Little Lovelies is such a fun Etsy shop based out of Australia and ran by Christine. She does beautiful needlework and creates clothing for a “fashionable and luxury look”. I was so pleased to get to know Christine and now to share some things I learned about her with all of you!

Hi Christine! Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am a keen artist and crafter and always have been from an early age. My Nana taught me needlework when young and both mum and Nana taught me knitting and crochet. This sparked my creative yearning to make and create for enjoyment and for a living. I owned a rubber stamp shop for some years and learnt lots of different techniques with many materials and really found myself inspired. Now we have places to sell and share our crafts again I am once again enjoying my craft and excited to see so many people’s talent. I have written a children’s rhyme book Going to the Galaxy and love to do wild colourful paintings on canvas and mannequin bodies. Making small little lovelies for Blythe dolls is new to me since February this year.

How did you discover Blythe dolls? Who is in your doll family currently?
My long time stamping/arty/craft/talented friend Marina/PetiteAppleShop on Etsy has been my mentor and introduced me to Blythe dolls – and others. I was searching for a new creative interest and she said – go look at this – and gave me links to look at and read ad see and learn – and I was blown away. I immediately started knitting and embroidering again. I am also back to sewing after many many years of other crafts and arts. Marina customized my Blythe doll Lilith, who is my only Blythe so far.

Tell us about your first sale.
My first sale was a cute little variegated green cardigan in a lovely hand dyed mohair yarn. I was thrilled someone could like and want a garment I made and the sale came in fairly soon after listing, so that was exciting. I love creating and love that someone would want something I made. Very enjoyable.

How has Blythe brightened up your world since you learned about the dolls and gotten Lilith?
It has brightened up my life a lot as I work on the phone and wait for calls so now I have plenty to do and love the playing with fabrics and doing my embroideries again.. it all to do with colour for me and now my world is much more colourful and fun. I also enjoy seeing what others are doing and their creative ideas.

Tell us a little bit about a regular day for you when working on items for Little Lovelies.
I start creating a garment from fabrics for sewing a dress or top and skirt. Takes me ages to play with the fabrics etc and pick the right laces.. I really enjoy it. I am not so experienced at sewing so its slow but I usually make one each day and plan a new one. At night time I knit and embroider the little jumpers and cardigans and dresses. Again choosing colours and embroideries that will match dresses. I spend most of the day doing something for Blythe. Other times I am dressing Lilith and doing photo’s ready for selling and listing. Most of my day is taken up with some kind of activity for Lilith. In between I check out the websites and look at others peoples creations for joy and inspiration.

How has having a creative background helped you in creating for Blythe?
Having knitted and embroidered for so long now I found this easy to adjust to. Making small items is so much fun as a project can be finished in a day. Having experience in the past has helped me create more things faster and make up new things.

What would you say sets you apart from the other Etsy shops that sell Blythe items?
I choose (as much as possible) rare and unusual fabrics, pure yarns that are hand dyed (mostly) and not always available. I hand dye my own laces and ribbons and hope to hand dye yarns soon as well, so these items will certainly be One of a Kind.

I also see that not many people do Bullion stitch embroidery nowadays, which is 3 dimensional flowers on fabric and yarn. I don’t see anyone doing this type of embroidery for Blythe dolls so I hope it sets me apart and people will want to have some too. I also offer custom knits and embroideries so anyone can choose what flower on what garment in whatever colour they like.

What has been your favourite piece that you’ve created so far? Did you wind up selling it or keeping it?
My favourite piece is in the picture of Lilith with the dress on and lots of embroidered flowers. I did this piece some time ago, never knowing why mind you… then when Marina customized Lilith I sent the embroidery which was on an old handkerchief (that’s a strange word!) and I sent it for her to use. However, she made the lovely dress it is on and it displays my embroidery as well, I love it and will not part with that at all. Mostly because it is made from both of us. My first item on my own was a tiny green cardigan that sold first too.

