Please refer to this chart whenever you are considering a new Blythe purchase (hopefully it will help to keep you within budget!).

I invite you to take a look back at some of the interviews that I’ve done here on BlytheLife.com since I began the website on July 1, 2010. For almost all of my interviews, I’ve asked the interviewee(s) for hints and tips that they would consider offering to people who are new to the hobby, here are some of those tips and hints from 5 of the people that I’ve interviewed so far!

From Rob & Sioux (interviewed July 2, 2010):

What’s one thing that you would tell someone who’s thinking of crafting and selling something for Blythe?
S: My advice to those of you looking to craft & sell for Blythe is to please remember that Blythe designers aren’t big corporations who make things just to earn a buck. No, many pour their heart and souls into everything they make, it’s very personal. If your only interest is to make money you probably won’t be too happy. Selling things takes a lot of time, energy, and money.

R: For people thinking of starting to craft, don’t give up if you’re not happy with the results! Keep trying until you find something you enjoy making, it can be very rewarding and fun!

From Lisa of Milk-Tooth.com (interviewed July 31, 2010):

What kind of advice would you give to someone who’s just coming into the Blythe hobby?
I would tell anyone new to Blythe not to be shy and never hesitate to ask questions. It can be really intimidating to come into a well-established hobby community when you don’t know anyone or much about dolls but just remember that we were all in that position at one point in time so don’t be afraid! I would encourage them to get involved with their local Blythe scene (if there is one.) Blythe is great at bringing people together! I have made some of my very best friends because of dolls!

From Brigitte of HauteCute.net (now PBrigitte) (interviewed September 1, 2010):

What kind advice do you have for those that are new to the Blythe hobby?
For those new to the Blythe hobby I’d say to really enjoy it, take your time finding the perfect girl(s) and shopping for the perfect wardrobe for them. Let the hobby be fun, don’t get caught up in comparing your photos/doll clothes/girls with anyone else’s, and prepare to make some pretty neat friends.

From Jess of MilkyRobot.com (no longer Blythe-related) (interviewed September 12, 2010):

What kind advice would you give to someone who’s just entering into the Blythe hobby/community?
Blythe will open you up to SO many new friends and experiences. When customizing your first girl, don’t be afraid! Get familiar with the forums, my favorite is Plastic Paradise [now Blythe Kingdom]. There are so many people in this hobby that will assist you in any way with your questions and invite you in with loving arms!

From Melly Kay of CuteStew.com (interviewed November 7, 2010):

What kind of advice do you have to give to someone who’s new to the Blythe hobby?
As far as advice, first I would say learn as much as you can. I spent a lot of time researching the first few months and it helped me understand things so much better. I’d also say reach out and join a forum or get on Flickr and connect with all the Blythe lovers there.The Blythe community is wonderful and there are so many amazing people from around the globe that connect with. I’d also say go into it with a budget and plan of some sort. Blythe is addictive and expensive so prepare yourself for that. Don’t be impulsive like me, lol! Every single time I buy a girl I like on impulse, it never fails that a “dream girl” I really want goes up for adoption a few days after and I don’t have the funds to get her. Take your time, plan your collection out and have fun!!

You’ve done it. You came up with a stellar blog name, you learned a little bit of HTML and your blog? Well, it looks fantastic. But you do a few posts and no one comments. In fact, the only person who seems to visit your site is you. What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, unless you planned to make your blog for complete private and personal use only, you need to let people know about your new website!

Make your blog visitor-friendly
You should follow a schedule when posting, it does make it easier for people to know when there will be new material. For instance, BlytheLife.com will generally have at least 3 posts per week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays). I follow a schedule and even schedule the posts to go up at generally the same time all the time (12:00pm Pacific time). Include some information about yourself, have an RSS feed button somewhere that’s easily accessible for those that want to add you to their RSS feeds. Make sure that commenting is enabled.

If you are on Blogger, make sure that you set it so that people who don’t wish to log into their Google account (or any other account) can actually comment on your blog entries. If they can’t comment without taking extra steps, they probably won’t. You need to go to the page about Comments settings and enable it to allow everyone.

If you’re on WordPress, you can install a plugin that makes your site mobile-browsing friendly (it’s called WordPress Mobile Edition).

