DIY Customizing is an irregular series of customizing tutorials. These are tutorials for things that I am able to do for my Blythes and I try to make it as simple as possible so that you can do these easy customizations to your own dolls. I am not a customizer – professional, amateur or wishful thinker of any kind. If you’re a kid – ask a responsible adult for help. As always, safety first! BlytheLife.com is not responsible for any damage that you do to yourself, your doll, or your home (or wherever you’re customizing).

One of the challenges with some Blythes (notably Kenners, BLs, EBLs, some SBLs and some of the newer releases) is that it can be a pain in the bum to get their heads open if you want to do anything in there. One challenge that I faced with one of my dolls, Belarus, was the fact that her stock pullstring was fraying. So I changed her string. She is an EBL and at the time I was not up to the task of opening up her head (I’m still not), so I had to do it without actually opening her head. It can be tricky, but I wanted to show how I did it.

Now, Belarus doesn’t need another string, but Eden Mouse’s string had broke once or twice since I had changed it to a light pink cord. It’s super short now, and I wanted to swap it out for a darker pink cord (but still keeping the same pullring). Eden Mouse is a Punkaholic People RBL, which means that it is relatively easy to open her up, if I wanted to. I opted to keep her head closed for this tutorial.

This is just for changing the pullstring for the string that changes the eyes, not the string (if your doll has one have one) for sleep eyes. I haven’t figured out a way to change that without opening the head (if your doll no longer have a spring), so you’re flat out of luck there.

To change your doll’s pullstring, you will need:

• Scissors
• Lighter (or lit candle)
• New cord
• Super thin wire (or a u-shaped upholstery needle)
• Fishing line or nylon thread
• Wire cutters (if using wire)
• Well lit working area

Let’s say that your doll’s string just broke, or the knot inside loosened so it came straight out. So what I did here was just snip Eden’s string.

If your doll’s string broke, I know this is the point of complete sadness. If you love the chips that are currently up, handroll them to chips that you either don’t like or don’t like as much – just in case you scratch them during this process.

The first thing you need to do is remove the old string inside of the head. I used wire and poked it out. The knot should lie on the left hand side (if you are facing the doll, that would be your left, not her left). Just poke it out until you see it come out the eye hole. Remove the old string. Click to read more of this entry.

It’s time for another Tiny Shoe Love! And we all know how much I love shoes – just a tiny reason why Sophie is so interested in shoes as well. In the first installment of Tiny Shoe Love, I featured Monique Magnifique’s stock heels and vintage dark brown squishy Barbie boots. What are you in store for this time? Very happy that you asked!

Stock engineer boots from Jackie Ramone (Middie):

Left: on Jackie Ramone (Middie), Kitty Brighton. Right: on Love Mission (Blythe, EBL), Belarus.

Click to read more of this entry.

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, we have my fraternal dolly twins: Mollie and Moxie.

Moxie, a Simply Bubble Boom, has a birthday of December 3 2012 while Mollie, a Simply Sparkly Spark, has birthday of December 24 2012. But they are twins, even with different birthdays. Very fraternal, very separate twins. If I ever get Simply Thumpty Thump, they will suddenly become triplets. Or something (Thumpty Thump isn’t really on my radar right now, although she may be if I ever decide to complete my ‘rainbow’).

Moxie is my lovable film enthusiast. She wears bold prints, or shades of gray (not the fifty shades kind…). She adores film noir and anything with Humphrey Bogart (much like me! Casablanca, anyone?). Despite her vivid personality, I don’t photograph her nearly as much as I could (which does make me sad, I don’t need a lecture). She also enjoys science fiction, and would love one day go traveling with the the Doctor, or walk through a Stargate.

Mollie, which is short for Molybdenum (element #42), naturally enjoys chemistry, science, learning and technology. Essentially, she is the nerdy side of me in doll form. I jokingly wanted to name her “42”, even though is most definitely not my 42nd Blythe, because that is the answer for everything. But 42 also corresponds to the element molybdenum, which makes for a pretty awesome name. For regular day, her name is Mollie. When she causes a lab accident, I call her Molybdenum. Loudly.

What I love about bestowing personalities onto my dolls is that all of their personalities, generally speaking, reflect a little bit of me. Sometimes it’s a little bit ‘louder’ in my dolls, or a bigger part of them in comparison to other aspects of their personalities, but it’s fun. Through Moxie, I share my love for film noir and science fiction television shows, and through Mollie there’s my love for science – in her name and in her likes.

A big part of writing BlytheLife is that I get to learn about a whole lot of stuff. Including my adventures in sewing, knitting doll-sized cardigans, and taking photographs. Now, I took photos before Blythe, but I rarely used macro settings before dolls, nor did I have a model to take photos of. Here’s a super simple way of doing a photo backdrop that you can do with things you may have in your house. Alternatively, a trip to the dollar store will fix you right up!

You will need:

• Foam board – 2 pieces if you are not using a table
• The backdrop – you can use scrap booking paper, wrapping paper, anything! – Optional
• Glue stick or sticky tac/blue tac/temporary adhesive (if you’re using some kind of pretty paper) – Optional
• Clothespins
• Something to photograph

Directions:

Get your backdrop imagery onto your foam board, if you decide to use one. You can use scrap book paper or wrapping paper, whatever you’d like. This is optional.

Wait for it to dry. Go browse the internet for new dolly shoes.

Dried? Excellent! I opted to keep mine all white so there was no added drying time.

Clip your clothespins onto the bottom edges of the foam board, as pictured. I used additional clothespins to make it more stable.

Now you have an upright photo backdrop for all your photo taking needs. Go take some photos! And when you’re done, simply unclip the clothespins and store your photo backdrop flat somewhere for safe keeping.

The great thing about this set-up is that it is so easy to set up and to tear down. If you want, you can also position lights on either side to reduce the amount of shadowing. Here’s a photo I took of Prim with my DIY photo backdrop:

Even though it is halfway through August, I am still determined to have as much summer fun as I possibly can. This includes dressing the part. There are no excuses for your dolls to be in sweaters when it is the summer and the temperature is above 30°C (that’s +86°F for my American fans!). No excuses at all. And I say that as a doll that’s been in the same outfit for the several months now. Months. Do you realize how hard it is to look like someone who knows what they’re talking about it when comes to fashion when I’m stuck in the same dress for months? Granted, it is from one of my favourite designers – which is the only good part.

My summer wardrobe (if someone would actually help me out with a wardrobe change…) consists of:

Fun and light-fabric dresses, shorts, sandals, other cute shoes, and a decent hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. If you have super long hair like Cappuccino Chats often have, such as myself, you may also want to invest a couple dollars in some hair ties! They’re super handy to have around.

Sophie’s Fashion Tip: if you get the small, thin, clear elastics, they can help keep on finicky shoes when you’re outdoors and they won’t be super-duper obvious in photos!

And for the beach, it’ll always be a cute swimsuit – to be accessorized with a matching towel (of course!), and a swimming cover-up!  Unfortunately, the weather here has been absolutely dismal for the last week or else I would model for you – it’s just too cold for swim suits! For those curious, the swimming coverup was made for Lalaloopsy Little dolls.

And yes, it is perfectly acceptable for fashionistas to have, and wear, hooded duck towels.

Until next time, stay fashionable!

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.