There are a few things to consider when buying your first Blythe doll:

• New or used?
• New or old release?
• Where will you buy her from?
• How do you protect yourself?

When buying new, you have options of buying older or newer releases. Newer releases can be more easily found from official retail shops (all found online, or in-person in Asia). Older releases that are completely new, and minty, can be found via collectors selling online, or on sites like eBay.

When buying used, I would recommend joining a Blythe-oriented forum (such as Blythe Kingdom), or looking up ‘Blythe dolls’ on Facebook and seeing what Facebook groups pop up as many people list their dolls on Facebook as well. You can find both stock or customized Blythe dolls for sale when looking for used, at a very large range of price points.

I thought she was so innocent back then. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.

A lot of people do buy a stock doll for their first (myself included! My first Blythe doll was a Cappuccino Chat, you all know her better as Sophie), while some do opt for a custom doll. Whomever you choose for your first Blythe doll, there are always a few things to keep in mind:

• Ask others in the doll community for tips of online retail shops. There are quite a few that will ship internationally, these retailers will often sell brand new, in-box Blythes. (e.g. Junie Moon, CC Toys, Hobby Link Japan)
• Join a forum or Facebook selling group to get a better feel for the prices of the type of Blythes that you like. You do not need to buy the first Blythe that you come across.
• When dealing with an individual person (rather than a business), you always have the option of asking for references/feedback. Ask whom they’ve sold to in the past.
• Buyers should never be responsible for covering PayPal fees. The sellers should not ask you to do this. They should be pricing their dolls accordingly to cover this themselves.
• Buyers should never pay for anything as a “gift” via PayPal, or be asked to pay as a “gift”. Protect yourself first. Pay in the correct category (for goods) and protect yourself in case someone is a scammer.

A Beginner’s Guide is a feature on BlytheLife.com that is all about going back to the basics of collecting Blythe, and being a reference tool for new and experienced collectors alike. If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in A Beginner’s Guide, send me your suggestions!

So this going to be an incredibly embarrassing post. You remember way back when I challenged myself to work on a wardrobe for my Middie Blythe doll, Kitty Brighton? (If you don’t, it was back in April…) Back then, this is all Brighton had for clothes (and shoes):

Jogging some memories now, I bet! I told myself that I would make her wardrobe by myself. So no buying things, except for shoes. And what have I managed to get done from April until now?

Two nearly identical dresses. Both knitted.

I’m a bad dolly owner, poor thing should really go into Dolly Protective Services. Hopefully the next update will be better, and she’ll have more than dresses to wear. Or at least another dress to wear. I’m so bad at this! Hopefully the next update in a couple of months will be a lot more fruitful for her.

Blythe can be, at times, a difficult doll to find things to scale for. This is because her head and her body are not proportionate at all. Her body is similar in size to a Skipper doll, and her head is similar in size to an American Girl (18″) doll. This is an issue because they are different scales.

Skipper (and Barbie) are 1/6th sized dolls. This is also referred to as 1:6 or “playscale”. American Girl, and other 18″ dolls, are 1/3rd or 1:3 scale. Those are drastically different numbers. And not all 1:3 items for American Girl will work for Blythe’s big noggin just due to the general sizing differences.

I tend to consider things to be “to scale” depending on what part of the Blythe it goes with. If it is furniture, I look for items that are 1:6 because it needs to be in proportion to the doll’s body. 1:6 means that if a doll item at 1″ was a human-sized item, it would be 6″. The IKEA HUSET is actually approximately 1:8 scale, but the sizing doesn’t seem to be too off, this is likely due to the fact that Blythe’s body isn’t as tall as Barbie’s body (who is 1:6 scale).

If you want to replicate something for your dolls, measure it and divide the numbers by 6 if you want it to scale to the doll, in general, or to the body of Blythe. If you want it in scale to the head, divide it by 3.

For example, a standard DVD case is: 7.5″ (L) x 5.5″ (W) x 0.5″ (H).

In playscale, or 1:6 scale, those measurements would be: 1.25″ (L) x 0.92″ (W) x 0.08″ (H).

“This DVD case is too big for my paws to open!”

Having something “to scale” makes items more realistic and not look over (or under!) sized for your Blythes. There will be some things that won’t matter when it comes to getting it to “to scale”. For instance, if you were to give your dolls a stuffed animal, chances are that the size won’t matter too much (unless it’s much too big), because there are such a huge variance in stuffed animal sizes. However, if you were to put your dolls next to a toy mail box, size will matter because if it’s too high or too short, it looks ‘off’ from the size of your Blythe (and the letter that’s being sent).

A Beginner’s Guide is a feature on BlytheLife.com that is all about going back to the basics of collecting Blythe, and being a reference tool for new and experienced collectors alike. If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in A Beginner’s Guide, send me your suggestions!

I am always on the look out for things that are cute and scaled for Blythe. Most recently, I went to a popular Japanese import store that sells all sorts of knick knacks, snacks, and other fantastic things – mostly for $2 a piece. And I came across these near their baskets section (yes, they have an entire section for baskets):

Small chairs! In dark pink! They had other colours too – I saw blue, green, and yellow. If they had black, I probably would have gotten black instead.

So for $2 a piece ($4+tax), I came home with two fantastic plastic chairs. Each chair came with two stickers – one was on the back, and the other one the front – the front one was a lot easier to remove. I still need to remove some of the gummy residue, but this is definitely one of my favourite recent dolly-related purchases. Aside from my cat, but that’s really a story for another day.

Cameo is wearing Plastic Fashion (dress) and Endangered Sissy (leggings).

Bonus! For easy storage (or shipping…) the legs of the chairs can detach, and then be simply snapped back into place.

Definitely not a bad price. I believe these chairs were originally meant to prop up cell phones, so that might be something you want to consider using as a search term on sites like eBay. Of course, if you are planning on coming to Vancouver next August for BlytheCon Vancouver, you can always visit the shop in person. And perhaps meet Cameo?

What are your fun and inexpensive finds for Blythe?

Who Lives Here is a little feature on BlytheLife to shine the spotlight on the dolls that live with me! Here’s to you, and me, getting to know my dolls a little bit better.

In this installment of Who Lives Here, I’d like to introduce you all to Belarus. Hi, Belarus!

Belarus is wearing ericaduh.

Belarus has the honour of being my second Blythe, my first EBL, and one of the only dolls that I have ever bought that had a name before arriving at home. Belarus is named for the country for no other reason than the fact that I liked how it sounded.

Since the beginning, she’s been the calmer of the two dolls that I had (the first being Sophie). She had to be, given that she was assaulted straight of the box for her shoes. She arrived in July 2009 and is, essentially, my mini-me. The personality that I had given her was that of a girl who loved technology – she loves video games, comic books, and she is the resident designer for BlytheLife (but she kindly allows me to have some credit as well).

In terms of looks, she is definitely my mini-me. I too have long, straight black hair, with a centre part. The only thing that is different is that I have brown eyes and she does not. I’ve thought about swapping out one of her stock eyechip sets for a brown pair, but I love the EBL eyechip colours too much – especially the pinks.

What I absolutely love about EBLs is the fact that they have wispy eyelashes, and the painted rings on their eyeballs to give their eyes a bit of depth, as well as the fact that their pinks are just so much more prettier than the standard stock pinks that you see dolls with nowadays (even though I love those ones as well). The only customization that I have done with Belarus is switching out her pullstring for a new one because her old string was fraying, so now she has a black string (and a black pullring). She still hasn’t been open yet, which was a challenge all on its own.

I hope you enjoyed getting to meet Belarus!