Lastly on making your site more visitor-friendly, always always always resize your images. I’m not just talking about adjust the height and width of the image itself, but actually resize the file size. You can save files optimized for web-use in Photoshop and most other image manipulating programs. This not only helps your site to load faster but to use less bandwidth overall (very important if you happen to either pay for your own hosting or have a limited amount of bandwidth on a free account somewhere).

Utilize Social Media: Twitter
A great way to do this is if you happen to have some people following you on Twitter. Every single time you have a new post, tweet it with the URL. In fact, tweet more than once. No more than few times before people start getting annoyed at you only tweeting your own blog  and unfollowing you though, because that would defeat the purpose. You’ll want to include in your tweet the URL of the blog post and either the title of your blog or the title of the blog entry.

Utilize Social Media: Flickr
Another way of getting some people interested in your blog is to take a screenshot of your blog (press the “Print Screen” or “prt sc” key on your blog, paste it into an image manipulating program of your choice and crop as you see fit) and put it up on Flickr. And don’t forget to include your URL. This works best if you have a lot of people who have you marked down as a contact, but you can always include the screenshot in relevant Flickr groups.

Utilize Social Media: Facebook
It doesn’t matter if you’re actually friends with everyone that you have added as a friend (I have a relative that I’ve never met before in my life added on Facebook, but she can’t view everything so that’s great). If you’re okay with people on Facebook knowing about your new blog, announce your blog as a status update and include the URL as your website link in your profile information.

Comment on other blogs
Say what? Comment on other blogs? Yes! There’s a great sense of karma in the blogging world, where if you comment on a blog (and if that blog author has the time), you’ll get a comment back! Now, this only works if the person can find something to comment on (which leads you back to making your blog visitor friendly) and if they can find something that they feel that they need to comment on. Don’t be surprised if not everyone who comments on your blog will comment back – sometimes they just can’t think of anything to comment on.

Final thoughts…
Blogging should be fun! But sometimes it can be a lot of work, especially if you want to keep up with the trends or just feel that you ‘need’ to blog. It’s always okay to take a little blogging vacation from time to time, but be sure to tell people about it on your blog and to let them know when you plan to be back.

If you found the Doll Blogging mini-series helpful, please let me know! If you  have any suggestions for another mini-series, please let me know on the suggestions page. If you created a blog and want to see it linked on BlytheLife.com, check out the links page.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read the first four installments of the Doll Blogging mini-series!

• Part 1: The Introduction
• Part 2: Names & Hosts
• Part 3: HTML
• Part 4: Themes, Templates & Design
• Part 5: Promoting Your Site

Thanks to Jessica and Pauleen for being the two entrants in the giveaway and many thanks to Heather for doing the interview with me and for sponsoring the fantastic giveaway (the headband is absolutely darling!). There was a total of 21 entries split between two people (not quite evenly, but close enough).

And the winner is…

Click to read more of this entry.

For those that may remember, I blogged a little bit about Chicki.co.uk a while ago when Vicky was looking for artisans to carry their products in her webshop! It’s a super adorable shop of all things cute that’s based out of the United Kingdom. Her shop carries all sorts of things – both Blythe dolls and accessories and other fun things!

Hi Vicky! What can you tell us about yourself and how you came to discover Blythe?
I discovered Blythe about 9-10 years ago whilst at a fashion trade show in London. A European company was producing bags and Apparel with Gina’s images.

How did Chicki came to existing?
I use to make and sell alternative clothing to a local shop where I also worked part time and decided I would create my own web shop for my items. However after having a baby just over 6 years ago I had much less time so decided to take a new direction. This is when Chicki started to grow into what we see today.

A Zombuki doll necklace (left) and a Scrummyland jelly bean muffin necklace.

What makes your site unique on the internet?
We enjoy what we do and are in love with the products. My partner is the brains behind all of the web stuff and illustration and we both work hard on the visual side of things. We also try and source smaller brands and artists to work with. It’s so hard trying to compete with the millions of websites out there so having fresh new products helps a great deal.

I love the things you have available on your website! How can someone go about getting their products in your store?
Well most of the time I just scour the internet for products and hunt them down until I find them. If anyone has anything they think would fit in well with our store they can email us their product information. I’m a super window shopper and love searching out those hard to find items. I just love finding something that’s new and awesome and can’t wait to share it with the customers.

