blythelife.com
blythelife.com

Doll Blogging Part 2: Names & Hosts

Written on February 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Article with tags:

What’s in a name?

For most of the visitors to your website, it will probably be the first thing that they notice as it’ll be part of the blog’s URL. It will also be what they associate with you and they need to be remember it. Let’s take for example the two following names:

  • b1yt43gir1_9
  • blythegirl

Which one are you more likely to recall and remember how to properly spell again? Probably the second one.

In this day and age, most one-word domain names have been registered (some are even worth a lot of money!). A lot of two-word domain names are also taken, but not all of them (blythelife.com is a two-word domain and was registered in June 2010). If you need to go up to three words, that’s okay – as long as all the words are relevant. The shorter the words, the better – it’ll be easier for people to remember your blog address.

Getting a domain name is like you putting a label on yourself. You don’t need to have paid hosting for a domain name and it’s always a wise investment to buy one if you foresee yourself potentially moving onto paid hosting or if you just want to prevent people from snatching it (and posing as you or just having others thinking that the .com website is also yours!) and a lot of free webhosts will allow you to use a domain name with your free blogging space.

It’s highly suggested to get a .com name as that’s the one that most people think of when typing it into the address bar of their web browsers. A .com domain name goes for under $10 for one calendar year and there are a lot of different domain registars online where you can purchase a domain. BlytheLife.com is registered with NameCheap.com, which is a simple to use domain registrar (it includes 1 year of WhoIs protection with every new registration or transfer). There are a lot of other registrars out there, but I find NameCheap to be the simplest to use.

If you don’t think that you’ll be moving onto a paid host or that you’ll be using your blog for business (perhaps you start blogging about crafting and then move onto selling those crafts, a .com name looks more professional than being hosted by Blogger or WordPress), you can completely disregard what I said about buying a domain. But the name of your blog should still be relatively short and easy to remember!

So to recap what you should consider when choosing a name:

  • It should be easy to spell and to remember
  • It should be two to three words, maximum
  • It’s suggested to register for a .com domain name if you can afford it

But that’s great, you’ve come up with a kickass name that isn’t too long and you can spell it (and perhaps you’ve gotten the corresponding domain name as well…). Now what to do?

Pick a host!

While I do love having paid hosting, I know that not everyone can afford it. There are some inexpensive paid hosts available – BlytheLife.com is hosted at Surpass Hosting (at $6/month). So if you can afford it, it is a nice option to have as you have complete control over your hosting as well as more space and can keep track of how many visitors you get and easily find out what days and times are the most popular for people to visit you and also how many countries that you reach!

But I know not everyone is interested in handling that (and if you’re just beginning, it’s probably not a great idea if you’re not sure how long you’ll stick with blogging – I still believe that buying your blog’s .com domain is a good idea though!). So I’m going to talk about 2 free (!!!) blog hosts that I’d like to suggest to you:

WordPress
One of the most popular blogging platforms is WordPress, it’s very easy to install and to use (the user interface is pleasant – I’m not just saying that because I’m using a WordPress-powered blog right now, I really feel that way!) and there’s a lot of plugins that you can use (if you have a self-hosted WordPress blog).

WordPress is free to download off of their website and you can install it to your hosting (provided you already have hosting or you’ve found someone to host you on their hosting space for free, what a generous person you’ve found!). Or, alternatively, you can have your WordPress blog hosted for free on the WordPress.com website. The pros to this is that it’s all free. The cons is that you are limited to what kind of things you can have on your blog (I’m mostly talking about the plugins and other fun pieces of coding that makes blogging easier, not the content itself – you’ll need to read the Terms and Conditions to find out more about what they will and will not allow on their website).

Blogger
Owned by Google, Blogger is a great website. It boasts a straightforward user interface, which includes easy to follow tabs to get you where you want to go. It’s also linked to other Google applications, like Picasa for easy photo-sharing. Google has also made it possible for you to work on blog posts in Microsoft Word and then you can save that word document directly to Blogger – which is pretty nifty.

Blogger is free to use, of course, and you can customize your URL with a domain name if you happen to have one. All Blogger accounts are set, by default, as subdomains of the blogspot.com domain name. One thing to keep in mind, because I’ve come across this on several Blogger blogs, is that some people set their comments preferences to not include people manually inputting names and URLs and instead require them to be logged into something – I would suggest allowing people to manually input their own data as it makes it easier on visitors (and will more than likely increase the amount of comments that you get).

Which blogging website you use is really up to you. Both of them have good pros and cons and you can find help for both websites available online (just use your search engine of choice!).

