Buying miniatures can be pretty expensive or even difficult, if you’re looking for something like the elusive frog rainboots or a certain cat that’s always in the litter box. While it may be easier to purchase boxes of miniatures in hopes of getting what you want, there is an alternative.

At general craft stores, they generally sell polymer clay (some brands include Sculpey, Premo and Fimo). While there are a lot of different colours available, I’d suggest getting white as you can paint the items after they’ve been baked. You can bake them in a toaster oven, a regular oven or you can even boil them (provided that they stay covered in water, they shouldn’t burn, but you do have to watch them no matter which method of curing you chose).

Not only will you be having fun in creating your own miniatures, you’ll also be saving some money as well as a single package of polymer clay is generally less than a blindbox of miniatures. You can find polymer clay on sale from time to time, occasionally those big-box craft stores (i.e. Michaels, Joanns) will have them as low as $1/block. If you’re wanting to paint them, I’ve found that acrylics generally work well. But if you can wait for a sale, you can stock up on all the colours that you desire. Plus, you can mix the colours together to make something truly unique.

There are some amazing things that some people have made with polymer clay and you may find that you like working with it and making your very own miniatures.

Miniature Food – Fruit Salad 1:12. Photo By: PetitPlat by sk_.

There are a lot of resources online for making polymer clay miniatures, you can make donuts or pizzas or dishes for your dolls. Here are some that I like:

• Glass Attic, a polymer clay “encyclopedia” by Diane Black
• Layered Polymer Miniature Cakes
• Polymer Clay Express (‘harvest’ themed food)

Blythe is sometimes difficult to explain to others why we’re so interested in these big-headed dolls. Some people find the whole changing-eyes thing creepy or that the pink chips even look evil. But we’re all pretty lucky because we can afford to buy our own dolls and buy or make clothes for them.

If you’re at all crafty, you might be interested in The Toy Society. The Toy Society started in Australia in the year 2008 and now happens all over the world.

The whole idea is that you express your interest in doing a “Toy Drop”. You make a small toy and you make sure it’s in a rain-proof bag with a tag saying that it’s a free toy along with a toy number and the address to The Toy Society website. While not all of the finders of the Toy Drops email into The Toy Society about finding the toys, a lot of them do and they also include photos of the toy with the new owner.

If you’re interested in doing a random act of kindness for someone, please check out The Toy Society and see how you can get involved today!

Junie Moon (part of Cross World Connections Ltd.) is one of the official Blythe shops and is one of the places to go if you want to get a newly released Blythe at retail price. However, for a lot of the time when Ashton-Drake Galleries were making their Blythes, Junie Moon was unable to sell directly to North American consumers due the licensing and selling rights given by Hasbro (ADG was given the rights to sell in North American).

Junie Moon now allows for customers from the United States and Canada to purchase directly from them. Please note, they will not lower the value of your shipment (Canadian customers should know that the customs is pretty strict on things over the value of $60, even if it’s marked as a gift!). So that being said, take that into account if you’re planning on buying directly from the source and be sure to always shop around to see if you can get a lower price somewhere else!

Many thanks to Meg, irulethegalaxy, as I heard about North Americans being allowed to buy directly from Junie Moon while she was tweeting about a certain purple-haired FBL…

For those who already know or are learning how to sew (Mama Lisa is doing a guest authored series called Sew With Me, check out part 1 and part 2!), one of the things I find that ends up being the more expensive part of the whole sewing hobby isn’t the sewing machine itself – it’s the fabric and all those little notions you end up buying (ribbon, trims, snaps, hooks, lace, elastic, buttons, thread, etc.).

One way to save on all that money spent is to go do a closet clean out! And I don’t mean a closet clean out for your dolls, but for you. I go through my wardrobe maybe 2-3 times a year and pull out the things that I no longer wear, that no longer fit properly (i.e. I’ve grown or it’s shrunk due to the dryer or it’s been stretched out) or is somehow otherwise damaged (i.e. bleach stains due to someone else’s laundry ineptness, rips in the knees of jeans). There’s always something that can be removed from my wardrobe.

Anything that’s still good to wear gets donated – I donate generally to the Canadian Diabetes Association, it’s also an organization that my mom volunteers with twice a year for a week seeking donations. They collect used clothing and other items, usually for resale to earn money towards research and educating the public about diabetes.

But the things with the holes or the stains are either used as rags around the house or are tossed. Or, at least, they used to be.

Provided that there is a decent amount of fabric that’s not stained left, I’ll use it for making doll clothes. Remember that clothes for Blythe don’t require a large amount of fabric. If you were using patterns you find online or the Simplicity Blythe patterns, you will notice that it all calls for fabric scraps. This is because they use so little that you won’t need anywhere near a fat quarter.

There’s always something that you can make with the fabric out of old clothes. For instance, I had this ratty old dress shirt that I was given by my parents to use as a painting smock when I was younger (size large for men covers a lot of a small young child when they’re painting!). I used that shirt for making my first-ever Blythe dress and for the linings for bodices for (so far) 12 different Blythe dresses. That’s fabric that I probably would have cut out of the ‘good’ fabric if I didn’t already have it available.

Used clothes that you don’t mind cutting up are also a great way to test a pattern that you’ve never used before so you don’t use your more expensive on a pattern that you may end up making a lot of adjustments on. It’s also a great way to recycle and to keep it out of the landfills – so you’re both helping the environment and clothing your Blythes at the same time. I call that a win-win situation.

I’ve recently received quite a few emails about the interviewing process for BlytheLife.com from people interested in getting featured here. Here are some of the frequently asked questions from some of you regarding getting interviewed/reviewed for BlytheLife.com:

Does it cost anything to be interviewed for BlytheLife.com?
The answer is no. It does take some time, of course, but it’s a fairly straight-forward process for being interviewed. All interview questions are done via email. You can choose to (or not) host a giveaway in association with your interview and thus that would be a ‘cost’ to doing the interview – giveaways do help generate more visitors for the interview.

What kind of benefits are there to being interviewed for BlytheLife.com?
It gives you exposure – as someone who creates clothes or accessories for dolls or owns a Blythe website or customizes dolls, it generates exposure. BlytheLife.com visitors follow the blog via the RSS feed and Twitter – which updates whenever there is a new blog post (i.e. the interview featuring you!). When you’re being featured, you have the chance to shine and have your services and products exposed to more people in the Blythe community.

Why do I have to send you something if I want to be reviewed?
Reviews are product reviews. If you make doll dresses and want an honest review done on BlytheLife.com, you will have to send the dress to me in order for it to be reviewed. It’s very difficult to do a product review if I’m only looking at photos of what you make online. Product review items are kept, however, and if you wish to have a giveaway associated with the review done of your product, it is suggested that you send 2 or more of your product. Also, I don’t write nicer reviews for people because they send me more things – all product reviews are honest and stick to the facts of the items you send to me.

I hope that clears up some confusion for people regarding being interviewed and/or reviewed for BlytheLife.com!

For more information, you can check out the How to Get Featured page and if you have any other questions or concerns, please use the Contact form or comment below. I often get to read my email more than once a day, but please allow up to 48 hours for a reply.