I love Blythe, I really do. Sometimes I look over at their shiny faces and think that I’m incredibly lucky to have them. Sometimes I look over at their shiny faces and wonder when I got so many of them!

As of right now, I have 9. 9 shiny, happy, sometimes annoyed looking faces. I say ‘annoyed’ because I can name about 5 right now who haven’t had a wardrobe change since the previous year. And while it doesn’t seem like it’s been so long since the new year, we are in the second half of February now. So yes, I have accusatory faces looking at me with their orange and pink chips (I clearly need to learn to change them to side-facing before putting them back on their stands). As I’m on the verge of adopting a couple more lovelies into the doll family, I think I’m reaching my “limit” soon. I always told myself “Just 10!”. One of each mold, at least. But as I started getting closer and closer to 10, I started giving myself loopholes. Like “It’s okay to go over 10 as long as it’s Kenners”. Because, really, vintage doll goodness? I can’t pass that up!

Besides spending a less on doll ‘stuff’ this year, I think I’ll be spending more time with each doll. Give them each some individual pampering time throughout the year. I was looking at my Flickr sets the other day and noticed how little photos some of my dolls have while some that had been around for less time had a couple times more photos in total. I need to remedy that and just take more photos in general. I used to take more, back when I was doing 365. I opted not to do it this year, but I’ve begun to think that I may change that.

Some people have fifty-plus and don’t feel overwhelmed at all, lucky butts that they are. Some have a couple hundred. I really do wish I had the money and space for that many. But, unfortunately, I don’t. I’m incredibly happy with the doll family that I do have (and will have, after a few additions). I think that we’re all lucky to have Blythe in our lives. After all, without here we might not be doll collectors, and there certainly wouldn’t be this blog! I’m really grateful for Blythe for having brought me such great fun and lots of new friends and it’s a fantastic thing to have such a joyful hobby.

Have you ever felt ‘overwhelmed’ with the number of Blythes (or other dolls) that you have? What did you do to deal with it?

I’ve been doing a little survey (primarily on Twitter, somewhat on Flickr) and I was hoping to get some more responses so I’m blogging the question now as well!

What about Blythe makes you happy?

If you leave either your blog, Flickr photostream or Twitter link down below with your answer to the above question, I will link to it. All answers will be compiled together and published at a future date.

Blythe is so full of personality and it’s part of what makes her special and what makes her relationship with you special. When I get a new Blythe, I feel like I need to figure out her name and some key aspect of her personality to make her more ‘real’ to me (erm, don’t throw me into a padded room, you should know what I mean!).

Eden Mouse (Punkaholic People) is decidedly a “little girl”. I think it has a lot to do with her hair, it reminds me so much of what my hair unfortunately looked like as a child – straight bangs and what amounted to a bowl cut. Thank goodness my hair no longer looks like that, just have to say… But Eden looks like a child and she only wears pink and enjoys pink things. It took some time to figure her out, but she let me know loud and clear that she would only be wearing pink after I put a crocheted pink mouse helmet onto her silly little head.

Sometimes it just takes one thing to help decide a doll’s age. For one of my dolls, it was her hair.

I don’t really have actual numerical ages, just a ‘range’ that they fall into. For my dolls, there’s the little girls, the teenagers and the ones in their early 20s. Yes, even my Kenner (who would literally be 40 years old this year) is in her early 20s.

How old are your dolls?

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• Rosiee Gelutie has 50% off coupon code on your entire order until Tuesday February 14, 2012: FUNTREAT

Hello, hello! It’s been a while since I really blogged about Emmalynn, the lovely 1972 Kenner Blythe that I got back in late 2011. She hasn’t gotten a whole lot of photo time because she spent quite a bit of time in pieces (I’m a bad doll owner, I know). To recap (for those who didn’t read the original posts), here is the laundry list of things that I did in my quest to restore my vintage beauty to her original glory:

• Removed her scalp and hard cap; loose hair plugs were secured (with thread) and scalp tears were reinforced
• Multiple baths for her (a spa wouldn’t be complete without getting rid of the musty smell of old plastic)
• Partline rethatched (!)
• Multiple hair treatments with fabric softener, hot water and foam rollers
• Opening of head to clean out some grime and her eyeballs
• Gluing her pelvic seam crack
• Reinserting her poor legs back in (finally!)
• Replacing her scalp onto her head

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