Nifty Note: For both Blogger and WordPress, you can export your blog posts if you choose to move from Blogger to WordPress (or the other way as well) or if you choose to move to a free host. When exporting your blog posts, it will save as a .xml file.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read part one (The Introduction). In two weeks, on March 7, 2011, Part 3 (HTML) will be posted.

  • Part 1: The Introduction
  • Part 2: Names & Hosts
  • Part 3: HTML (March 7, 2011)
  • Part 4: Themes, Templates & Design (March 21, 2011)
  • Part 5: Promoting Your Site (April 4, 2011)

Interview with Carmen of Smidge House and Giveaway!

Written on February 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Featured, Giveaway with tags: ,

I hope you all remember Carmen, because she was responsible for there being a winter holiday giveaway back in December 2010! Carmen, who’s better known as smidge girl online, is the creative mastermind behind Smidge House. She makes fantastic furniture and other fun miniatures and I got to interview her for BlytheLife.com! I was so excited to find out more about Carmen and I hope you all are too!

Hi Carmen! What can you tell us about yourself?
Hiya! Well, my name is Carmen. My dolly handle is smidge girl. I love to read, write, shop, drink coffee, hang out on flickr, and play with dolls! 🙂 I design and build sixth scale furniture and accessories. The things my dolls don’t steal for themselves usually end up in my etsy shop, Smidge House. I also build furniture and sets (sixth scale) for television and film. I currently live in Chicago with my boyfriend. We have a teeny apartment that is also Smidge House headquarters. It’s seriously overflowing with my supplies and inventory (and okay, dolls, lol) so we’ll have to find a bigger place soon!

What can you share with us about how you discovered Blythe and how you got into crafting for dolls?
Well, I’ve always been obsessed with anything miniature. I was a Barbie freak as a kid, but I was mostly interested in her stuff– I’d always choose a new living room set over a new doll! I eventually “grew up” and stopped playing with dolls, though I didn’t really want to. When I moved here to go to college, there was a gigantic Toys R Us only a few blocks from our dorm. I spent more time there than I did doing homework, lol!

After college, I bounced around doing a gazillion different jobs, but nothing ever made me very happy. I was pretty disappointed, career-wise. Then, a couple of years ago, I stumbled across some photos online of the Barbie Dream Store that I’d had as a kid. I hadn’t thought about dolls in years, but suddenly, it’s all I thought about. (At the time, I had no clue there was a gigantic doll community out there, that felt the same way!) Combining my love of dolls and their stuff, and my total obsession with furniture and design just seemed like a no-brainer! (Now that I’m writing it all down, it seems pretty crazy! Thank goodness I didn’t stop & question myself at the time, lol!) I’ve always been the go-to girl, if you needed to have your furniture put together. I don’t know why people hate doing that! I love it! (But, I really love furniture, so maybe that’s why.) So, I understood how furniture “worked.” Structurally, I mean. So, it was really just a matter of deciding what I wanted to make, and scaling it down! I spent about a year building prototypes, (did I mention I’m a perfectionist?) and then opened Smidge House at the end of 2009.

I stumbled across Blythe soon after, when I discovered my favorite site in the world– Flickr! *happy sigh* I went totally crazy looking at people’s dolls and dollhouses, and some of the first photos I looked at featured Blythe dolls. I’d never seen one before, didn’t know what they were, but I thought they were adorable and amazing! Even though they had enormous heads and crazy colored hair and eyes, somehow they looked so real! Their personalities just brought them to life, like no doll I’d seen before! I was in awe of all the creativity Blythe folks used in customizing, sewing, and setting up their houses. I never thought I’d own one, (I’m kind of a square, and they were too whimsical for me, I thought, lol) but I loved looking at photos. Well, eventually, after some gentle nudging from a dolly friend, (I like to blame other people for my doll habit, whenever I can!) Blythe won me over. I mean, really, how can you resist? Although I prefer to build realistic furniture, I now work in “Blythe Mode” too. Having my girls around reminds me that making more kooky, funky pieces is fun too. Blythe has really lightened and brightened my life! 🙂 Ack! That sounds so dorky! But it’s true!

I love miniatures and I know it takes a lot of work to make something that’s accurate, but small. What’s one of your biggest challenges with crafting miniatures?
Truly, my biggest challenge is only having two hands, lol! I have so many plans and ideas that I can’t write them down fast enough, let alone make them fast enough! Since I’m only one person, things progress much slower than I’d like! I’m also a (slightly crazy) perfectionist, so I obsess over every detail, which makes things take even longer. I’d love to have an assistant one day, but I’m a total control freak, so I’m not sure how well that would work out. Maybe they could just iron my fabric. Very carefully. Or leave my fabric alone and just do the dishes instead. 😉

And finding just the right fabric, and in the right scale, can be a challenge too. It would make more sense to design things around fabric I already have in my overflowing stash, but that would just be too easy! Sometimes I’ll create a room in my head, and then spend weeks, or months, trying to track down the fabric I imagined. (Which more than likely doesn’t exist!) But, since I dearly love to fabric shop, it’s a fun challenge!

