Jen made up this fancy little face-up chart when she was sending off one of her dolls to get customized and she’s decided to share it with all of you here at BlytheLife.com! It’s a great tool if you’re sending a doll off to get customized (and want to make sure that the customizer understands what you want) or if you’re customizing a doll for yourself and want to do a bit of planning first!

The face-up chart is available as a PDF download here at BlytheLife, you will need a PDF reader in order to view it on your computer.

Some programs that you can use: Adobe Acrobat and Foxit Reader.

Feel free to print the chart off for your customizing uses, but remember to keep the credits information at the bottom of the page!

Please check out Jen’s Flickr photostream (Dolls Crystals and PositivelyStoned) as well as her website, PositivelyStoned.com.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the Blythe Face Chart!

Thank you so much, Jen, for this fantastic Blythe resource!

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Do you have a Blythe resource or something that you’d like to contribute to BlytheLife.com? Find out how you can contribute here!

A while ago, there was a Twitter conversation happening regarding custom work and the current high prices that a customized Blythe fetches. Now, not all customizers actually charge this much for their work. A lot of the time, the high prices happen as a result of the work being auctioned by the customizer or through second market pricing.

I’m a firm believer that a good custom Blythe is art.

Just like how you wouldn’t just offer a few dollars for a masterpiece of an oil painting, you wouldn’t offer a few dollars for a gorgeous customized doll. That said, customs can be fairly expensive. When I first started in the Blythe hobby (in the long ago year of 2009), customized Blythes went for what I considered to be a lot of money ($300+). Now, not all customized dolls went for this much, just like how not all customized dolls today go for $600+. But a lot of them did (and do). I thought that customized dolls were pretty (I still do), but they weren’t something that I was actively looking to add to my collection.

And at eleven dolls, they still aren’t going to be something that I’m looking to add to my collection, if only because I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Not all customs are created equal, just like how not all doll clothes are created equal. What you can buy from one customizer will not be the same as from another; but many people have been pricing their work at prices similar to the “greats” or “popular” customizers. It’s a hobby, but for some people it is a job and I respect that. If they can price a customized doll at $500 and have it sell, why wouldn’t they? They’re not going to price it at-cost just because they think it’s the morally right thing to do. Not all customizers do this, of course. Some customizers of lower-priced work are still incredible customizers, but their prices haven’t risen as drastically as others have. Sometimes all it takes is one person having your custom work to make it popular.

I do think that a lot of fantastic customizers don’t get the kind of popularity that they probably do deserve. I look at the work of some people who’s work doesn’t go for $1000+ per doll and I wonder why when their work is a similar calibre as someone’s work who does. The Blythe market can be fickle at times, I think, but I think that people who do create great works of art should charge what they think is fair and what is best for them.

With that in mind, where does that leave the buyers in the community? With the economy down and up and down and up, a lot of people can’t afford customized work, regardless of who’s doing it. Then again, collectible dolls like Blythe are expensive. It’s not a hobby that’s incredibly accessible to a lot of people because of the costs involved in collecting dolls (and their clothes and shoes and the other dolls to go with your first one…).

It may be a pain to not be able to buy some gorgeous new custom, but at the same time… if you look to your own doll family you may see that money available… just in the form of dolls. A lot of people cycle through your dolls – selling dolls and doll accessories in order to afford other dolls and other clothing. I think that’s very admirable – it keeps the money cycling in a way that doesn’t make your hobby more expensive than the initial investment.

Can you afford today’s customized Blythes? How do you feel about today’s customs prices? And what, if you have one, is the ‘ceiling’ of what you’d fork out for a customized Blythe doll?

Thank you so much to everyone who read and entered the giveaway that I’m doing with Kate (a.k.a. Moofers)! Be sure to check out her Flickr, blog and Etsy shop if you haven’t already – she has a lot of fantastic eyechips for sale right now!

I just wanted to remind everyone – if you’re tweeting as part of your entries, it does need to be from a public Twitter account. I don’t have everyone’s accounts added on Twitter to the @blythelifecom account and if I can’t see it, I can’t count it as an entry.

And the winner of this fantastic pair of handpainted eyechips by Kate is…

Click to read more of this entry.

I had this conversation with one of my sister’s friends recently. She had joined our family out for lunch because she and my sister had choir rehearsal afterwards. I had one of my Blythes with me in a carry bag and she had asked what was in it. So I showed her the doll that I had with me (a certain mouse doll) and then she started asking more questions about Blythe.

• What’s so special about them?
• How many do you have?
• Where did you get them?
• How much are they?

I explained the history and the eye mechanism (she thought the pinks were a bit “odd”). I have eleven. I mentioned getting them locally (Sophie was bought in an actual shop!), online, having them bought for me in brick-and-mortar shops overseas. And then I explained the overall range of prices. Which led to even more questions.

“Well, you said some people customize them, or whatever, why couldn’t you just get one doll and change her face whenever you want? Or put different hair on her?” which was followed by “What’s the most expensive doll that you have that isn’t a Kenny doll?”

Kenny doll. Oh bother.

Like parents do with their kids, I showed her photos of my Blythes on my phone. She didn’t really “get” the differences (probably hard for Muggles to tell from just photos anyways). And then there was the comment of “I think the newer ones look a lot better than the old ones. The old ones have more issues, why wouldn’t you just get the newer ones without flaws?”

She did seem to like Eden (Punkaholic People) though. And she did like the photo that I had of Mollie (Simply Sparkly Spark). But other than that, she seemed to think the rest were a bit too similar (EBL = SBL = RBL in her mind; Kenners were too ratty looking, hah).

Muggles.

Photo from sxc.hu user thea0211

A great way to save a little money is to make your own doll clothing. Of course, if you buy expensive materials, it may end up more expensive compared to already made frocks… I like to get the most bang for my buck, and I’ve compiled a little list of things that I do to keep the sewing part of my Blythe hobby as inexpensive as humanly possible.

• I use primarily clear, white or black thread and I tend to save the coloured thread for when I really need it. If the stitches aren’t going to show, I usually just use white thread. I’ve found that white thread is more likely to go on sale or be cheaper and it also comes in larger spools. You don’t need to buy matching thread for all your projects, especially if the thread isn’t showing. This also means that I always have three bobbins reserved for clear, white or black thread. The rest of the bobbins often have remnants of other colours that I don’t use as often.
• Thrift bedsheets. Two weeks ago I picked up a white king-sized flat bedsheet for the grand total of $3 plus tax. It’s 100% cotton and you could not get that big of a piece of fabric at a fabric store for that price. The only flaw with it was that there was an orange stain the size of a quarter. It went through the wash with a bit of bleach and it came out completely white. Now I have enough white fabric to use as lining forever (given my pace of sewing…).
• Buttons! I snip buttons off of clothes that I’m about to throw out or utilize the fabric somewhere else. Even if I don’t have a project right that moment, I’ll probably have a project for it in the future. This also applies to thrifted clothes that I get for their fabrics (I like looking in the children’s section for clothing with small prints that would fit well for Blythe).
• Transferring patterns. I don’t like cutting patterns out of books or out of the big pattern sheets (Simplicity, I’m looking at you!). What I like to do is use tracing paper. Tracing paper is inexpensive (even more so if you use a 40% or 50% off coupon from one of the big box arts & crafts stores!) and a pad is usually pretty thick (at least 50 sheets). It’s easy to use and is thinner than regular paper so it also lies flatter when you’re pinning it against fabric.

What great money-saving sewing tips do you have? Share below!