I’ve seen this debated on various forums. People post photos from their vacations in South-East Asian countries where you can find Blythe in actual stores and there’s displays of Blythe in storefronts, boxes and boxes of new dollies just waiting to be bought and opened up. And there’s a certain thrill about that idea.

After all, how awesome would it be if you could just walk into the toy department of a store and pick up the latest Blythe release off the shelf, pay at the cash register and go on your way home?

And on the other side of the debate, people have said that they’d probably spend even more money on Blythe. Maybe the dolls would lose some of her mystique if everyone knew who Blythe was. After all, one of the things about Blythe is that she isn’t well known at all. Then again, if everyone knew  who she was, maybe I’d stop getting strange looks whenever I pull out a big-headed doll. Or maybe I’d get more strange looks because people would start thinking that she’s a child’s plaything like they do with the average Barbie doll.

It’s kind of a freeing thought, the idea of the possibility of getting to just walk into any old store to pick up a new Blythe. But at the same time, would Blythe being easily available be the beginning of the end of the community as we know it? If you could go into any old store for a new doll, there’d be more new people all the time along with a huge influx of people selling things all the time and we’d lose the close-knit feeling of the dolly community.

Would you want Blythe to be easily accessible? Why or why not?

For people new to the Blythe hobby, there’s a lot of ideas that they have about Blythe that may be wrong. I know I’ve made some mistakes and I’m sure that other people have made mistakes as well. Some misconceptions are costly (in terms of just time and money) while others are just for your own personal preferences, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. But these are just five of the more common misconceptions that I think a lot of people going into the Blythe hobby have about these pretty dolls.

Buying a lot of cheap Blythes, because that other one is just really, really expensive.
I’ve seen a lot of people do this. Some people start off buying regular releases of Prima Dollies or Simply dolls because they are meant to be ‘basic’ Blythes for new collectors (and they’re also meant to be mostly stripped down dolls for those who customize the Blythes). Let’s say each doll that you buy is $100 (and, for the most part, Simply and Prima dolls go for around that much, depending on the conversion rate). Let’s say that you buy 5 of these. Awesome, now you have 5 Blythes. You may not love them all, but you have five. But then there’s two Blythes that you really love that are going for ~$250 each. For the same amount of money you spent on five less-loved dolls, you could have gotten the two that you really, really love. It’s worth it to find the doll that you really want and then to get her rather than to get dolls that you may not love as much or a doll that you’re only looking at because of her low price.

Quantity over quality, when it comes to clothing.
I’ve done this plenty of times! In the beginning, I was all about getting a big wardrobe of clothes for my dolls. It didn’t really matter if it all completely fit well or not, but at least my dolls were dressed! I spent a lot of time needing to work on the raw seams with fray check on some of those clothes that I bought though, and sometimes the quality of the material just doesn’t stand up to the very mild abuse that I put it through. I did learn though that sometimes it does take a little bit more money to get something really nice, but it’s well worth it if you consider the time, talent/skill and energy put into crafting a doll dress. If you want to make all your own doll clothing, that’s cool too – but you’d probably want to make sure that the material is something that will last, won’t stain your doll and take your time with making it. After all, you’re the one that needs to put up with your dolls as critics.

eBay is the only place in the world where you can find Blythe.
Wrong! Maybe this was mostly true in the past, but there are a lot of options now. You can buy newer releases of Blythe directly from the Junie Moon webshop. You can also look at the buy/sell/trade forums on boards like This is Blythe and Blythe Kingdom. There is also a Blythe Livejournal community. Some customizers also sell directly off of their own websites or via sites like Etsy. There are even some physical stores that retail Blythe, if you happen to be travelling to a bustling metropolitan in Asia.

Customizing dolls is totally and utterly easy.
Maybe for you it will be! Maybe this mostly just applies to me, because I’m an absolute chicken when it comes customizing my dolls. The most that I’ve done (besides some Kenner restorations) is sleep eyes, gaze lifting and eye chip changes. If you’re inclined to start customizing your doll, be sure to look at posts about how to do it.

There’s some things that I do know though: use chalk pastels (not oil pastels), don’t use cosmetics for humans, if you’re going to dye a doll’s hair you shouldn’t use a pot that you also use for food (and if you did use it for food at one point, never use it for food again!). Oh, and don’t use Gorilla Glue. Every time you use Gorilla Glue on a dolly, it makes a Kenner cry.

Blythe is a great way to invest money.
If you’re looking for investment options, I would like to turn your attention to either real estate or the stock market. Blythe, while lovely and charming, probably isn’t the best way to invest your money if you’re looking for any kind of a relatively quick turn around in terms of value. If you wanted to use Blythe as an investment, you probably should have bought a hundred or so minty Kenners back in 1973 and kept them in a temperature controlled room and just start selling them slowly via eBay. But nowadays, it’s harder to predict which doll will be highly valued as the years go by. Popularity of certain Blythe releases can fluctuates. For a while, one of the cheapest Blythes available was Mademoiselle Rosebud and Pow Wow Poncho (Takara, not ADG) at around $60-70USD. Now they’re a bit more. But it’s hard to predict who will become popular. Blythe does retain her value fairly well, as far as reselling a doll you currently own to get money for something else, but she’s probably not the best way to go if you’re looking for an investment.