During the Holiday Giveaway, Sioux asked if you had any tips to share for people who want to make their own doll furniture, as well as what kind of materials you use?
Thanks for the question, Sioux! If you’re interested in building doll furniture, I suppose taking a look at your own (human-sized) furniture might be a helpful place to start. Flip your sofa over, and see how the legs are attached. Unzip the cushions and see what’s inside. Just by poking around, you can get a good idea of how things are built, how the pieces go together. But furniture and design are so subjective, there’s really no wrong way to go. A chair can look like anything, a sofa can be any color, tables come in all shapes and sizes, you know? I think the best tip I can give is just to give it a try, if it’s something that excites you! That goes for anything, really. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and just put something together. If it’s awful, you can always toss it out and try again, no one has to know! Before I settle on a design I like, I might end up with half a dozen prototypes that are a little too tall, or too wide, or don’t have quite the right type of legs, before I figure it out. Luckily, my dolls don’t mind decorating with the reject pieces!

As far as materials that I use, my upholstered furniture is made with actual upholstery foam. I buy huge rolls of the stuff, in all different thicknesses, that pretty much take up my whole closet. I used to have a shoe collection. Now I have a foam collection, lol! I typically choose the wood I use for tables, desks, etc, during the design process. Depending on what I need, I might use plywood, basswood, or anything in between. Home Depot and Joann’s are a couple of my favorite places to hang out. You never know what you’ll find, or what it might work for. I’m sort of a hoarder, so I like to have all sorts of things around that I can choose from. My fabric stash is out of control. The only way I can keep it semi-manageable is to use what I buy as quickly as I can. Sadly, I can shop way faster than I can work, so I think I’ll forever be buried in fabric! I like to buy vintage fabrics when I can, just so I create things with more unique prints, not just off the rack stuff that you can get anywhere. Of course, that works against me in a way, because once I use it up, that’s it forever. I have a terrible time making that first cut in a fabric I love, because I just don’t want to use it up!

How much time out of a typical week do you dedicate to crafting for Smidge House?
Oh dear. I easily dedicate 80 hours a week to Smidge House. Often times more. It is my full time job, and I have to say, I am a horrible boss! I almost never give myself a day off. There are a million things to keep on top of, whether it’s building or prepping furniture, designing new pieces, shopping for supplies, taking photographs, doing research, marketing, answering emails and phone calls… the list goes on and on. And that’s without a major project going on. When I stop to think about it, it’s a little overwhelming, so I just try to keep moving!

On the one hand, most of what I do doesn’t really seem like work. I get to use a large variety of skills, things I never thought would come in handy– like geometry!– so it’s definitely never boring. But, a lot of it is actual physical labor, using power tools and whatnot, and those days can be exhausting. Sometimes I’m editing photos until my eyes cross! Nevertheless, I love what I do! If I had a different job, I would be doing this in all my spare time, so I’m amazingly lucky to be able to do it in my spare time, and during business hours. At least, that’s how I try to explain it to people who tell me I’m a workaholic! That makes sense, right?

Honestly, it can be a real struggle to turn off the work day when there’s no one there to tell you to go home. I try to make a conscious effort to shut things down at night, at least for a little while, and to not forget about my boyfriend! But, at least a few nights a week, I’m rocking around the clock, working on things. I think when you’re trying to grow a new business, that’s just the way things go at first. I embrace my sleepless nights wholeheartedly– they’ve led to lots of great things! I’d be happy if I never had to sleep!

What would you say is your biggest success so far with making miniatures?
I’ve been incredibly lucky in the last year, and have been able to be a part of some amazing things. I would probably consider my first television job to be my biggest success, so far. Last spring I was approached by a production designer from HBO about building some set pieces for them. It was an aspect of sixth scale work that I had really not even thought about, and they contacted me based of photos of my work I had posted on flickr. So, being asked to work on the show (Brick Novax’s Diary, a recurring short on HBO’s Funny or Die) and successfully completing all the work on a tight budget and an even tighter deadline was beyond any success I could have imagined, especially for my first year. It still sort of feels like it happened to someone else!

