Tom's Smurfy Project - Dowel Rods, Balsa Wood and Popsickle Sticks!

There is a smurfy friend out there in cyberspace, that loves his smurfs soooo much, that he spend well over 1000 hours to create the smurfiest display you can imagine. He used a whole bunch of oak shelves, spread them out nicely on the walls, and then his big job started. All the shelves are connected with each other somehow by walkways, bridges, ladders, swings etc. made out of Dowel Rods, Balsa Wood, and Popsickle Sticks for the smurfs to get from one level to the next and visit each other. Have a look at this! And to see another picture with more details, click on the image below and use the back button of your browser to come back here.

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The Smurfs at work - Case closed!

Read this one and you'll see the power of Smurfs!

I am a police officer in Orange County California and get a lot of chuckles when I tell people that I collect smrurfs.

I recently met another collect who offered to watch for some smurfs I needed for my collection. Since I often work on weekends, I can't make the swap meets.

On this one Saturday, I was working at the local mall. During a break, I checked my e-mail and had a message from the other collector telling me the local swap meet was closed that day.

Later in the day I caught a shoplifter. This woman was hardcore. She had some new clothes in her bags that had the tags removed. They didn't belong to the store that had caught her and she wouldn't tell us where they were from.

I kept asking her about them until she blurted out that they were used, and she'd bought them at the swap meet on her way to the mall.

I told her that I knew that wasn't true. I said that a friend, who was going to the swap meet to buy me some smurfs, had told me it was closed that particular day.

She gave me a funny look and said, "Smurfs?" I said, "Yeah, I collect Smurfs." She started laughing and said, "OK, you got me."

She told me which store the clothes were from. Case Closed, Suspect in Custody, Property Returned.

Protecting your Teeth with a smile!

This is a story coming from our dear smurfy friend Ken, a police officer. Don't miss his other smurfy real life experience posted on this site!!

I've always liked the little guys because they make you smile. When you smile you feel good. Laughter is even better. (A wise man once said that laughter is a massage from the inside out)
Anyway, as a young cop, I learned that it is impossible to laugh and be angry at the same time. I tried to apply this to my profession, in that if I encountered some one who was mad, I'd try to get them to smile or better yet laugh. It's saved me many an argument or maybe even a few teeth.
So, somewhere, some how, I find this little pin-on badge of a Smurf. You know the orange one with the smurf giving the razzberry. I take it and pin it inside my jacket and every time some one starts getting pissy, I say, "Hey, look at this." Then I open up my jacket and here's a smurf giving you the razzberry. It worked time & time again. It was especially effective on little children who were frightened. ("Mommy look, he's got a Smurf!")
I eventually went into the detective bureau and forgot all about my little blue ally. Last week I was cleaning out a desk drawer and found him hiding under some papers. He brought back a flood of memories, all of them about people lighting up and getting a smile on their face.

Smurfy Smiles - a real life experience from Astro

Smurfs always have this special effect. Smiles all over. I actually had this really nice smurfy experience myself, I don't think it is on the website yet. I should put it on also.

I was on the subway in Toronto, and it is always so cold and ugly down there. I was sitting very close to a girl probably 17 or 18 years old. She was just staring out into space and the expression on her face was really terribly sad. At some point when I peeked at her again, I saw one lonely tear quietly running down her face, then another one, and another. All just totally quiet. I wanted to say something, ask if I can help, but didn't know how.

I happened to carry some smurf figurines around with me. Well, I am a bit shy myself, most of the times, so it is hard to approach a stranger, even if I want to so badly and help. Anyways, the very last minute, when she wanted to get off the subway, I said, "excuse me, take this, it will help!!". And I snuck Naughty Smurf sticking his tongue out into her spontaneously open hand. She had to rush out of the wagon, but then I saw her standing in front of the window while the doors closed with a big big smile on her face, staring at Naughty and wiping away the quiet tears. She waved at me until she disappeared at the end of the tunnel, smiling!
And those of you that exchange e-mails with Astro, will know that Smurfy Smiles is always the ending to my smurf mails.:-)

The smurfiest Husband of them all!

