In other words, my guide to my frugality and how I keep my dolly spending in check. And no, buying two Kenners is not my idea of remaining frugal, but as you will read, I think there’s a time and a place for spending money.

Avoid buying things that I can make myself.

Sometimes this one is rather hard. Pretty dresses are always so very tempting. I do allow myself to buy things that are on the Wish List though. Sometimes there are just some things that you want. Unless it comes up a regular basis, sometimes you have to be willing to pounce on it. I notice this happens frequently for certain dresses by some certain designers. They get listed and then they’re gone in a blink. So some things are okay to jump on, if they’re very highly sought after, priced lower than expected (eg. getting a good deal!) or if I cannot make it myself.

However, keep in mind that it’s not a “good deal” if you’re only buying it because it’s there, or on sale. If you weren’t going to buy it before hand and you’re only buying it because it’s cheap, it’s not a good deal because it’s not something you wanted to begin with.

Trades, swaps, bartering

Sometimes I have something that someone else wants. Sometimes they have something that I want. Bartering/trading is a great way to go to get something that you want and to also get rid of something that you’re no longer loving. The best way to do this is to make sure you’re both aware of the details like: who’s sending what, method of shipping (insurance? tracking? delivery confirmation?), what day you’re both to send it out and to provide proof of shipment (receipts, etc.). This can lower the cost because of instead of finding the money to buy something right then and there, you’re swapping something out of your own doll closet (or collection) for something new-to-you. It removes the fact that you’d need to sell something to get the money and then go and buy it.

Organized swaps are my favourite. People put together packages just for you to your liking. It’s pretty fun. Just remember to follow the rules and to make sure that you’re making something that you would want to receive yourself. It’s no fun to be the recipient of something that falls apart. Whatever you send out in a swap should be something that you would be wanting to receive.

Avoid eBay? Or bond with it?

I have a love-hate relationship sometimes with eBay. It’s great for a lot of things, but you really need to know your prices in order to get a ‘good deal’. As before, if it’s not something that you would have bought before you saw the price, it’s not a good deal. That said, eBay can be fantastic for a lot of things. If you know pricing and can find a decent listing, it can be worth your while (and be a lot cheaper at times). It’s also a good idea to vary your search terms from time to time as some people may improperly list their items or use different words to describe an item. Not everyone on eBay goes and looks up what they have before they list it. They may put in generic terms or assume it’s something that it’s not. I like eBay because it’s where I got some of my Blythes at what I consider to be decent prices. It’s also a place where I managed to ‘score’ on a few vintage Skipper lots, so it does have its purposes. But in order to be successful (and not to overspend), you really do need to familiarize yourself with pricing and also watch out for shipping.

Always set yourself a maximum limit for an auction. If the price goes above that limit, you need to know when to walk away.

Primrose is a centre-part brunette Kenner Blythe doll. She came to me with seven lines on her back, super frizzy hair, a replaced string (and pull ring). At one point, her cracked pelvis had been reglued, but she came without any legs. She is also one of the ‘Vancouver Seven’ or ‘Group of Seven’ Blythes that you might have heard about when a Vancouver Blythe collector happened upon a secondhand toy shop that had seven Kenners in stock. Poor Primrose, along with two blonde sisters, were shoved aside because they weren’t presentable enough for the display case.

There was some speculation (on my part, mostly) about what kind of hair she really has. After all, centre-parts are very rare. But close examination of the rooting pattern (and the length of the hairs in front) help secure her place in the world as a centre-part.

At one time, someone well-meaning had somehow managed to replace her string. They also gave her a layered hair cut and glued her pelvis. Of course, some little girl out there must have loved her legs right off because despite the secure glue job, she came without her original legs. I like to imagine that at one point in the last forty years, a little girl presented the doll with the pulled-out string in tears and some handy fix-it dad managed to replace the string. Her head, despite little parts of the scalp looking like it’s coming up, appears to not have been opened before.

As always, my disclaimer: I am not a “professional” when it comes to restoring dolls, so if you’re not comfortable with fixing your own Kenner, you should really seek out someone who knows what they’re doing. So I am not responsible if you try this out on your own doll and cause any damage.

I was more than a little nervous when I was pulling out the glued-but-cracked pelvis piece from her 1972 torso. After all, I hadn’t opened her head and did not want to break her neck. I leveraged it out through the leg holes though. Oh, I also hacked apart a stock Takara body. I cut across at where the body’s breasts are and leveraged apart the halves of the torso until I was left with the pelvis and legs.