What kind of Blythe things are you currently carrying and planning on carrying in the future?
We have got a small range of Blythe dolls, wigs, shoes, clothes, accessories and miniatures. We also sell the wonderful Zombuki products that feature customised dolls. We have also just stocked a couple of lovely Blythe fashion bags (for people).

I am working on a new range of Blythe clothing too. Making dolls clothes was one of my favourite pass times as a kid and so I’m happy to get back into this. I also make my own range of miniature food jewellery called Scrummyland so I may also make some doll jewellery.

I am also considering stocking the Blythe Littlest Pet Shop range but I’m not quite sure what I think about it so I would love your thoughts.

For those who have never placed an order with Chicki, what’s the process like from first visiting your website to receiving a purchase in the mail?
Ordering is pretty simple. All you need to do is register as a customer and then shop. We sell worldwide so wherever you are you can get your fix of cute stuff. International orders are sent by airmail so it doesn’t take too long, about 5-7 days on average.

We regularly give out coupons and passwords for money off and freebies through our blog, Twitter, Facebook and mail outs so it’s worth checking them out for great money off deals and FREE stuff.

From left to right: Scrummyland Happy Lemon Mirror, Luli Bunny Momiji Doll Alex, Very Vicky.

I think it’s great that you incorporate your childhood hobbies into your business now! How did you get your start in making miniature food jewellery?
It was about 4 years ago that I started making the miniature food jewellery. I had been making a lot of hair bows and necklaces using vintage fruit shaped beads and buttons previously and they were always popular. At this point I decided to concentrate on producing my own range of food inspired accessories. It was also a perfect fit for the other items being sold through Chicki.

I love that there’s a little something for everyone in your shop. How do you balance the work and the play sides of things when you’re creating the products and having new things arrive all the time?
This is the hardest thing and some days I get very frustrated as I seem to spent so much time dealing with customers, packing orders, accounts, buying, adding new products, product images, the list seems endless. It can be hard to get the time to sit down and create stuff and just when you think you can the dog needs walking or our son needs to be picked up from school.

Most of the time I use my evenings to create new products if I can. Also in the quite months I may get a few days here and there to do the stuff I love. It is very hectic but I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

From left to right: Blythe skull boots, bobbed blonde wig, Blythe bag with a bobble hat.

For both things that you make and other things that sell, what goes through your head when you see the photos that people put up online of the things from Chicki?
I love to see people getting pleasure from the things they have got from Chicki it’s a great feeling.
When I worked in the clothing store I mentioned before and customers were buying items I had made, or I saw people out wearing my items I felt good but never wanted to point out that it was my stuff. I was rubbish at promoting myself. That’s why I like the whole online community. I find it much easier with all of the social networking tools and have met some great like minded people.

Thank you so much for doing this interview with me, Vicky! What kind of advice do you have for someone who’s just discovering Blythe?
Not to be afraid of what others might think! You should embrace all that makes you happy. Toy’s are wonderful and joyful things that captivate the imagination. You are never too old for that.

Chicki.co.uk Prize Pack Giveaway!

Oh yes, one very lucky winner will be winning: 1 super cute Blythe bag, 1 pair of Blythe sunglasses, 1 bobbed wig, 1 box of Re-ment and 1 miniature bag of handmade boiled sweets (not pictured).

You can get up to sixteen (16) entries for this giveaway draw and you can enter until Saturday April 9th 2011 at 11:59pm PDT. The draw will be held on Sunday April 10th 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 Vicky 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 Vicky of Chicki! Do you have any questions for her? 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. Please comment below to tell me that you’ve been tweeting (1 comment per tweet!)

Check out @blythelifecom interview’s with Vicky of Chicki.co.uk and a great prize pack! http://bit.ly/foOYVQ

Bonus Entry #2: Follow the Chicki.co.uk’s Twitter account! This is worth 1 entry. Comment below to let me know that you’ve followed her Twitter account!

Bonus Entry #3: 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 Chicki.co.uk! For 1 blog entry, this is worth 5 entries into the giveaway! You must comment below with the URL to your blog post. In order for blog posts to be eligible for entries, you are not to copy-and-paste information directly (please write in your own words!).

If you can’t wait to find out if you’ve won or found other fantastic things on Chicki.co.uk that you want, Vicky has offered up a discount code just for BlytheLife.com readers!

Enter BLYTHELIFE at check out (and remember to update your cart to apply the discount!) for 10% off your purchase.