Thank you so much to Carmen of Smidge House for sponsoring another fantastic giveaway here at BlytheLife.com. There were a lot of entries (87 in total!).

Thank you so much to everyone who commented, tweeted, followed and blogged their entries!

Now I’m sure you’re all wondering who won that great sofa and those two absolutely adorable cushions (I wish I had cushions like that for *me*!).

And the winner is…

Click to read more of this entry.

I hope you all remember Carmen, because she was responsible for there being a winter holiday giveaway back in December 2010! Carmen, who’s better known as smidge girl online, is the creative mastermind behind Smidge House. She makes fantastic furniture and other fun miniatures and I got to interview her for BlytheLife.com! I was so excited to find out more about Carmen and I hope you all are too!

Hi Carmen! What can you tell us about yourself?
Hiya! Well, my name is Carmen. My dolly handle is smidge girl. I love to read, write, shop, drink coffee, hang out on flickr, and play with dolls! 🙂 I design and build sixth scale furniture and accessories. The things my dolls don’t steal for themselves usually end up in my etsy shop, Smidge House. I also build furniture and sets (sixth scale) for television and film. I currently live in Chicago with my boyfriend. We have a teeny apartment that is also Smidge House headquarters. It’s seriously overflowing with my supplies and inventory (and okay, dolls, lol) so we’ll have to find a bigger place soon!

What can you share with us about how you discovered Blythe and how you got into crafting for dolls?
Well, I’ve always been obsessed with anything miniature. I was a Barbie freak as a kid, but I was mostly interested in her stuff– I’d always choose a new living room set over a new doll! I eventually “grew up” and stopped playing with dolls, though I didn’t really want to. When I moved here to go to college, there was a gigantic Toys R Us only a few blocks from our dorm. I spent more time there than I did doing homework, lol!

After college, I bounced around doing a gazillion different jobs, but nothing ever made me very happy. I was pretty disappointed, career-wise. Then, a couple of years ago, I stumbled across some photos online of the Barbie Dream Store that I’d had as a kid. I hadn’t thought about dolls in years, but suddenly, it’s all I thought about. (At the time, I had no clue there was a gigantic doll community out there, that felt the same way!) Combining my love of dolls and their stuff, and my total obsession with furniture and design just seemed like a no-brainer! (Now that I’m writing it all down, it seems pretty crazy! Thank goodness I didn’t stop & question myself at the time, lol!) I’ve always been the go-to girl, if you needed to have your furniture put together. I don’t know why people hate doing that! I love it! (But, I really love furniture, so maybe that’s why.) So, I understood how furniture “worked.” Structurally, I mean. So, it was really just a matter of deciding what I wanted to make, and scaling it down! I spent about a year building prototypes, (did I mention I’m a perfectionist?) and then opened Smidge House at the end of 2009.

I stumbled across Blythe soon after, when I discovered my favorite site in the world– Flickr! *happy sigh* I went totally crazy looking at people’s dolls and dollhouses, and some of the first photos I looked at featured Blythe dolls. I’d never seen one before, didn’t know what they were, but I thought they were adorable and amazing! Even though they had enormous heads and crazy colored hair and eyes, somehow they looked so real! Their personalities just brought them to life, like no doll I’d seen before! I was in awe of all the creativity Blythe folks used in customizing, sewing, and setting up their houses. I never thought I’d own one, (I’m kind of a square, and they were too whimsical for me, I thought, lol) but I loved looking at photos. Well, eventually, after some gentle nudging from a dolly friend, (I like to blame other people for my doll habit, whenever I can!) Blythe won me over. I mean, really, how can you resist? Although I prefer to build realistic furniture, I now work in “Blythe Mode” too. Having my girls around reminds me that making more kooky, funky pieces is fun too. Blythe has really lightened and brightened my life! 🙂 Ack! That sounds so dorky! But it’s true!