What has been the most challenging single project you have made so far?
One thing I was asked to make for the Brick Novax project was a 70’s era sleazy motel room. The set included a King sized bed, with bedding, a sofa, a desk, a dresser, a table with four chairs, and a console television. I had 10 days to research 70’s era design, buy supplies, (including tracking down just the right retro and properly scaled fabrics!) design, build, and scrap a few prototypes, and ship the finished pieces. It was a challenging deadline to say the very least! It involved more than a few of those sleepless nights, and I worked pretty much up until UPS knocked on my door to tear the packages away from me, but I did get it done!

If you describe Smidge House in 140 characters or less, how would you describe it?
Ugh! I’m so blabby, this is hard! (Those characters don’t count, lol!) Smidge House is where my passions for furniture and 1/6 unite. It’s awesome to be able to share some of my work with the world, via my shop!

What do you think has been the most unique item that you have made so far?
Well, since I like to make everything as realistic as possible, I don’t know if I’ve ever made anything particularly crazy. But, I guess the boxes of Christmas ornaments I made were pretty unique. I made the separated boxes, and handmade each individual ornament, using beads, wire, charms, etc. Each different ornament (about 300 in all) was unique! (And incredibly time consuming, which is why I’ve retired that item!)

How does it make you feel when you see things that you’ve made in photos taken by other people, either on Flickr or their blog or websites?
It’s amazing! I screen capture every single thing, lol! I’m beyond dorky when it comes to that, I think it’s the coolest thing in the world! It’s awesome to know that people are using and enjoying their goodies, but to see how every piece fits into each person’s individual world, to see how they decorate with or around it, to see their dolls enjoying it– it’s just fantastic! It’s such a huge job perk!

Thank you so much for doing this interview with me, Carmen! Just one last question, if you could give any advice at all to someone who’s either new to the Blythe hobby or to crafting for Blythe, what advice would you give to them?
Thanks so much for asking me, Michelle, and for keeping such a wonderful site. 🙂

I’m still somewhat of a Blythe newbie, but I suppose my advice would be this. I was beyond intimidated when it came to joining in, because there’s just so much to know about Blythe! Really, someone could write a textbook. (And I would totally read it!) I didn’t want to be one of those people who wore a band t-shirt just because they liked the t-shirt, and didn’t know who the band was, you know? I felt like I would be a big poser if I bought a Blythe just because I wanted one, and didn’t know every single thing about them first.

BlytheLife.com really was a big reminder for me that collecting Blythe isn’t a job, it’s fun! I still don’t know the difference between all the different head molds, and I can’t name every doll on sight. But you know what? It doesn’t affect how much I enjoy my dolls. The people in the Blythe community are some of the nicest, sweetest, most helpful people I’ve ever met, and now I can’t imagine that I was ever so nervous to join in!

Sofa Giveaway!

One incredibly lucky person will be winning this super cute sofa and the two accompanying cushions made by Carmen of Smidge House!

You can get up to seventeen (17) entries for this giveaway draw and you can enter until Saturday February 26th 2011 at 11:59pm PST. The draw will be held on Sunday February 27th 2011 and the winner will be announced on BlytheLife.com. Remember to use a valid email address for all comments. If you win, your email will be forwarded to Carmen for arranging shipment of the prize.

Please only use one email address per person, those using multiple email addresses for more entries will be disqualified.

Mandatory Entry: Comment below about the interview with Carmen! This is worth 1 entry into the giveaway.

Bonus Entry #1: Tweet about the contest! Please retweet the following once per day from your public Twitter account! (If you look below, there is a box for you to include your Twitter username, if you do, I can easily verify your bonus entry!) Each tweet is 1 entry into the giveaway for a maximum of 9 entries into the giveaway.

Check out the @blythelifecom interview with @smidgegirl and the awesome giveaway! http://bit.ly/fnGvpw

Bonus Entry #2: Follow Carmen’s Twitter account, @smidgegirl! This is worth 1 entry.

Bonus Entry #3: Follow the Smidge House RSS feed! This is worth 1 entry.

Bonus Entry #4: Blog about the contest! Be sure to include some details about the contest and include links to BlytheLife.com, this interview/giveaway page and to the Smidge House blog. For 1 blog entry, this is worth 5 entries into the giveaway! You must comment below with the URL to your blog post.

Questionable Blythes on the Market

Written on February 17, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: News

There’s been a lot of talk lately about questionable Blythes that are currently on the market, even some from reputable sellers. A lot of people are saying that the dolls are fakes/counterfeit and others are questioning if the quality control has really taken a nose dive lately in the production of the Blythe dolls.

The dolls in question have covered a huge range of dolls, from relatively newer models (eg. Urban Cowgirl, Simply Mango, Simply Guava) to discontinued limited edition dolls (eg. Last Kiss).

