So it’s under a week until Halloween and what’s a Blythe to do if their owner can’t sew (or just doesn’t have time to sew) and there’s not enough time for that pretty outfit to come in via the mail? Improvise! My dolls had a bit of a discussion to come up with the three best ideas that they had for cheap and easy Halloween costume ideas:

1. Birthday Suit: Not only is it quick and easy, it also doesn’t involve needing to change! (A minor suggestion: include some black privacy bars.) Cost: nothing (or black cardstock).
2. Mummy: Wrap yourself up in tissue! Downside, you probably can’t run around in it without it ripping. Cost: only tissue (and your dignity).
3. Yarn Ball: Take any old ball of yarn, unravel it, wrap it around yourself until you become ball-like. Cost: only yarn (and a potential hospital bill for when you trip over yourself).

However, after much debate that went from Halloween costumes to the fact that Sophie needs more clothes in general because her massive wardrobe just isn’t large enough, the general consensus among the Blythes here at my house that it’s better to be a doll wearing something rather than a doll wearing, well, nothing at all. So don’t go with a Birthday Suit, even if it is one of the cheapest options there is (you never know who may be lurking with a camera).

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 From Kenner Fever to Cured is a three-part mini series of me detailing my journey from just being feverish with wants of a Kenner Blythe to actually getting my first Kenner, an absolute dream girl. In Part 2, I include a lot of information about what I did to do some restoration work on my Kenner Blythe.

This is what worked for me, if you don’t feel comfortable doing work on your vintage Blythe, please send it to someone with experience restoring the dolls to their fullest potential. I am not a professional Kenner restorer at all, so please take that into account when you read about what I did. Where possible, I reference the source of where I learned these tips from.

When I last left off, I had been impatiently waiting for Canada Post to finally scan in the tracking number to let me know that yes, she was at least in the country! They took their on sweet time on it, of course. 3 days after the tracking number on UK’s Royal Mail website updated as having left the UK, Canada Post let me know that she had arrived! Two hours later, she was out of Customs and in the hands in the postal service. The postal carrier made an attempt to deliver her the next day, but unfortunately no one was home. So I waited (again, impatiently) until the next morning (October 4th) and went straight to the post office just ten minutes after they had opened.

Within minutes of getting home, I had cut open the tape and pulled her out. My Kenner. And in the first hour of having her in my grabby hands, she was inspected, photographed and her scalp was taken off.

Tip! For those who are wanting to remove their Kenner’s scalp – I ran hot water from the tap directly along where the edges of her scalp are in order to soften the rubber enough to edge it out from under the hard cap. The scalp has a ‘lip’ that goes on the underside side of the hardcap. The construction of a Kenner’s head is pretty ingenious, I don’t know why Takara or ADG ever felt the need to use glue of all things when they had a simple (but effective) original construction to follow.

Upon first inspection, I made a mental list of all the flaws. She had frizzy ends, very little thatching left for her part, missing plugs (which means loose plugs!), one visible scalp tear (I later found out that she had more than one), very mild yellowing of the front faceplate, yellowing where the two faceplates meet, a small liprub, a horizontal pelvic crack  (both legs come out very easily) and dirty legs (some of it came off, but I think an ink spot is destined to stay). So she needed a little bit of love to go back to the way she once was, but she was my little bit to love. She told me that her name is Emmalynn.

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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!

Like most Blythe enthusiasts, I spend quite a bit of time looking at photos of Blythes or Blythe clothing or Blythe shoes. It’s just the way that the hobby works out, what with so many people on Flickr posting photos all the time. One type of photo that I’ve always really liked is photos of their dolls (especially Kenners!) in curlers.

I’ve looked for curlers everywhere but I wasn’t about to shell out the $5+ per package of foam hair curlers that the beauty/hair department wanted in a department store.

Besides the price, the rollers were quite large and there were 20+ in a package. I don’t know about your Blythe’s head, but mine’s not that big (ego notwithstanding). But I went to the dollar store a little while ago and found packages of small(er) foam rollers at $1 per package with 8 rollers per pack. While I wasn’t entirely sure if 8 would be enough, I opted to get two packages. They were nice and small (at least compared to the more pricier ones found elsewhere) and I was able to get a smaller amount (I don’t need 20+ rollers that are too big for a doll’s head!).

For the size (and what I needed them for), they work really well! And since I only spent $2 on curlers in total, that’s definitely nothing to complain about.

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

Image by sxc.hu user Dioptria.

It can be very, very easy to lose track of how much money you’ve spent on dolls and doll things. Maybe you won’t forgot how much that Kenner cost you, but how much did that Simply Lilac? Or that super cute dress with an unknown designer? How about all those boots? Were they a dollar? Maybe five? Budgeting isn’t all about knowing exactly how many dollars you can afford to spend on Blythe in a month, but also where you can cut back for the more important things in life to save for something or to go towards another expense. It is very difficult to do that without keeping track of how much you’ve spent.

Of course, everyone has their own methods of keeping track of money spent, so I’m just going to go through the way that I do it (and this applies to all sorts of money spending, not just Blythe and other dolly goods):

1. I carry around a small notebook and a pen in my purse at all times. All expenses that I do when I’m not at my computer gets recorded down with the date, what on earth I bought and how much total it cost me (if that includes tax, then I include that in the total as well).
2. All expenses get recorded on an Excel spreadsheet, I have different rows for food, school (tuition, textbooks, general supplies), clothing, dolls and doll stuff (stands, clothes, shoes, accessories). But these are just ‘general’ topics that they go into.
3. In the next tab over in Excel, I have a list of each of my dolls and how much they’ve cost me (base cost of doll, shipping, cost of pullrings/charms, eyechips, etc.). This way I know how much the doll cost me originally but also how much I’ve put into her. (This is not because I anticipate selling them in the near future, just for my record keeping purposes).
4. I also include different sections for other doll things and try to make a meaningful description so I know what I’m talking about regarding different clothes, specific pairs of shoes, etc.
5. If I buy something in a ‘lot’ or a grab bag of doll clothes from the thrift store, these generally do not get a meaningful description but just an overall description like ‘thrifted doll clothes bag’ with the total price paid for the entire bag.

This system has worked really well for me so far in what I do. It helps if you start off keeping track of things from the very beginning – it can be overwhelming to try and remember how much you spent on specific dresses or clothing if you didn’t do it from the start (and, to be fair, most of my dolls’ clothing came in lots or thrifted bags so it’s really easy for me to keep track of things that didn’t come that way!).

What methods do you use to keep track of your dolly (or other) spending?

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!

Despite the occasional time that my room looks incredibly messy, I do like having some order and organization in my life and that goes for my dolls as well. Whenever I go to a meet, a doll (or two) is either in a carrier or wrapped in a shirt and just put into my bag. Any other extra dolly stuff (clothes, shoes, etc.) are just tossed into my purse as well. I decided that really had to end.

One of the nice things about make-up bags is that small ones (handy for holding doll clothes and shoes) are fairly inexpensive. I can find them at my local dollar store for a buck each or you can also get them for free at make-up counters when you’re buying over a certain price limit. Luckily for me, my mom likes to buy pricey cleansers (the inexpensive ones literally make her have a rash) so whenever there’s a promotion of free make-up bag with goodies, she buys what she wants and whoever in the house wants it, can have the goodies. It’s technically not ‘free’ since it is with a purchase, but for a great organizational bag, who am I to say no? Bonus, it fits everything that I took along on my last meet: extra hair ties, clear plastic elastics for keeping shoes on, and a few extra hats in case someone wanted to smoosh down their hair.

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