What’s coming up next for you and Little Lovelies?
What’s next… anything, everything. I just pick up materials and yarns and make.. I am sewing dresses now too and am doing all sorts of different garments; nothing that I intend, but I end up doing. I am still experimenting with the creative process of sewing and putting colours and fabrics together. I hope to put embroideries on these as well and do custom work for people. I am also putting beading in the knits I am doing and shortly hope to have lovely beads inside flowers of embroidery. I have all sorts of ideas but whether it turns out or not is another thing! I love creating.

Thank you for doing this interview with me, Christine! What advice do you have for someone who’s new to embroidery?
Gosh! I cant imagine being new to embroidery… Patience with yourself, practice – your worst mistakes can turn out to be something wonderful: work with it.

I begun so young and just kept doing some from time to time, learning new things when I saw them and just practiced til I was happy with it. Only teacher was my Nana and books. With the bullion embroidery I was struggling til I found someone who did it and had her show me a few tips. I was addicted, I love doing it.

You can find out more about Christine and Little Lovelies on Etsy, Flickr, Pinterest, and Zibbet.

Cardigan Giveaway!

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It has been a long, long, long year. At least to me. At the beginning of 2015, I was still in school, still going through the motions of writing papers and attending practicums. Then came graduation, and the sudden realization that I had No Job – this coupled with the organization of BlytheCon Vancouver had kept me busy. I was applying for jobs left, right, and centre along with trying to keep on top of things behind the scenes for BlytheCon. Then BlytheCon was blissfully over and I still had no job, but no I had no excuse for not putting even more energy into finding a job because I didn’t have BlytheCon to distract me.

And might I say it was really, really a low blow to the self-esteem every time one of my classmates that I graduated with posted about how they were going through orientation or aced an interview or how much they were loving where they were working? Jealousy and envy were my very close friends at that point. Of course I realized that nobody in my shoes were going to post things like “LOL, still unemployed” – which is something important to note: people put their best forward on the internet.

But once I got a job (!) and started going through orientation, it just all went a lot faster. Suddenly I had a full week of orientation, and some workshops, followed by more orientation, and then a whole bunch of orientation shifts which kept me really busy and also unable to spend as much time on my hobbies as I had grown accustom to during my ‘sabbatical’ between end of school and beginning work.

That makes the time that I spend with my friends and family more valuable, and the short moments I do get to interact with dolly people online or in person that much better. I don’t ‘waste’ time on the internet anymore, instead it’s quite deliberate visits to certain sites, making sure I don’t fall down the rabbit hole that is Netflix for hours and hours on end anymore because I need to be up at 5:30am the next morning. Life has changed a bit since I started working, and that’s a good thing. It means that I need to work on finding a work-life balance as well as having a greater appreciation for the time I have for the people around me.

The day that I wrote this, I spent some time writing in some holiday cards for people near and far from me, because I think it’s important to share with people that they mean something to do you.

Have you sent out your holiday cards yet? It’s getting down to the wire to have them hopefully arrive on time! And do you send them to Blythe friends?

Middie Monday is a feature that is published on the first Monday of each month! A guaranteed monthly post on Blythe’s little sister – Middie! If you have any suggestions for a future Middie Monday post, please send me an email or use my Suggestions form!

It’s December, which also means that one of my favourite holidays is coming up soon! Now what does that have to do with Middies? Not much, but I was musing a bit about what Blythe-related (and Middie-related!) gifts I’d be putting on my wishlist if I was still doing that. For my Middies though, I do think they need something for the holiday season. Given their meager outfit choices between two of them (poor things), I’m thinking I need to work on the following:

• Outerwear (coats) and accessories (hats, scarves)
• Dresses (just more of them, a greater selection)
• Separates (tops and bottoms – this is literally at the bottom of my list because something about sewing doll-sized pants makes me apprehensive of sewing…)
• Shoes (to be bought)

Basically, my Middies need a little of everything. And if they felt hot or cold, they’d be shivering in their little plastic shoes right now. Not boots though, because I only have one pair of boots that really fit them (I’m a bad Middie owner…).