I love miniatures and I know it takes a lot of work to make something that’s accurate, but small. What’s one of your biggest challenges with crafting miniatures?
Truly, my biggest challenge is only having two hands, lol! I have so many plans and ideas that I can’t write them down fast enough, let alone make them fast enough! Since I’m only one person, things progress much slower than I’d like! I’m also a (slightly crazy) perfectionist, so I obsess over every detail, which makes things take even longer. I’d love to have an assistant one day, but I’m a total control freak, so I’m not sure how well that would work out. Maybe they could just iron my fabric. Very carefully. Or leave my fabric alone and just do the dishes instead. 😉

And finding just the right fabric, and in the right scale, can be a challenge too. It would make more sense to design things around fabric I already have in my overflowing stash, but that would just be too easy! Sometimes I’ll create a room in my head, and then spend weeks, or months, trying to track down the fabric I imagined. (Which more than likely doesn’t exist!) But, since I dearly love to fabric shop, it’s a fun challenge!

During the Holiday Giveaway, Sioux asked if you had any tips to share for people who want to make their own doll furniture, as well as what kind of materials you use?
Thanks for the question, Sioux! If you’re interested in building doll furniture, I suppose taking a look at your own (human-sized) furniture might be a helpful place to start. Flip your sofa over, and see how the legs are attached. Unzip the cushions and see what’s inside. Just by poking around, you can get a good idea of how things are built, how the pieces go together. But furniture and design are so subjective, there’s really no wrong way to go. A chair can look like anything, a sofa can be any color, tables come in all shapes and sizes, you know? I think the best tip I can give is just to give it a try, if it’s something that excites you! That goes for anything, really. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and just put something together. If it’s awful, you can always toss it out and try again, no one has to know! Before I settle on a design I like, I might end up with half a dozen prototypes that are a little too tall, or too wide, or don’t have quite the right type of legs, before I figure it out. Luckily, my dolls don’t mind decorating with the reject pieces!

As far as materials that I use, my upholstered furniture is made with actual upholstery foam. I buy huge rolls of the stuff, in all different thicknesses, that pretty much take up my whole closet. I used to have a shoe collection. Now I have a foam collection, lol! I typically choose the wood I use for tables, desks, etc, during the design process. Depending on what I need, I might use plywood, basswood, or anything in between. Home Depot and Joann’s are a couple of my favorite places to hang out. You never know what you’ll find, or what it might work for. I’m sort of a hoarder, so I like to have all sorts of things around that I can choose from. My fabric stash is out of control. The only way I can keep it semi-manageable is to use what I buy as quickly as I can. Sadly, I can shop way faster than I can work, so I think I’ll forever be buried in fabric! I like to buy vintage fabrics when I can, just so I create things with more unique prints, not just off the rack stuff that you can get anywhere. Of course, that works against me in a way, because once I use it up, that’s it forever. I have a terrible time making that first cut in a fabric I love, because I just don’t want to use it up!

How much time out of a typical week do you dedicate to crafting for Smidge House?
Oh dear. I easily dedicate 80 hours a week to Smidge House. Often times more. It is my full time job, and I have to say, I am a horrible boss! I almost never give myself a day off. There are a million things to keep on top of, whether it’s building or prepping furniture, designing new pieces, shopping for supplies, taking photographs, doing research, marketing, answering emails and phone calls… the list goes on and on. And that’s without a major project going on. When I stop to think about it, it’s a little overwhelming, so I just try to keep moving!

On the one hand, most of what I do doesn’t really seem like work. I get to use a large variety of skills, things I never thought would come in handy– like geometry!– so it’s definitely never boring. But, a lot of it is actual physical labor, using power tools and whatnot, and those days can be exhausting. Sometimes I’m editing photos until my eyes cross! Nevertheless, I love what I do! If I had a different job, I would be doing this in all my spare time, so I’m amazingly lucky to be able to do it in my spare time, and during business hours. At least, that’s how I try to explain it to people who tell me I’m a workaholic! That makes sense, right?

Honestly, it can be a real struggle to turn off the work day when there’s no one there to tell you to go home. I try to make a conscious effort to shut things down at night, at least for a little while, and to not forget about my boyfriend! But, at least a few nights a week, I’m rocking around the clock, working on things. I think when you’re trying to grow a new business, that’s just the way things go at first. I embrace my sleepless nights wholeheartedly– they’ve led to lots of great things! I’d be happy if I never had to sleep!