Also, even if you invest money into NRFB (never removed from box) Blythes, it’s hard to see if your dolls will be worth more in the future. NRFB Kenners also had similar problems as their out-of-box counterparts. Some Kenners had pelvic cracks, yellowing, frizzy hair – all while in their plastic wrapped boxes.

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What kind of misconceptions did you have about Blythe when you first started in the hobby?

The weather’s gotten a bit dreary and what better way to bring a little sunshine into our lives than with a little contest? The wonderful Vicky of Chicki.co.uk and ScrummyLand on Etsy has kindly agreed to sponsor a giveaway.

The ScrummyLand Etsy shop has a lot of Blythe-sized goodies (like cute hats and shirts) as well as accessories for the dolls’ human counterparts. What I do like about ScrummyLand is that you can go and buy something for your dolls as well as something for yourself and gifts for some friends while you’re there!

I had interviewed Vicky a while back, I hope some of you remember, and we had talked about Chicki.co.uk – which has a lot of dolls, clothing sets and Re-Ment available and she recently restocked! You can find coupons and updates for Chicki.co.uk via Twitter and Facebook.

If you don’t want to leave your luck of getting some ScrummyLand goods up to chance, you can get free worldwide shipping when you use the code FREESHIP at ScrummyLand until the end of November.

Giveaway!

The winner will receive a hat and a fluffy top (like the ones pictured below; please note that you may receive similar items in other colours or patterns) and some handmade miniature foods (not pictured):

You can get up to two (2) entries for this giveaway draw and you can enter until Wednesday November 23rd 2011 at 11:59pm PST. The draw will be held on Thursday November 24th 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 and one IP address per person, those using multiple email addresses for more entries will be disqualified.

Mandatory Entry: Vicky wants to know the answer to this question (so comment below!): We love retro and character t-shirts, so what would you love to have on your doll’s t-shirt?

Bonus Entry #1: Rate your top three favourite t-shirt designs from the ScrummyLand Etsy shop and comment below (please make this a separate comment from your mandatory entry).

When I was little, my female dolls only had each other. I didn’t have any boy dolls at all and of my friends, I think only one of them had a boy doll (Ken, of course). And now that I have Blythe, I still don’t have any boy dolls. I feel quite okay with this, seeing as how I see them as being fairly young (at least, younger than I am). My Kenner, despite the fact that she’ll be turning 40 next year, is still young at heart. Perhaps older and more mature than the other Blythes in my family, but still not “really” forty.

So my dolls, lovely and as demanding as they may be, have no needs for a significant other (male or female). They live in a female-only doll family and seem to quite like it. Maybe it’s because boys have cooties, maybe it’s because I just don’t see Blythe as making a convincing male (that is to say, some customizers do an amazing job on their boy Blythes, but to me Blythe is just too feminine). But I know that some dolly collectors also have male dolls of other collectible toy lines and some of their Blythes have a significant other in their photostories.

Do your Blythes have a significant other? If so, what kind of doll is she/he?

Sometimes I look at my dolly stuff and feel like I just have too much. Too many dolls, too many little shoes, too many shirts, pants, dresses, hats (oh, especially the hats!). It’s all just stuff, after all, and sometimes there’s just too much clutter, too many things in my space that make me wonder why I have so much to begin with.

I found that it’s common to feel that way, I’ve read threads on Blythe Kingdom where others have expressed feeling overwhelmed. Some because they started adding up how much they’ve spent on Blythe (if you want to feel really guilty really quickly, this is probably a good way to do it – otherwise, I do not recommend doing this), some because they realize how much money they have tied up in little doll dresses when they could be clothing themselves.

I’ve slowly added to my collection of dolly clothes over time. I got two dolls before I really started to get any clothes for them. For more than a year, I was pretty okay with my group of girls (6) that the only Blythe that I’d added recently was purchasing a grail doll (redheaded Kenner).

If you are feeling overwhelmed, maybe it’s time to make the dolly family smaller. Maybe it’s time to do a little closet clean-out and then you can have money for things that you really need (food, hydro, rent) or things that you want (new dolly, new doll clothes). When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I remind myself that all of my Blythes were bought because I had the money available and that I’m not hard-pressed for cash right now so it’s okay to enjoy them.

An important thing to note is that it’s really easy to spend money in this hobby. There’s always another doll up for sale, another custom OOAK Blythe somewhere. There’s always a dress, or a pair of shoes, or a pair of jeans available. And what is really important is being able to take stock of what money that you do have and what you can afford to spend on dolly stuff. If that requires giving yourself a monthly or annual limit, then so be it. If that requires you to ‘recycle’ dolls that you’re no longer in love with or clothing that you don’t like on any of your dolls for more dolly money just to buy more dolly stuff, then go for it.

As long as you’re not needing the money and needing to buy things that are necessities, I don’t see the problem in having a hobby that’s a little pricey. There are a lot more hobbies out there that require a lot more money! (But that’s really not the point…)