Do you own Middies? Do they suffer in comparison to their bigger Blythe sisters on the wardrobe or shoe front? What do your Middies want (or need)?

Welcome to the 2015 Blythe Holiday Shopping Guide! This is part 3 of a 3 part mini-series to help those who are trying to figure out what to buy for themselves, or what to buy for the Blythe-lover in their life. Part 1 was the $25 and less part, while part 2 was the $100 and less price range of the shopping guide!

Blythe – a somewhat unnecessary, can be expensive, and very much a luxury hobby. For the third part of the Holiday Shopping Guide, let’s explore the gift options that are greater than $100! For pretty much all of these suggestions, you’ll likely want to involve the gift receiver as you wouldn’t want to buy something expensive that isn’t to their taste (or something they want, or fits their needs).

1. A new doll. There are many different new stock Blythe releases out there for the Neo and Middie sizes, pretty much all of them will cost you more than $100. And if the Blythe lover in your life is anything like me, they have a list of what new releases they really love and want. It may take some creativity on your part, but be sure to check out their Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr to see if they liked or commented on any images of new Blythe releases that they really love. If it’s a newer new release, be sure to check out this list of legitimate online Blythe retailers to see if the doll is available for sale.

2. An old doll. And by ‘old’, I mean a 1972 Kenner Blythe doll. If you’re looking at a doll in pristine condition, be aware that you may be paying a pretty penny for her! It is a good time to buy a Kenner Blythe though, as prices have been fairly low for even the minty dolls. You should be able to find a fairly minty looking Kenner Blythe with no body cracks and minimal issues with the hair for about $500-750. Obviously if the hair colour or cut is more rare, the doll will be more expensive, but I have recently seen several fairly minty Kenner Blythes sell for very reasonable low prices.

3. An alpaca or mohair reroot. These are reroots done in natural fibres that are kitten soft and can come in some beautiful natural or dyed colours. These labourious and oh-so-time-consuming works of art can cost you quite a bit – expect to pay a minimum of $200 for an natural fibre reroot, more depending on the type of fibre, length of fibre, and colour(s). But they’re so pretty!

4. Without getting into the politics and controversy of the incredibly expensive doll clothing sets, what about some form of display cabinet? Yes, there are many shelf units out there that are less than $100, but think about the sheer size of your loved one’s collection, followed by the necessity of glass covered doors so that the collection is visible but also protected from mischievous cats and the dolls don’t need to be dusted on a very regular basis. Something nice and sturdy with glass doors would be lovely, and likely to cost well over $100, depending on where you shop.

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I hope that the 2015 Blythe Holiday Shopping Guide has been helpful to you in determining some potential gifts for the Blythe enthusiast in your life! For the discerning Blythe hobbyist, it’s probably best to get them involved in helping to choose their gifts – that way you can be sure that they get something that they love! There’s a huge price range that Blythe-related gifts can fall in, so don’t be afraid that all Blythe gifts will wind up being expensive!

Month #3 was the month that I fell flat on. I got to photo 70 of 365 before I just kind of stumbled with taking photos. It was also the same day that I started my new job (sort of, officially/unofficially), which was back on November 9th and no photos were taken since.

The month of November began with a Halloween Blythe meet on the 1st, followed by knitting, collecting birthday swag, turning another year older, and beginning orientation for my new job as a casual Registered Nurse. Since the 9th/last day I took a photo of Eden for 365, I’ve started working and have been really busy! Hopefully it settles a bit soon and I get into more of a routine so I can spend some time on my hobbies too.

365 challenges are hard. They are so simple in concept – take a photo once a day. Until you actually try to do it, then it’s a little bit more difficult. I didn’t get as far as I did with my first attempt at a 365 challenge with Eden (114 of 365), but that’s okay. I have different priorities now and the holiday season is upon us. It’s been a good run, and I would like to try again at a 365 (perhaps with a different doll?) in the future once things settle a bit for me with work.