What would you say is your biggest success so far with making miniatures?
I’ve been incredibly lucky in the last year, and have been able to be a part of some amazing things. I would probably consider my first television job to be my biggest success, so far. Last spring I was approached by a production designer from HBO about building some set pieces for them. It was an aspect of sixth scale work that I had really not even thought about, and they contacted me based of photos of my work I had posted on flickr. So, being asked to work on the show (Brick Novax’s Diary, a recurring short on HBO’s Funny or Die) and successfully completing all the work on a tight budget and an even tighter deadline was beyond any success I could have imagined, especially for my first year. It still sort of feels like it happened to someone else!

What has been the most challenging single project you have made so far?
One thing I was asked to make for the Brick Novax project was a 70’s era sleazy motel room. The set included a King sized bed, with bedding, a sofa, a desk, a dresser, a table with four chairs, and a console television. I had 10 days to research 70’s era design, buy supplies, (including tracking down just the right retro and properly scaled fabrics!) design, build, and scrap a few prototypes, and ship the finished pieces. It was a challenging deadline to say the very least! It involved more than a few of those sleepless nights, and I worked pretty much up until UPS knocked on my door to tear the packages away from me, but I did get it done!

If you describe Smidge House in 140 characters or less, how would you describe it?
Ugh! I’m so blabby, this is hard! (Those characters don’t count, lol!) Smidge House is where my passions for furniture and 1/6 unite. It’s awesome to be able to share some of my work with the world, via my shop!

What do you think has been the most unique item that you have made so far?
Well, since I like to make everything as realistic as possible, I don’t know if I’ve ever made anything particularly crazy. But, I guess the boxes of Christmas ornaments I made were pretty unique. I made the separated boxes, and handmade each individual ornament, using beads, wire, charms, etc. Each different ornament (about 300 in all) was unique! (And incredibly time consuming, which is why I’ve retired that item!)

How does it make you feel when you see things that you’ve made in photos taken by other people, either on Flickr or their blog or websites?
It’s amazing! I screen capture every single thing, lol! I’m beyond dorky when it comes to that, I think it’s the coolest thing in the world! It’s awesome to know that people are using and enjoying their goodies, but to see how every piece fits into each person’s individual world, to see how they decorate with or around it, to see their dolls enjoying it– it’s just fantastic! It’s such a huge job perk!

Thank you so much for doing this interview with me, Carmen! Just one last question, if you could give any advice at all to someone who’s either new to the Blythe hobby or to crafting for Blythe, what advice would you give to them?
Thanks so much for asking me, Michelle, and for keeping such a wonderful site. 🙂

I’m still somewhat of a Blythe newbie, but I suppose my advice would be this. I was beyond intimidated when it came to joining in, because there’s just so much to know about Blythe! Really, someone could write a textbook. (And I would totally read it!) I didn’t want to be one of those people who wore a band t-shirt just because they liked the t-shirt, and didn’t know who the band was, you know? I felt like I would be a big poser if I bought a Blythe just because I wanted one, and didn’t know every single thing about them first.

BlytheLife.com really was a big reminder for me that collecting Blythe isn’t a job, it’s fun! I still don’t know the difference between all the different head molds, and I can’t name every doll on sight. But you know what? It doesn’t affect how much I enjoy my dolls. The people in the Blythe community are some of the nicest, sweetest, most helpful people I’ve ever met, and now I can’t imagine that I was ever so nervous to join in!

Sofa Giveaway!

One incredibly lucky person will be winning this super cute sofa and the two accompanying cushions made by Carmen of Smidge House!

You can get up to seventeen (17) entries for this giveaway draw and you can enter until Saturday February 26th 2011 at 11:59pm PST. The draw will be held on Sunday February 27th 2011 and the winner will be announced on BlytheLife.com. Remember to use a valid email address for all comments. If you win, your email will be forwarded to Carmen for arranging shipment of the prize.

