I find pull charms really cute on dolls, especially when there’s a theme or it just goes well with the doll’s personality. If your Blythe has sleep eyes and you find that the lids are a little droopy, the main suggestion that you’ll find is to add a heavier charm to the string for sleep eyes. It needs a weight to keep the lid open after you’ve taken away the spring.

A lot of people like using beads. As someone who will dabble in designing jewellery, I like using beads too. Some beads can be really expensive (seeing as how you don’t need that many!), but there are a lot of inexpensive sources as well – especially if you can shop smart. You can find beads at a lot of different stores – dollar stores carry both plastic beads and nicer beads (one local dollar store had semi-precious stones and glass beads). If you’re opting for beads from a big box craft store, many have sales or regular 40 or 50% off coupons that you can use on regular priced strands beads. You can cater the doll’s charms to match their hair colour, the theme of their face-up or just whatever you like.

Other sources for charms for your doll’s pull strings are: beads or charms from jewellery [you can find inexpensive jewellery at thrift stores, dollar stores or clearance bins], make your own with polymer clay, vintage buttons or small plastic knick knacks. These are just some suggestions. I’ve also seen people use alphabet beads to spell out their doll’s names, plastic Kewpie charms or even Swarovski crystals (but that’s not really budget friendly!). Whatever you choose, it doesn’t need to break the bank and you can use a lot of things that you already have.

To attach charms, you can undo the knot of their pull string and add the charms on. After, you just retie the knot with or without the pull ring. For the sleep eye string, you want to make sure that the charms are heavy enough to keep the eyelids open so your Blythe doesn’t always look tired.

What sorts of charms do you have on your doll’s strings?

Treasures For Dollars is a mini-series that is completely focused on things that I actually find (and buy) from dollar stores and other similar stores. It will alternate with Blythe On A Budget articles for the next little while until the finale of the mini-series (at Part 10). I hope you enjoy the series!

I have been fascinated by handpainted eye chips for the last little while. There are a lot of people who do handpainted chips, I’m not sure who was the first to do it, but I know there’s quite a few people who do them. And all of them are beautiful. I love looking at photos of them, I like the look of them in the eyes of dolls. But one of the things that I really wanted to do was try my hand at handpainting chips. I’m not the best at drawing, but I can wield a paintbrush somewhat decently (okay, half-decently). I bought some clear smooth chips (no lines) and then I had to get paint. My local dollar store (which I love) has a very small selection of paint. But I knew that I wanted something metallic and all of their colours were not metallic based paints. But a few days ago, I found silver paint in the craft section when I was looking for some blue thread. Silver paint! While that’s not metallic paint in all the colours that I wanted, mixing silver in with, say, blue makes a somewhat decent metallic blue colour. And that’s good enough for me! Best of all? It was on a special for 2 bottles of acrylic paint for $1. So it cost a grand total of $0.50+tax.

What’s a good inexpensive dolly-find you discovered recently?

Treasures For Dollars is a mini-series that is completely focused on things that I actually find (and buy) from dollar stores and other similar stores. It will alternate with Blythe On A Budget articles for the next little while until the finale of the mini-series (at Part 10). I hope you enjoy the series!

I adore the dollar store. Not for the super cheap fall-apart knick knacks (although if I ever need Disney Princess tableware, I know where to go!), but for the little gems that you find when you actually look. One of the things that I really wish that I had more time for is sewing for my dolls. Sometimes I find inspiration in discovering new fabric, sometimes it’s when I spot metallic thread (yes, I’m drawn to shiny things!). But sometimes, it’s when I’m in the little scrap booking section and I find ribbon.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a lot of ribbon. But it’s all in different types and styles and colours… Each spool in the photo was a dollar. But considering there’s 3 yards per spool (2.7m) and I’m not using that much per doll dress/outfit/item, each spool goes a long way… Besides, they’re nice colours! And I love having nice ribbons around, because they’re quite nice. And before anyone sneers, they’re nicer quality than what I get at the big-box craft stores. Nice woven ric-rac. Really nice pom-pom trims.

Now all I just need is time to sew! So much ribbons and trims, so little time.

What’s a good inexpensive dolly-find you discovered recently?

Every month’s last Friday (or just once a month, sometime on a Friday) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to the fourth instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of November, I found quite a bit of things that I liked! And some things I just ‘rediscovered’, because it’s always nice to find new gems. Everything is crafting and DIY-related this week, so get out your crafting supplies!

1. In the world of Flickr Groups, I absolutely love Doll Coordinate Recipe and other pattern mooks. While there are no free patterns, people will post up photos of things that they have made, as well as scans of the finished item pages in the books so you can browse to see if you like the styles of the clothes available in the books first before buying them! I used this group to check out the inside pages of a few of the DCR’s that I ended up buying after deciding that I liked the styles and fashions inside.
2. The very lovely and generous Kathie Pendry posted up some knitting patterns on Blythe Kingdom back in February and I’m still trying to find the motivation to work on such tiny needles. But regardless of my motivation (or lackthereof), you can go and check out the patterns yourself! You will need an account on Blythe Kingdom though, so be sure to sign up!
3. Also in the DIY-stream is a website on how to build dollhouses called let’s build a dollhouse. I love it, it’s such a cute website and has great tutorials. My favourite project that I hope to do sometime soon? Making my dolls a couch!
4. For more DIY craftiness, I found a fantastic blog that doesn’t have very much in terms of actual tutorials, but there are a lot of photos of in-progress projects and the level of detail is astounding. The blog is called Fashion Doll Shoes and many of the shoes lately have been geared towards Monster High dolls, but ideas can always be adapted for your favourite changing-eyed doll.
5. Last in the world of crafts, Tiny Zippers has a great tutorial on how to make your very own dolly clothing-sized hangers.

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.

Treasures For Dollars is a mini-series that is completely focused on things that I actually find (and buy) from dollar stores and other similar stores. It will alternate with Blythe On A Budget articles for the next little while until the finale of the mini-series (at Part 10). I hope you enjoy the series!

I really like cute things, which is one of the reasons why I like cupcakes, baby animals and Blythe (not necessarily in that order). What cute things generally have in common is that they’re generally small, or have exaggerated features that work in their favour, or just some whimsical little thing that makes they really awesome. I found the cutest thing ever at the dollar store a week or so ago. Wooden clothespins. There are 45 in a package at a dollar per pack. They also had coloured ones, but I felt that the plain wooden ones were a little bit more realistic. I don’t recall the last time I ever saw coloured wooden normal-sized clothespins for sale, but I do remember seeing plain wooden ones. So they’re this week’s treasure because they’re a) super adorable, b) realistic-looking and c) very affordable at a dollar per package.

What’s a good inexpensive dolly-find you discovered recently?