The problem with Takara bottoms is that the little ‘plug’ that keeps it from falling out of the torso is too big, so it needs to be made smaller. After reading some tips on This is Blythe and Blythe Kingdom, most people seem to file it down or shave it down. I opted for filing. I was nervous enough about ruining it forever and making it too small. After getting it down to almost the same size as the hole in the torso (but just a wee bit larger), I had to start trying to get the legs in.

Tip! Hot water works wonders! If your hands are getting too hot holding the pieces into water,  you can use tongs or oven mitts to make it easier on you. If you’re trying to pop the pelvis in and it’s not going, put it back into the water (or reheat the water) and try again. Don’t try to force it when the pieces have cooled down.

Learning from what I did when I had worked on Emmalynn, I had a cup of hot (steaming, but not boiling) water. I dipped the plug of the pelvis into the water and also dipped the torso into the water as well. And then I held them there until I got bored of holding them (so probably about 2-3 minutes).  I had the pelvis sitting up and then I pressed down on the doll’s shoulders while holding the pelvis straight until it popped in. Do not press down on the doll’s head, you might break the neck.

I still haven’t switched out Primrose’s string for a while string, or swapped out that weird white plastic ring for a Blythe pull ring. But for now, her restorations are “complete” (mostly giving her legs). Besides washing her hair and giving her a bit of a bath, I did nothing to her hair (not even combing through it!). Her frizzy hair makes for a lot of fun.

I’ve done a series on blogging, and also another post on dolly blogging, but I thought I’d take another crack at it by looking at blogging for those who have no money to spend or a little money to spend. Blogging is a great way to get your information out there for others to read. A lot of crafters who sell things in the Blythe community have their blogs so they can show off new designs, progress of crafting for conventions or new shop updates. Blogs are also great for showing off customization progress, experimentation, photo stories or just your life in general – doesn’t even need to be doll related.

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For those who are looking for free options for blogging, the ones that I like are WordPress, Blogger and Livejournal. All of them are free options for blogging and have their own pros and cons to deal with.

WordPress

I’m a fan of WordPress (WP), so I may be a touched biased. You are limited when you have a free WP account though. You can write pages and posts, but no additional plugins (which can be very useful, if you know your way around WP). WP also has it written into it’s terms and conditions/terms of service that you cannot advertise/sell on their sites. However, if you know someone who’s willing to host you, or if you can self-host your own WP, you can sell and install as much stuff as you want onto your WP. So if you decide to go from the free WP hosting to your own domain, it can be pretty easy to export all of your content and them export it into the new site. Comments can be left by anyone by default, which is pretty nice, and WP has a fantastic anti-spam plugin already with your blog when you start an account (it’s called Akismet).

Blogger

If you have a Google account, it’s super easy to set up your Blogger account as it’s the same log-in details as your Google account. One thing that’s great about Blogger is that there are a lot of free themes out there. I haven’t gone through the TOS of Blogger, but a lot of people set it up for ‘sponsors’ and paid-ads, so it would appear that it’s okay to make money while having a blog site with Blogger. One thing to watch out for is that you should set it so that comments are open to anyone to leave – not just people logged into some kind of account. If you don’t, it’s very easy for people to get turned off from leaving comments. Blogger also has the capabilities to easily use your own domain name with their server, which you can technically do with WP and LJ as well

Livejournal

Livejournal has been around for a long, long time. A lot of people still use it, although it’s not as popular as it once was. It is posts only, no separate static pages. You can also join LJ groups that are related and cross-post easily into various groups. For example, you can cross-post in various crafting and doll groups without leaving the site at all. LJ allows for commenting from other LJ users and I have seen ‘anonymous’ posting allowed, so those without accounts aren’t left out (provided you don’t have private posts).

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And now, onto the paid options. That would be a domain name, being hosted on someone else’s domain (it’s usually free), or paying for your own hosting.

Domain Names

If you’re serious about having some kind of business or have a business name in mind, I would recommend getting it. I wouldn’t risk someone else buying it out from under you and then just squatting on it while you’re forced to use something else that is not the same as your existing Etsy/Artfire shop or screen name. Buy it now and save yourself the hassle of having to add various descriptive words later. Most domain names are under $10 per year and you do need to renew annually if you don’t purchase it for multiple years at a time. You should be able to find a registrar for a .com/.net/.org domain name for $10USD or less. Some extensions (.nu, for example) are more expensive, but they’re not as commonly used.