Please only use one email address per person, those using multiple email addresses for more entries will be disqualified.

Mandatory Entry: Comment below about the interview with Carmen! This is worth 1 entry into the giveaway.

Bonus Entry #1: Tweet about the contest! Please retweet the following once per day from your public Twitter account! (If you look below, there is a box for you to include your Twitter username, if you do, I can easily verify your bonus entry!) Each tweet is 1 entry into the giveaway for a maximum of 9 entries into the giveaway.

Check out the @blythelifecom interview with @smidgegirl and the awesome giveaway! http://bit.ly/fnGvpw

Bonus Entry #2: Follow Carmen’s Twitter account, @smidgegirl! This is worth 1 entry.

Bonus Entry #3: Follow the Smidge House RSS feed! This is worth 1 entry.

Bonus Entry #4: Blog about the contest! Be sure to include some details about the contest and include links to BlytheLife.com, this interview/giveaway page and to the Smidge House blog. For 1 blog entry, this is worth 5 entries into the giveaway! You must comment below with the URL to your blog post.

There was a great response to the Kittyrobot giveaway! Total count of entries was 47 with a few blog entries (worth five entries apiece) and many people commenting and tweeting about the contest! I’m very excited for everyone who took place in the giveaway, I think all of the pullrings that Jodie makes are just so adorable and I wish I had been eligible to take part in it (I keep on thinking that whenever it’s time to announce giveaway winners!) because everything’s just so cute and I know a certain Blythe of mine would probably love one with pink glitter…

But you’re all interested in finding out who won, I’m sure. As I hope you can recall, there are going to be two winners and each winner will get a pair of custom pullrings. Which is awesome – you can have two dolls with special pullrings or perhaps just one doll with a set of special pulls (sleepy eyes FTW!).

And now onto the winners…

Click to read more of this entry.

For those who’re in the dark, Kittyrobot is a fun, quirky and delicious Etsy shop that has yummy looking polymer clay foods that are doll-friendly and resin pullrings that have sprinkles and glitter in them. Are you intrigued? I was super excited when Jodie of Kittyrobot contacted me wanting to know if I’d like to do a giveaway with her. That would be an astounding yes! She was happy to do an interview with me as well and I’m so excited to share the questions and answers we went over. Considering, to me, anyone who can incorporate sprinkles and glitter into a fun and cute pullring for Blythe has got to be the coolest person ever.

Hi Jodie! What can you tell us about yourself?
Hi, Thanks for having me! Well my name is Jodie, I am a 29 year old full time student, and part time crafter/maker/operator of Kittyrobot.

I have two fur babies, who are my whole world, my cats, Anabelle and Sui, I also have two furry little mouse friends, Scruffy and Snowy.

I live in a little beach town on the East coast of Australia, I love all things vintage, cute and kawaii, crafting, sewing, photography, travel, music, and bike rides, and have been in the Blythe hobby for just over 3 years now.

How did you discover Blythe and what drew you to her?
I was a regular Flickr visitor, and I can recall years ago seeing lots of photos of this curious looking doll, dressed in beautiful fashions and never knew what kind of doll it was.

Then one of my Flickr contacts had photos of Blythe’s, finally I knew what they were! And I loved looking at her photos of them, and through her pics, it sort of inspired me to research them a little, I found myself spending more time on flickr looking up Blythe dolls, than anything else I used to enjoy looking at, and finally the bug hit, I had to have one, I thought ‘yep, one will be enough for me’ but of course, it wasn’t, and many more followed soon after.

I was really drawn to what I thought, was a unique, quirky look of the Blythes, I loved how you could dress them up in cute clothes, customise them, and I was also interested in the idea of making cute clothes, and little miniatures for them, I guess initially I loved the idea of being able to combine my love of craft, with my new found love of dollies.

I know that you create some pretty unique things with polymer clay, what can you tell us about that?
We create most of the things in our Kittyrobot store with Sculpey Polymer clay, it is such a great material to work with, sturdy, and easily customizable in color. We stock buttons and jewellery, for both people and Blythe dolls, as well as miniature foods, and scene setters for Blythe photo shoots, and of course, we are always open to a custom order, or creative idea a customer may have.

