for the first time face to face is what gatherings are all about.

The Dairyville Pez Gathering hosted by the amazing Tina Gunsauls embodies everything I love about collecting. Here is my adventure!

My adventure starts at Wednesday afternoon in sunny Orlando, FL with a 6 hour flight to Ontario, CA (just outside Los Angeles). There I meet up with one of my favorite people in the world, Jessica Orozco.

Lots of hugs and no sleep later, it is Thursday and we are on the road.

I love an epic road trip and when you are with Jessica and her momma, Barbara, you know you it's going to be a blast.

We made it 4 or 5 hours into our road trip when a message from Brent Johnson sent us on a spontaneous side quest. We immediately changed course and headed to his house. As you expect, Brent had a warm welcome ready for us and showed us some of his toy collection, some fantastic poster art and of course his Pez collection.

Brend, Barbara, Jessica, & Landon

The town he lives in, Discovery Bay, is a hidden paradise in the middle of an otherwise desolate and dry part of California. 

He is surrounded by water and beautiful homes on the water.

A trip to the marina proved how beautiful his town is.

 

Moments later we were back on the road to Dairyville. We all got checked in to the hotel and lingered for a few minutes and then we were off to Tina's house!

When we arrived, we were greeted by Tina and learned that Pezamania stars, the Glihas and the Marlowes were already there as well as west coast favorites, the Alexanders. Moments later, I got to meet a Pez pal face to face for the first time! Isn't that exciting?! It was no other than Doron Gazit and his son, Ben all the way from Israel. 

 

 

We agreed we were hungry and went to dinner as a group at Tina's daughter's restaurant, Mill Creek. We had a delicious dinner of good ol fashioned home cooking prepared by Tina's lovely and talented daughter. After some good laughs and some good memory sharing, everyone went to bed to prepare for the weekend.

Friday starts as a sight seeing day for me and for most early arrivals. Some people chose to go hiking, others visited local parks and checked out the local history, while I got to visit an antique mall and a local brewery. Off to Tina's by 2pm to hang out with many new arrivals and by 6pm we were being fed yet again. At this point; you are introduced to the culinary talents of David, who is Tina's husband. This man does it all and is a master of the grill.

(Tina, if you're reading this, can I have the macaroni salad recipe?!)

It may be an unusual thing to include in a Pez report

but those tomatoes were to die for!

David Gunsauls slicing locally grown tomatoes

.

 Dairyville is teaming with local produce!

We got our bellies full and shared even more stories with one another and before you knew it, it was time for bed. Well kinda... The stars are in full view in Dairyville and with the Perseid meteor shower, it was a great night to star gaze. Although there weren't many shooting stars that night, we had a relaxing night under the stars in Dairyville.

Saturday! The main event! 10am and Tina's house is in full on Pez collecting mode! Tina's collection is on display and features some beautiful pieces! Her store was open for shopping and you could pretty much pick up anything you needed from her! Several people had set up tables to sell their candy treasures.

 

 I even made a few amazing purchases myself! The attendee pack is awesome and it blows my mind at the generosity of our host!

 

 

Dinner bell rings and it's time to eat again! This time, Chef David has prepared steak and chicken.

Have I mentioned that David is a grill master?! More mingling with more Pez collectors. So many people I haven't seen in years and many I was meeting for the first time. All of them are now my friends for life.

Game time!

Bingo is the name-o!

So many happy winners and it was fun to watch how excited people are to win. From yells of excitement to happy dances, everyone was ecstatic! Then 2 amazing raffles and one lucky person walked away with a covered grandstand from Showtime Displays and another walked away with the super awesome Pez Palz blog dispenser!

 

And before you know it, people started to say good bye and hugs were given.

One more meal with about 50 or 60 of my closest friends to end the evening at Mill Creek and the final wave of goodbyes hit.

 

Tina's generosity is beyond kind and I feel honored to have been invited to her home to share in a part of her life.

The friends, both new and old, are all appreciated and I loved seeing you all and swapping stories with you. With more than 100 people in attendance, this gathering maintained the feel of a small get together with friends who are just happy to sit and talk with each other about the one thing that we all love.

 

Landon & Tina

Thank you Landon for your great report, and all the pictures

Kelle's emotions few days before the 1st UK PEZ gathering...

Kelle's date for the
1st UK PEZ Gathering
is almost here. 

We are happy to share again Kelle's emotions just few
days before the gathering is happening.

Kelle is allways super talented and creative, she did a WONDERFUL work with all the preparation and promotions on her first gathering.
 

Thank you Kelle for beeing a great
PEZ PAL, you will ROCK IT!
Enjoy every minute of your gathering, the day will be gone super fast! <3


Kelle's story
chapter 1 can be found here
chapter 2 can be found here

here we go with chapter 3 

 

It's 2.40am,
and whilst I'm sitting here, waiting for some paint to dry, it's dawned on me; this time next week, it'll all be over!

For months now,

I've been working non stop trying to sort things for the

1st UK PEZ Gathering

and with less than a week left, it feels like I still have

the same amount of work left to do again!!

You know what it's like though, everything will come together all of a sudden.

I've been working on lots of very cool things for the gathering. I really want to show you all now, but I'm going to keep them as a surprise for the day.

As you may have seen though, I have unveiled one of my surprises today - my very own PEZ girls! I had a lot of fun making the outfits for them and really enjoyed taking some photos this morning to help promote the event.

 

Kelle`s own PEZ girls

Talking of promotion, I've plastered the "fine" city of Norwich with posters and flyers and on Tuesday I'm heading into the BBC radio station to do an interview!

posters at the city of Norwich

 

 Promotion is key, or else I'll be hosting a gathering to me, myself and I. Where's the fun in that?!

When taking on the challenge of hosting an event like this, I don't think I quite realised what a mammoth task it would be to undergo all by myself. From the main things like sorting the PEZ to booking the venue right down to the silly things which I didn't really take into consideration like van hire and insurance, there is not one minute of the day

I'm not thinking of ways to make this gathering great.

HELLO BEAR will play @ the after party

You can't move in my house due to boxes, my bank balance is looking rather unhealthy and my eyes have bags under them, but I'm happy and super excited for next Saturday.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

 

for more Info please visit the UK PEZ gathering FACEBOOK page

Stay tuned on our blog, we will report more from and about the

first UK PEZ GATHERING

Elmeri makes PEZ Headlines...

Our Friend Elmeri from Finland made it to an Interview in a Finish magazine Meidän perhe (our family)

Elmeri spoke about his beginning of PEZ Collecting back in 2001,

when he was 2 years old.

.

On vacation with his family in Greece he got his first PEZ dispenser.
It was Pikachu from the Pokemon assortment, which he still owns. 

"Pikachu" Elmeri's first PEZ dispenser

He told also about dispenser prices in the shops
to PEZ Collectors

and about PEZ Conventions.

Elmeri was also one of our DISCO INFERNO Contest winner,

what he mentioned in his story too <3

It's allways great to see our friends in the news and promoting our hobby,

 for maybe a future collector :)

Elmeri with a part of his 1500-1600 PEZ dispenser Collection