The differences between the legitimate dolls and the questionable dolls can be both minor or very obvious, but only to the trained eye. Some of the eye chips are a little bit off in colour (amber instead of orange) while their clothes may have slight differences (button arrangements) and skin tone that’s just off enough to make you question the legitimacy of your newly purchased Blythe.

Please note that the year that was molded on the doll parts does not signify that the doll is necessarily a fake – it just states the year that the mold was produced (eg. RBLs will have a copyright year of 2006 on the back of their heads, even if the doll itself was released in 2010).

Questionable fake Blythes are not the same as “factory dolls” or other clones.

  • Factory dolls are put together with parts (stolen from the factory where Blythes are manufactured) and are generally not marketed as legitimate Blythes.
  • Blythe clones or copies are generally poor in quality, some have different eye mechanisms and ways to open up the head and they use a different ‘name’ like Blybe.

The questionable dolls are being marketed as legitimate dolls and are very close to the ‘real thing’, if you don’t have a well-trained eye. They come with clothing that mimics the legitimate doll’s clothing as well as a box that looks like the real thing.

Some buyers have been purchasing from eBay sellers that have great feedback and the sellers have said that they had purchased the dolls from the official store.

Junko Wong had stated the following in a comment, following someone asking if some Flickr photos were of fake Blythes, on her blog post, Everyone is Asking about… Middie, on January 30, 2011:

fake blythes

This is disconcerting to me because there are a lot of countries that do not have an official Blythe store (my country, Canada, included). If I were to follow this mindset, I wouldn’t own a Blythe doll. This also does not address the problem at hand (either incredibly poor quality control in the factory used for producing Blythe or there are fakes that are very close to legitimate Blythes) and does nothing to help those who wish to own the older releases that are no longer being produced.

If you are looking for a list of official sellers, there is one on blythedoll.com, but all of them are located in Asia.

Please comment below if you have any other information to add or just comments about the whole debacle in general.

For more information (and some photos!), please check out the following links:

Thanks to Kathy for suggesting that I write about this topic.

Performing Random Acts of Kindness

Written on February 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Article with tags:


Image from sxc.hu user jsnflo.

There’s been a lot of hostility in the Blythe community, and I’m sure it’s a pretty natural thing to occur once in a while due to a group of adult women and things that cost a lot of money. Which is why I wanted to give a nod to those who participate in performing Random Acts of Kindness in the dolly community. A lot of it has to do with randomly gifting something to a fellow member of the Blythe community.

If you’re a member of Blythe Kingdom, you might not know that there are groups on the forums. There’s a group on the forums called Random Act of Blythe Kindness (RAOBK) which is dedicated to performing random acts of kindness towards other members of the RAOBK group. Membership is subject to approval by the moderator, but they seem to have a large group of members. A quick search over on Flickr shows me a lot of cute things that have been sent between members and it looks like a lot of fun if you’re looking for a group to be a part of.

Another option is to consider all the contacts that you’ve made. Does someone have a birthday coming up soon? Is there someone that you think needs a little cheering up? Mail that’s not a bill is always something to be happy about! And you don’t need to send anything big. A handmade card is something that will brighten up someone’s day just as much as a new dress for their doll or a pair of shoes.

Performing a random act of kindness isn’t meant to put a huge dent into your wallet (because that would not be performing an act of kindness to yourself. But it’s meant for you to put a smile onto someone else’s face. It doesn’t matter if you send a card, a pair of shoes or a handful of dresses with coordinating accessories because it’s meant for you to do something nice for someone else, not to show-off what you can or cannot afford to gift to other people.

After all, it doesn’t cost anything to be nice to someone else.

What are your thoughts on performing a random act of kindness to someone else in the doll community? Is it something that you have done before or would consider doing? Why or why not?

Question of the Week: Valentine’s Edition

Written on February 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Question of the Week


Image from sxc.hu user krysek.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Or… Single Awareness Day, if you prefer.

This week’s question is about… the lovey dovey-ness that exists in this world, that pertains to Blythe.

What is the nicest (or sappiest) thing that your significant other (or someone else that is special to you) has done for you that is related to Blythe?

Some examples could be that your significant other could have given you a Blythe, went shopping for your Blythe (shoes, clothes, fabrics, trims) without prompting (or maybe with a little bit of prompting…) or helped you build something for your Blythe.

Some of the nicest things that my boyfriend has done for me in regards to Blythe would probably have to be looking at photos with me and not complaining. Or just commenting (and sometimes complimenting!) on the things that I’ve made for my dolls (it’s nice to have someone else besides me think that I did an okay job!).

« Newer EntriesOlder Entries »
blythelife.com
blythelife.com