I play favourites with my dolls – I used to try to deny it, but there is really no point with all the mounting evidence against me. For the most part, it has to do with who’s new and what’s going on at the time. Did I get a specific doll a special outfit? Did I take a doll out to a meet and happen to give her a change of clothes? I do this a lot, but generally I dote on Primrose, Eden Mouse, and Sophie a lot. I also buy specific clothing pieces for Eden (pink) and Cameo (cat-themed), as well as trying to find fantastic vintage pieces (for my Kenners) and shoes for everyone.

Lately I’ve been spoiling Lottie a lot, she’s gotten dresses just for her already (they arrived before she did!). She’s definitely been getting a lot of camera time lately, and I’m pretty okay with that. I just think that Mondies (and especially my Mondie) are very photogenic. She went to a recent Blythe meet, which is exciting.

Which is the doll do you reach for? Is she a 365 photo challenge girl? Is the girl you reach for a BL too?

Do you recall all those times I’ve mentioned that I really wanted to add a BL to my doll family and how I would love it if I were to get a Mondie (Mondrian)? Well, if you recall the dolly family photo I posted last week – it’s already out of date!

This is Lottie:

She’s a secondhand Mondie that I purchased off of Yahoo! Japan auctions for what I consider to be a steal. She does have some issues though (her pull string does not work, her eyes are hand-roll only, she has been opened before because she has a scalp gap in the back, she has some faint staining on her legs that does not bother me), but she is all mine and I finally have my Mondie!

I’m kind of really smitten with her.

Lottie’s wearing: dress/Plastic Fashion.

Family photos are a lot of fun to do. They were also a lot easier when I had less dolls and actually had a stand for every single one of my dolls. Family photos aren’t done as frequently as I’d like, and I wish I had the opportunity to do more of them (or made the time to do them more often). With many Blythes in my family, a group photo of this magnitude takes a while to set up and arrange.

I arranged my twelve Neo Blythes in the order they showed up…

And then I snuck in some Kenners and a couple Middies, in the order that they arrived here…

Top Row: Sophie (Cappuccino Chat, RBL), Belarus (Love Mission, EBL), Tertiary Jane (Simply Peppermint, RBL), Bennett (Margaret Meets Ladybug, EBL), Eden Mouse (Punkaholic People, RBL), Kindred (Velvet Minuet, SBL), Emmalynn (Kenner).

Second Row: Moxie (Simply Bubble Boom, FBL), Molybdenum “Mollie” (Simply Sparkly Spark, FBL), Primrose  “Prim” (Kenner), Lillian Rose “Lily” (Kenner), Halo (Friends With Blythe custom, Prima Dolly Saffy base RBL), Kitty Brighton (Jackie Ramone, Middie), Cedar (Monique Magnifique, RBL), Minnow (Hi-Ho! Marine, RBL+), Cameo (Friends With Blythe custom, Ichigo Heaven base RBL), Lydia Melbourne (Yellow Marshmallow, Middie).

When is the last time you took a dolly family photo? Are you overdo for a new one?

Sometimes I look at my Middies and wonder what on earth I was thinking when I decided that introducing a new size of doll into my doll family was a great idea. This is mostly because it’s hard to dress them sometimes. On occasion I wind up making them sometime, but it’s almost never anything sewn because I’m bad enough at attempting to sew in straight lines for the full-sized Blythes – it’s hardly going to happen for the Middies (or… the Petites). But I am always wrong with the idea that Middies aren’t a great idea, because they are – they’re here and they’re here to stay.

Middies have a lot of positive points going for them, if you’re thinking of getting your own Middie:

• They are adorable and pocket/purse friendly. Not as pocket/purse friendly as a Petite, but they’re big enough that you’re not likely to lose them.
• They have small feet – this means that you can justify shopping for even more doll shoes because the ones that feet Blythe or Licca feet will not feel Middie-sized feet.
• They have small bodies. If you knit or sew, it doesn’t take that much yarn or fabric to craft something for them.
• The head tilt. Super adorable, super cute, reminds me of a little kitten or puppy tilting their head while watching you eat with that “Are you sure you’re going to finish that?” look.
• You can dress them up as twins with their ‘big’ sisters. (I should never be allowed to dress real children for photo shoots, it’d be matching outfits all the time.)

Middie Monday is a feature that is published on the first Monday of each month! A guaranteed monthly post on Blythe’s little sister – Middie! If you have any suggestions for a future Middie Monday post, please send me an email or use my Suggestions form!

After a while, purchases in the Blythe hobby just don’t seem that expensive. It’s a really weird phenomenon that you might have noticed in your own dolly spending. First it comes with a $10 dress, then the dresses become $30 or $40 (this gets exponentially worse when you’re not actually in a country that uses USD because of the horrifying exchange rate – Canadian dollar, I am glaring at you…). When I was first venturing into the Blythe hobby, the Hasbro LPS Petites did not exist and the only Petites that did exist were of the Takara variety. These were both awesome in the fact they were (primarily) miniature versions of Blythes that already existed or created to be companion releases, and also seemed exceedingly expensive for what they were. At the time that I joined the Blythe hobby and started collecting in 2009, Takara Petites were probably around $20-40 USD, which isn’t to far off from how much some of them cost today. It just seemed like a lot because shipping alone was often roughly half the cost of the doll. And despite the fact that shipping for a full-sized Neo remains today anywhere from $30-50 CAD, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as paying 50% of the cost of a doll on shipping. The fact remains that I didn’t get my first Petite until 2011 as a gift from a dear friend, and then later purchased my second LPS Petite from a local chain store when they were still being sold in stores.

Left to right: Pipsqueak, Shrimp, and Lark.

See the funny thing is that despite LPS Petites being inexpensive, I never really bought many of them (I bought one for myself, and another for a Secret Santa gift exchange with the local Blythe group). I think this is in part because there was no thrill involved. There’s some internalized hype when you buy a doll and eagerly check and recheck the tracking to see the progress of her arrival over the Pacific Ocean. There’s the thrill of sniping an eBay auction or being the first to contact someone on a forum or Facebook on the perfect Blythe doll for your family. Being able to go out and buy a Blythe wasn’t as exciting for me – plus at the time LPS and Takara Petites didn’t really stand out in my doll family (and at a lowly number of 3 with absolutely no wardrobe, they still don’t really stand out – mostly because I’m currently not willing to sew clothes that are that small).

My first two Petites were both of the LPS variety, and they don’t often get taken out as often as I would like despite the fact that they are very pocket friendly and quite easy to pose as they aren’t as top-heavy as their full-sized sisters and have a lower centre of gravity. I still don’t do very much with my Petites, but I do love them. After all, they make for a fantastic and cute handful. I think if I were to add a Petite into the doll family at this point, I would probably look for a Takara Petite because I do like their ‘sleep’ eyes. Plus there is a nursing themed one (Intensive Care) that I actually think would be great to have (even if she’s not a nurse for people like me).

Do you have any Petites in your doll family? How do you have?