After reading this one I am sure all female smurf collectors out in cyberspace want a husband like that! So watch him, Tonya!:-)))

As my birthday approached last year, my wonderful husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Of course, I'm a VERY enthusiastic Smurf lover and collector, and I replied (naturally) SMURFS! My hubby wasn't at all surprised to hear that, since he'd been helping me in my quest for Smurfs for the past 2 years. I gave him a list of the Smurfs that I most wanted to come live in my Smurf village. Unfortunately, these particular Smurfs were nowhere to be found. However, my hubby was determined to make sure that I had a smurfy birthday...and if he couldn't find a Smurf I wanted, then he'd become a Smurf for my birthday! That's right, he covered himself in blue face paint all over, and dressed up in white pants, shoes, and smurf hat! And when I awoke on my birthday, the first thing I saw and heard was my husband singing the Smurf song, dressed as a Smurf! I was both delighted and surprised with what my hubby had done for me! Thanks to my incredibly creative and caring husband, I had the smurfiest birthday ever. Now, when someone asks which one of my Smurfs is my favorite, I tell them that "Hubby" Smurf is the smurfiest of them all!

Here is a really smurfy story that is proof for the fact that Smurfs always put smiles on peoples faces!!!

My friends always thought I was really diffrent, so when I started collecting smurfs, they didn't say to much. Some of them hunted around their attics and gave me the ones they had for my birthdays. I had the chance to go to Germany this past summer as an exchange student. I knew that smurfs originated in Belgium, so I figured that I would add a few to my collection while I was over there. the group I was traveling with didn't know I was so crazy about smurfs. When They asw me buy 30-40 smurfs at a time they thought I was crazy! Finally they got used to my intresting hobby. We were visiting Berlin one weekend. On the trainride home, i fell asleep with my bare feet inbetween 2 seats. Without any gorry details, I got my toe pinched under the seat and the skin was ripped off. My teacher was worried that I had broken it and we had to catch another train in ten minutes. To make a long story short, my friends started singng the smurf song, you know La la la la la la la...., to cheer me up so I would stop bawling! It worked too. I started laughing that they would think of the smurf song to cheer me up.

Can you believe this? A band by the name of Smurf Girls! Here is the e-mail Astro received a little while ago!

We have a band called the SMURF GIRLS. The way it got started was my best friend and I were goofing off one night and we were acting like we were singers. We got out an old set of Smurf sheets and put them around us. Then called our selves the Smurf Girls.
We all wish you Smurf Girls the greatest success with your band!

You wish to witness a smurfy love affair? You gotta see this! Astro's smurfy friend Candice send a picture that is enough to make all the other smurfs forget about Smurfette! Do you think so too?

Staffan, a very dear smurfy friend from Sweden, has been hard at work! There was a vinyl record with Smurfy songs in the 80's and he has been writing out the text for all our Swedish members. The Ultimate Web Smurf Club had many new members from Sweden lately. Seems as if the Smurfs are taking over Sweden now! There is even a new Smurf CD on the market! To find the text of the Smurf Songs, please click here. Enjoy!

The following is a desperate e-mail message that was quite amusing for Astro. It needs to be shared with my smurfy friends in cyberspace:

"Need your help urgently. I have a five months old son, who is mad on the Smurf's (watches it everyday on BBC2). In fact it is the only thing that keeps him quiet when we are trying to get ready for work in the morning. However, when the Smurf's finish, if we are not ready by then and we don't keep him occupied, neither of us get any peace (or ready for work).

Things have become so desperate that we have started videotaping the Smurf's off the Cartoon network whilst we are at work and we now have quite a collection. However, what we urgently need is some kind of Smurf cuddly toy and additional videos to help us get some peace and quiet. Something suitable for a five month old baby and available in the UK. I have tried all the large stores, but nothing. Please help!!!"

Well, that is a desperate request, and if anyone can help with something smurfy and suitable for a baby, please smurf-mail Astro.

One of my other hobbies is building off-road trucks, so I guess it was inevitable that the two hobbies would collide.
I wanted a truck called the Suzuki Samurai. I searched for about a year until I found one. The truck I found was a Smurf blue, or at least I thought it was. So I brought the truck home and started to convert it into an off-road monster show truck. While my wife and I were working on it my children would sometimes come out and watch.
One day things were not going well, I got a little grouchy. One thing lead to another and at just about the same time my wife and kids all said:

I guess because the truck was small and blue, and I was just a little grouchy, they put it all together. So that day the "Grouchie" Samurai Truck was born. We try to add to it each year changing one thing or the next, but our first hobby is still collecting Smurfs.

