Hello Sophie fans!

It’s a miserable Wednesday around here these days. I think you’ve all been introduced to some of my sisters before.  I’m not talking about the old broods that have been talked about over and over again, I’m talking about my younger sisters. Most notably Eden Mouse. She’s young, she’s immature, she’s territorial with her clothing and shoes. Plus, Michelle got in a cute pair of boots and then she stole them from me because “Ohhh, it’s pink! Everything pink is mine!” like that means something. I don’t know where she gets off doing things like that all the time. Little sisters are difficult to live with – so I’ve decided to share some ways that I deal with my younger sisters.

• Be the ‘bigger person’ – figuratively. Michelle is more likely to let me have the new clothes first (which she should anyways…) if I’m nice the others. I don’t know why being nice is a necessity, but it gets me new clothes and she’s more likely to make things for me if I ask (nicely).
• Hide all their toys. I hide away Eden’s toys so she can’t ask me (or the others) to play dolls with her. I don’t understand why she thinks that I would play with dolls. I’m a model and an occasional blogger – I don’t have time to play with dolls!
• Send them off on a wild goose chase. Best thing ever. I tell Eden I can’t find something random (that I don’t own) and then get her to help me find it. It keeps her occupied for hours on end and gives me peace of mind and a quiet place to hang around because she’s not yammering on and on about how “great” the colour pink is. There’s only so much one can stand listening to how great pink is and how she’s got another pair of pink boots.

Sophie is a mostly stock Cappuccino Chat that came to live with me in June 2009. She loves shoes, new clothes, playing with her hair, fashion, magazines full of fluff and shopping. She aspires to be a model and would like to model for some of the ‘great’ dolly fashion houses one day.

Blythe (Neo, full-sized, whatever you want to call them) are not the only doll in the Blythe family. There’s Petites, who have been produced by Takara from 2002 to present (last one being the 2011 anniversary Petite) and by Hasbro/Littlest Pet Shop since 2010, and the Middies, who have been produced since 2010. In comparison to the Barbie family line, Petites would be Kelly (or later Chelsea) and Middies would be Skipper. But this is a post about the Blythe family, not of the Barbie one (even if Blythe can fit Skipper fashions quite well and Kelly shoes fit the Middie dolls).

I have no Middies (which is a problem for me as I’ve seen some beautifully done customized Middies and I really want one) and I have one LPS Petite (who has been featured on the blog a few times).

How many Middies do you have? How many Petites (Takara or LPS) do you have?

From mid-November to the end of December, I collected responses from you (the general readership) to best determine what readers like and dislike about the blog, and also general demographic information. If you missed the original post, you can still take part in the survey by clicking here.

There were 24 responders and here were some of the results:

• 33% of participants were between 30-40 years of age, 25%  were 40-50 and 13% were below the age of 16
• 95% of people  found BlytheLife.com via a Google search or Flickr
• Over 50% of people read BlytheLife whenever there is a new post
• People enjoy interviews, giveaways and Blythe On A Budget posts
• People want to read more interviews, Love, Sophie, more Kenner information and crafting tutorials

If you want to add your voice to the survey, you still can! I’ll be routinely checking the responses to see how I can better improve BlytheLife.com – in the future I’ll be producing a new survey to adjust for changes already made to even better improve the website.

From time to time, I get asked why I decided to do a blog about Blythe. There was a simple reason really: because I could. I’ve been blogging in some form or fashion since about 2003. Back then, the blogging platform that a lot of people used was Greymatter (I blogged from 2003-2006, then took a break and in 2007 I started blogging again in WordPress!). So with my years of knowledge, I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks for (dolly) bloggers and hopefully you’ll learn a little something!

Get organized, stay organized
I utilize WordPress plugins when I can. I use self-hosted WordPress (so your mileage may vary if you’re using WordPress.com to host your WP blog) so I’ve installed many plugins to keep my blog running smoothly. The most handy of the WP plugins that I use has to be WordPress Editorial Calendar. I use it to have a quick glance to make sure that my posts for the week are in fact scheduled and not in draft status, and to easily scroll through and see what I have upcoming for BlytheLife in terms of posts, giveaways and other excitement.

Photo editing can be done without fancy programs
When I suffered some computer malfunctions, I had to turn to internet-based photo editing programs while I was still working on installing my much-used programs yet again. My favourite alternative to Adobe Photoshop has got to be Pixlr. Pixlr is also available as an app as Pixlr Express and Pixlr-o-matic for both Android and Apple products. I use the online version a lot (but I also use Pixlr-o-matic on my phone and you can create some fun effects!) to do some quick editing. If I just want to do a little colour boost and add a white border, I tend to turn to Pixlr now just for the efficiency. However, for more detailed work, I still use the program that I’ve always loved – Photoshop, but that’s not free! It’s really easy to resize, crop and add text to photos with Pixlr – I’ve even used it for images that have ended up on the blog! Here’s an example of a photo that I edited using Pixlr (left is before, right is after).

Give yourself a schedule, any kind of schedule
If it’s one thing that I think bloggers should do – and I’ve been guilty of not doing it (not here) – it’s to stay consistent. Nobody wants to start following a blog and then have the blogger fall off the face of the earth. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but sometimes it is! Not everyone can blog every single day (I know that I can’t!), but you can blog once a week, twice a week, twice a month – whatever your schedule is, try to keep it regular. That way your readers can anticipate when to come back to visit you and you can give yourself a goal to meet. For me, I tend to have posts go up three times a week. However, I don’t necessarily write three posts per week. Scheduling the posts in advance helps me to keep to my schedule, and it also helps me get content up while I’m in school. For instance this post was written on December 29th, 2012 and I’ve scheduled it for the day that it published (January 9th). Technology sure is marvelous!

Make it easy for people to follow your blog
The great thing about the internet, and pretty much all web browsers, is that it’s really easy for people to follow your blog. They can book mark it or add it to whatever RSS feed that they happen to be using to keep up to date on the latest blog posts. However, you should at least make it easy for them to do so! BlytheLife uses FeedBurner, now owned by Google, which allows an easy way for people to add this blog to their lists of blogs that they read. When added, they will find out when new posts are up. The easier it is for people to follow your blog and to find out when new posts are up, the more likely they are to read it!

There are several Blythe ‘molds’ that people can own, for the full size dolls, and they are:

• KB (Kenner Blythe) – 1972
• BL – 2001-2002
• EBL (“Excellent”) – 2002-2005
• SBL (“Superior”) – 2003-2008
• RBL (“Radiance”) – 2006-Present
• FBL (“Fairest”) – 2009-Present
• ADG (Ashton Drake Galleries) – 2005-2008

I haven’t included an image of an ADG because I didn’t have one that I had taken, also unfortunately the ADG dolls have never been very popular (both due to construction – and subsequent difficulty with customizing – and with colouring of the plastic).

What’s your favourite Blythe mold?