In the past we have created quite a few fun custom clay pieces, such as pullring charms like cupcakes, macarons, and owls.

All of our polymer clay miniatures are all totally handmade, using quality Sculpey clay, we don’t like to paint our pieces, as overtime I feel the paint could chip or discolor, so we make them in pure Sculpey.

It can be a little bit time consuming, and fiddly to do, we have to be sure to try and make the pieces look somewhat realistic, while also making sure we work to scale, and keep it the right size. We (myself and the other half of Kittyrobot) usually decide on a food, or scene to create, and sketch it out, we will then look up real photos of those foods, and work to try and replicate that.

Most of all we love a challenge, if somebody ever has something in mind, and comes to us to ask about it, its fun to have a play with a new idea we may not have thought of, and then creating it to suit the customer, making them feel satisfied and happy with the end result, that’s the best part.

What can you tell us about resin and how you were came to start crafting with it?
Resin is one of my most favorite mediums to work with, its so versatile! You can keep it clear, or embed anything you can imagine into it, add colors, pigments, glitters, turn it into anything really! It can be time consuming, from start to finish, as it has quite a long cure time, It needs time to settle and harden up in the molds, before you can pop them out and finish them off, with fine sandpaper, and the buff them.

I first was introduced to resin about 6 years ago, I did a short art course, and one element was resin work, we created our own molds, and were taught how to mix, and make with it, I produced a bracelet consisting of 10 small bars of resin with some Japanese paper embedded, I thought it was kinda fun. It wasn’t until a couple of years later, I found some resin finally at the craft store, and began making pieces for a craft market, mostly glitter/sprinkle/sticker/coffee bean necklace charms, magnets and rings, and then later we decided to start making jewelery, buttons, and pull rings, for the Kittyrobot Etsy store.

I think one of the most amazing things about what you do at Kittyrobot is that everything is handmade. How much time do you put into Kittyrobot on a daily basis?
Most days vary, but all of them begin with checking in on emails, or shop conversations we receive while sleeping, along with any updates we need to do via Twitter or the Facebook group, fix up any listings that may have sold out, or relist any new items, Being on the other side of the world to majority of our customers, can be a pain with time differences.

Then we process any sales from overnight, and start getting to work on those, or work on any of our larger consignment/wholesale orders purchased outside of the shop, twice a week we do visits to the post office to ship mail, and nights are usually spent packing orders, and getting them ready for the post. If we have any new product, we will do a mini photo shoot, ready to list items. When we don’t have orders needing to be made, we brainstorm ideas, or play around with ideas we have, creating and crafting new pieces.

Basically I do majority of the online, customer service work, and making of orders during the day, in amongst my full time study from home, while the other half of Kittyrobot is at work, at her day job, and once she gets home at night we create together some more.

Blythe is a versatile doll, which I’m sure we’re all aware of, what made you start crafting things for dolls and doll collectors?
I originally started creating, what I thought were cute items, that were both affordable, but also individual and unique at the same time.

Blythe is a very versatile doll, and also each one has her own little personality and style, so with the custom resin pullrings, and pullring charms, I thought they would be great for those who want something a little different for their unique girl, something that they can customise to suit the exact look they want for their doll, to match her overall look, or to compliment any custom work, etc.

As with the miniature foods, and scene setters, I thought of fun foods, and combos, I would love my own Blythe girls to have, and thought others might like them too, for mini photo shoots, and dollhouse set ups!

Where does your inspiration come from for all the cute things made for Kittyrobot?
All over really, from personal taste in all things cute and quirky, ideas we have, or sketch out, colors and things from magazines, books, vintage treasures, and any inspiring things we see in magazines or on the internet. Mostly, we get inspired to make super cute things, that we feel there is a need in the world for!