Astro is very proud to present the Smurfy Grouchie Samurai Truck below! Isn't that a smurfy art! I wonder if Painter or Artist Smurf have something to do with that?!

   

If you enjoyed Larry's smurfy input, you will enjoy a visit to his homepages! Just go to Astro's favourite links and visit the Harris Family. You will find many great smurfy images, and the only Smurf Book I know off online! Don't miss it!

My friend, William (Shakespeare) Brown, The Valley Smurf send me this smurfy poem. It perfectly describes a week in a smurf collectors life. Don't you think so?

And here is his a Song relating to a very important Smurfy expression.

So, keep smiling, it doesn't hurt! Valley Smurf has also send Astro some pictures of Smurf figurines that he received from Italy. Thanks a smurf!

Staffan from Sweden has send Astro a picture of a "Mini-Smurf". It is a Sleepwalker and his is yellow. Astro has three more, one in red, one in black, one in green. This little guy is only 1 inch tall. Astro assumes that he belongs to a Smurf Game from the past. If you know anything about those "Mini-Smurfs", please share your smurfy experience with us. Here is the picture. It shows how small he is beside Techno.

Mattias from Sweden has been so kind as to send Astro a "Smurfy Collectors Story" about how he began collecting Smurfs.

It was winter, my new girlfriend and I visited my parents out in the country. My parents had just moved there. There wasn't much to do. I started to search for things from the past. I discoverd an large box with Lego on the top. My first thought was that I should build something with it, but when I emptied the box on the floor I saw something..It was Smurfs!! A bunch of them just smiling at me. So I pushed away the lego and counted the Smurfs. I think it was about 30 Smurfs. My girlfriend recalled that she had some Smurfs to at her parents place, so when we got home we searched her families house and "Voila" we had about 60 Smurfs. Then we got the urge to get some more. At this time Smurfs still existed in smaller toy stores, so we got a (pretty) easy start with our collection. But after a couple of months we had to visit flea markets to get them. Since then our collection has grown to a little over 300 Smurfs (although some are duplicates) and we have bought smurfs in both Paris and London (we live in Stockholm, Sweden).

Smurfy greetings to Sweden and thanks a Smurf for the Smurfy story!

And now a very special Smurfy story from our Collector Friend Elizabeth:

The incredible Smurfy story about the Smurfette that disappeared..

When I was eight years old, in 1983, my friend Amy and I each had a normal Smurfette figurine, 1972. We both lost ours in the oddest ways, and on the same day. We were out in the back yard of my house, and we were burying Smurfs and digging them up. (And I wonder why so many of mine are damaged, sheesh!) Well, we were concentrating our efforts on a small patch of bare earth, not more than six inches square. Among the Smurfs we buried was the Smurfette, and we never could find her. We did not bury them deep; we only threw a little dirt over them with the aid of Shovel Smurf. (: But for some reason, my Smurfette never surfaced. We got a shovel and practically dug to China in our vain attempt to recover her. To this day it is one of the weirdest ways I ever lost a Smurf.

Amy lost hers, too, in an equally odd way, on the very same day. She tossed her Smurfette into a small patch of ivy, because we wanted to test if that Smurfette would be as hard to find in a fairly benign situation as mine had been. Sure enough, we practically tore up the ivy looking for that Smurfette, but she was not to be found. We were children, and we did not hesitate to believe that Smurfette was somehow magic. I'm pushing 22 years now, but I still look in and around that small patch of tangled vines and wonder why the plain Smurfette figurine was so cursed.

Luckily, it was 1983, so Smurfs were readily available; we went down to the local Hallmark store and spent our allowance money on another Smurfette figurine. Fortunately, the card shop had two Smurfettes.

The moral of the story is:

*Don't mess with the normal Smurfette figurine from 1972!*

Well, Astro likes this childhood story very much. Did you too? And do you wanna hear another one of Elizabeth's stories? This one is quite short, but in its innocents so smurfy!

You know, when I was seven years old I had the Trumpeter Smurf, named Melody. The end of his horn broke off, so I bought another one, keeping the original; steeped in childhood innocence, I saw nothing wrong with re-naming the original one "Horny" to distinguish him from the new "Melody".

A smurfy Thank-you to my friend Elizabeth. I hope you enjoyed those smurfy notes.

And we have another addition to this page. Enjoy the following story from another smurfy friend in cyberspace.