Also, getting a .com is always highly recommended. Most people think to write .com first before thinking of .net, .org or .co.uk. It’s just the way the world works. Domain names can be fairly inexpensive. I personally use Namecheap¹ for buying all of my domain names. They have monthly promo codes and the month of April 2012 is RACETO3MM for all new registrations and transfers for com/net/org/biz/de extensions.

Sub-Domain Hosting

This is generally free, as you’ll be using someone else’s space (but also part of someone else’s name!). Your URL will look like www.friend’sdomain.com/yourname. On one hand, it’s great if their site’s name is related to yours or makes it easier for people to remember. On the other hand, you do run into the problem that you will inadvertantly run traffic to their site as well, and if you decide to move to your own domain later on (yourname.com), it can be difficult to have people get used to a new site URL or to even get them to change their links.

Paid Hosting

Please, please, please, please, please don’t use a site that tells you that you get “unlimited” everything for $1 a month. Many sites that offer super low costs for a lot of features are often hosting sites that end up going under. Definitely try to find a website that has established users and ones that have 24/7 support available. I have nothing against newer hosting companies, but I would highly suggesting reading testimonials and reviews on sites like Web Hosting Talk, where people talk about various hosting companies and leave public reviews. You should find a reputable host that offers what you need, but also has a good reputation for having a good support team and decent up time. A lot of hosts boast having 99.9% up time, but it’s always a good idea to check in reviews if this is true and to see the quality of their support team. You should be able to find inexpensive hosting that meets your needs (with support, up time and decent size of bandwidth and space) for $5 a month or less (unless you plan on hosting a lot of photos and videos).

Be realistic about what you need in terms of space and bandwidth. BlytheLife.com has quite a bit of pages and posts for the time it’s been up and running on the internet, but when I look at how much space it takes up on my hosting account, it is not very much (with the posts and all the other files, including photos, it’s less than 150mb). As for bandwidth, which does fluctuate, the site uses approximately 6-7gb per month. It’s fairly low compared to a lot of other sites because it is primarily text based and I don’t host videos. Unless you’re planning on uploading high res photos or large videos, you probably won’t need as much space or bandwidth as you think that you will.

BlytheLife.com is hosted on Surpass Hosting² and I’ve used them exclusively since 2006. I’m on a plan that is no longer listed on their website because they’ve restructured their plans after they established servers in the UK as well as in the US. Their support team has always been fantastic though and I always get replies fairly quickly (plus, when one of my sites got hacked, they fixed it up good as new within 3 hours of when I emailed them about it!).

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¹² If you use the link to Namecheap or Surpass Hosting from this post, it includes my affiliate codes. Any funds earned go towards the costs of keeping BlytheLife.com up and running.

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!

The local Blythe group where I live has a meet once a month since we’ve started, which has been very fun. We try to make the meets fun and put as little stress as possible on the hostess who’s volunteering up their house. So I’ve made a list of some of the things that my local group has done to make meets budget friendly:

1. Food – Bring food when/if you can to the meet so that the host isn’t required to come up with food for everyone. While not all group members bring food every meet, members have brought items to meets as they can.
2. Workshops – We’ve had fun group activities with workshops that have involved sewing and decorating hats. It’s a great way to be taught new skills and to also see how everyone makes the same starting item look completely different at the end.
3. Photo ops – I always find it fun to put together groups of Blythe dolls into big photo opportunities. We’ve done a ‘class photo’ of 1972 dolls. We’ve done a fairy ring of Blythes. It’s always fun to take big photos and to also share photos online for others to see as well.
4. Locations – We’ve had meets at people’s houses, in public parks. It’s a great idea to find places that are easy to get to via transit, easy to find nearby parking spots and low-cost or free locations.
5. Themes – It’s a fun idea to give the meet a theme! The most recent one I attended was St. Patrick’s Day and a lot of the dolls that had attended wore green, which was neat. We’ve also done a Hallowe’en-themed meet where there was a costume party (for the dolls!). Not only does it make for a great reason for your dolls to wear fun animal suits that you’ve kept for whatever reason, but it means that all your other clothes can have a reason to come out to meets.