How does it make you feel when you see people photographing their dolls with your work?
Super excited, and it may sound funny, but a little bit giddy with excitement!! I love how each Blythe has her own personality,so when the new owner buys from us,and photographs it with their dolls, I feel the items take on a whole new look, and feel, and when they match the dolls perfectly, that’s a super exciting thing! Its so awesome to see so many adorable dolls being photographed, with Kittyrobot items!!

What can we expect to see from Kittyrobot in the future?
We are working on ideas for lots of new items, we are hoping to introduce more variety in the items we have now, and more wearable cuties, more one off Blythe scene setters, maybe even more miniatures, like foods and props for photo shoots, more pretties for the people, and some more sewn things!

We are also hoping to set up a website, and start selling mostly via that! It would be our ultimate goal to someday have a real Kittyrobot store, tiny little shop out in a cute town somewhere, stocking all of our handmade cute pieces, along with pieces by other artists, combined with vinyl art toys, and of course Blythe dolls!

What kind of advice do you have for someone who’s new to the Blythe hobby?
I would say, join up to one of the forums, or various Flickr groups, to meet like minded Blythe fans, the wealth of knowledge from all the super nice Blythe fans, really does help, and its nice to make some friends who share your love, look around and research the different variety of dolls, to choose which one is for you,and most importantly, research the doll seller,so you do not have problems!

Overall really, I would say, have fun with it, at the end of the day its a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun!! Don’t feel guilty if you spend a lot on it, and don’t feel like you have to hide it from anybody, if it’s something you love, its something you deserve to enjoy guilt free!

Kittyrobot Custom Pullrings Giveaway!

Kittyrobot is generously giving away two (2!) pairs of custom Blythe pullrings to two very lucky visitors of BlytheLife.com! That’s right, each of the two winners will be receiving two custom pullrings, made to their liking, by Kittyrobot!

You can get up to fifteen entries for this giveaway draw and you can enter until Saturday February 12, 2011 at 11:59pm PST. The draw will be held on Sunday February 13, 2011 and the two winners will be announced on BlytheLife.com. Remember to use a valid email address for all comments. If you win, your email will be forwarded to Jodie to discuss what kind of pullrings you want and arrangement for shipment of the prizes.

Please only use one email address per person, those using multiple email addresses for more entries will be disqualified.

This giveaway has a little bit of an extra twist on how you can enter, so read carefully! (If this new way of doing giveaway entries proves popular, and successful, I’ll be using it in future giveaways! So let me know if it’s good or bad or just downright confusing!)

Mandatory Entry: Comment below about this interview, any of your favourite Kittyrobot products (be sure to check out things that they’ve sold!) or tell Jodie and myself what you’d like to see in the future from Kittyrobot! This is worth 1 entry into the giveaway draw.

Bonus Entry #1: Tweet about this contest! You can retweet the following up once per day for a maximum of 9 bonus entries into the giveaway draw. You must be tweeting from a public Twitter account and include your Twitter username below for your entries to count.

Delicious goodies and custom pullrings! Check out the latest @blythelifecom interview and giveaway! http://bit.ly/hTqigi

Bonus Entry #2: Blog about this contest! Be sure to include some details about the contest as well as a link to BlytheLife.com, a link to this specific interview and a link to the Kittyrobot Etsy shop! For 1 blog entry, this is worth a total of 5 bonus entries into the giveaway draw. You must comment below with the URL to your blog entry.

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For those of you who don’t want to leave the potential of a customized Blythe pullring to chance, you can check out the Kittyrobot Etsy shop and contact Kittyrobot to see how you can order yourself a pair (or more!) customized pullrings for your favourite dolls!

I’m sure you’re all excited to find out who won the two lovely and super adorable miniatures from Carmen/Smidge Girl. Because if I were any of you that entered, I’d be wanting to know if I have a super cute little wreath or a little bare Christmas tree for my dolls this holiday season.

Both numbers/winners were selected at the same time via a handy dandy little integer picker. So I decided that prizes would go to the winners according to which ones I had mentioned first in the original post (The Rockefeller Wreath was mentioned first, followed by the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree). So let me refresh your memory a little bit… 😉

But what we’re really all interested in is who won, right? Well the winners are…

Click to read more of this entry.