My husband and I just recently dragged out all my smurfs and put them up in our arriving baby's room. I was amazed at how many I had and was excited to see them go around the entire room, making a great, unique ceiling border. This new found friendship with my smurfs again, made me curious as to what happened to them and when they started, my husband thought we could find something on the web on them and to my amazement that was when we found your Smurf Club. I have been to Toys R Us and Target in our area and did not find any of the new figurines but we did find them in a Kay Bee Toy Store. I felt like a kid all over again, sifting through the pile of plastic smurfs, figuring out which ones I had and which ones I really wanted.

My collection started when I was 7 years old. I am now 24. A friend of mine had gotten a stuffed smurf at the grocery store and I knew I had to have one. After collecting all my pennies, birthday, and holiday money I had received over a few months, I was finally able to buy myself a stuffed smurf. It was one of the very last ones on the rack in that store. I will never forget handing over that 7 dollars. Best money I ever spent! From that day on, I was a collector. Of course at the age of seven I didn't realize I was a collector but it certainly became clear to me as I got older. I remember hitting about 14 and not being able to find smurfs anywhere in my small hometown. I bought the last place out, I even bought there two smurf displays. We were over in Germany last summer and I searched various stores aimlessly looking and was excited to come out of one with a couple candy filled smurf tubes.

Smurfy thanks also to the writer of the above story! Astro is very happy to receive so many messages from collectors from all around the world. Continue on, because there is another smurfy story following.

The Smurfy Incentive

Back in elementary school (sixth grade I think) I hated doing my homework, not to mention my classwork as well. I wasn't stupid, I guess I just wasn't motivated enough to be more involved with my studies. After a while, my grades began to suffer, so my mom decided to make a deal with me in hopes of pulling up my grades. We went to a flea market one day, and I was promised anything I was interested in buying in exchange for a good grade (it had to be either an A or 100) After I forced myself to score a 100 on a science test later on that same week, I took my mom up on her offer and dragged her back to the flea market. The first and only thing I was interested in having at the time were these 2" blue and white figurines called. . .SMURFS! Because there were soooooooo many to choose from, I made it a point to study and do my schoolwork all the time, just so I would be able to have all of them! This arrangement went on for a few years, until the flea market went out of business and some other small shops stopped carrying them. When I was no longer able to find them anywhere, I just assumed they had stopped producing them. It wasn't until I became active with my computer that I was able to find out through other collectors that they didn't stop making them at all. And of course, with the incredible patience and help from you I was able to figure out which smurfs I already had and which ones I needed to add to my collection. I definitely couldn't have done any of it without you, Astro. Thanks a million!!!!

This message reached Astro from Michelle. She has become a very dear friend. Astro thanks her very smurfingly much for her story! Also, Michelle has encouraged Astro to post a collector story herself. Since many other club members keep requesting this, well, here it is.

Smurfy "Lovestory"

I was learning my trade as a Legal Secretary, 16 years old. Every day I had to go to the court house. It was a big city and around the same time there were those guys cleaning the sidewalks and emptying the garbage cans.
Well, one of them gave me those little smiles..., we started talking a few sentences, like how are you doing, nice weather today and so on. Don't forget I was only 16 and didn't know anything. He was, I believe, 8 years older. We spend our breaks together having a coffee or a bite to eat. Well, he was married and started talking about his problems at home. You know the usual problems that occur if you don't know how to communicate. Even though I was only 16, I tried to give him advise.:-) Like, that he should take his wife out once in a while, bring her some flowers, etc. We could talk to each other as equals and he had fallen in Love with me. I wanted to be just friends. I was very naive at that age. I never had a boyfriend before either.

Anyways, this went on for a good year. Just talk, coffee at lunchtime here and there. He had actually taken some advise from me. He bought his wife flowers and took her out again. And he told me how things were a bit better, and thanked me. Can you imagine how I felt about that?
Anyways, I decided that this couldn't go on like this and that I would have to stop seeing him somehow. I started to take different routes to court and told him, when he called for lunch I couldn't come. One day he finally got the message. He waited at the lawyers office when I finished work. He had a gift for me. It was the Crying Smurf on a blue stand that said:"Ohne Dich ist alles so trostlos." The english version of this one says "I am blue without you". I don't have that one anymore. It must have gotten lost when I was moving a long, long smurfy time ago. But it was the start to my Smurf Collecting Future!