I am, unfortunately, not attending BlytheCon this year in NYC. While I would love to attend BlytheCon (I didn’t attend the one in Texas either), it is just not in the cards for me. At least not when it’s in October and I’ve got this pesky thing called school. Plus it costs a small fortune to fly from where I live to NYC (approximate cost is 1.5 Kenners, give or take – this does not include accommodations or spending money, it’d probably be able 2.5 Kenners all said and done), and I just don’t have that kind of cash at the moment – but a girl can dream! You know the true doll fans are those that measure costs of things in dolls, Kenners or otherwise.

Next August, I’ll be in Seattle for BlytheCon 2014! Are you going?

Only another week or so (BlytheCon NY is occurring on October 13th this year), and then I’ll be able to drool everyone’s photos of their fantastic swag and all the gorgeous dolls gathered into one place.

Are you going to BlytheCon NY? What’s on your shopping list while you’re there?

It’s October! Which means that it’s the month of all things pumpkin, skeletal and scary! Unless of course you’re walking into a department store, in which case they seem to think that it’s Christmas already. I swear, if I see another evergreen wreath or a glass bauble for sale before the month becomes December, it’ll be too soon. Halloween is always such a fun holiday and as a kid I liked getting to dress up and go to school and see all of the other kids’ costumes. Now I feel the same way – about what dolls wear when meets come up in October.

Dolls in cute (and sometimes scary) costumes during Halloween? = Fun!

I’m really looking forward to what October has to offer. I love autumn, and candy (and especially November 1st because that means discounted chocolate) and getting to come up with fun costume ideas for my dolls. In previous years, I’ve had one doll dress up as a squid, and then last year there was Medusa, Dorothy (of Oz and Kansas) and Cinderella. Who knows what this year will have in store? (If you have any good costume ideas to share, let me know!)

I’m not entirely sure who started it or where it originated from, sometimes “Blythe Meet” gets changed to “Blythe Meat” on purpose! I’m not going to lie – the first time I saw it I thought it was a typo. I mean, “meat” and “meet” are both real words, so it’s not like spell check would catch something like that. And then I realized that people were doing it on purpose, somewhat ironically (yes, there are clearly hipsters in the Blythe community). One of the lovely ladies in my local Blythe group uses “Blythe Meet” all the time and when I realized that she wasn’t using it as a typo (not going to lie), it kind of annoyed me a bit. Only because that’s not what the word is supposed to be! But I got over that super quick because others in the doll group use it as well, and then it was being used in comments as well and a lot of other people use “Blythe Meat” or “Doll Meat” instead of Meet. Since then initial thoughts of “What’s going on?”, it’s become more of a regular thing. I still don’t use it (mostly because my brain refuses to let me type Blythe Meat instead of Blythe Meet in an ironic fashion), but I’ve come to smile at it when it pops up on my Flickr contacts. After all, the important thing about a gathering is getting to spend time with friends, new and old, not worry about spelling of words.

What do you call your local and not-so-local gatherings of doll people? Blythe/Doll Meat or Blythe/Doll Meet?

Lately, I’ve been attempting to organize my dolly things. Clothes, shoes, the dolls themselves. “Attempting” is the key word in that sentence, in case you didn’t catch it. Organization is something that I can struggle with at times. It can be difficult because of the sheer amount of stuff that I own when it comes to my Blythes and all their necessities. I find myself overwhelmed at times, and then when I’m digging through the drawer I sometimes find things that I didn’t realize that I owned. How unfortunate is that? But at the same time, it lends to the feeling of getting something new without having something new arrive in the mail – which is a pretty awesome feeling!

I have two plastic drawer sets and each drawer holds something different – hats/hair accessories, dresses, shirts/tops, pants/skirts/bottoms, stock clothes and the miscellany (Re-ment, other miniatures, doll-sized purses/bags, curlers for the Kenners, etc.) . So while I’m mostly organized when it comes to what goes into what drawer, it’s the inside of the drawers that are messy. So I decided to get some plastic bags and organize. If I buy “designer” items, I tend to end up with a few from each designer- or I get sets (e.g. a dress set would consist of a dress and bloomers of some sort). So I started bagging like-items and it allows me to be more organized. I haven’t gotten around to labeling the bags yet, but that will come in time. Maybe. (Unlikely…)

Here were some of my bagged up dolly clothes – sorted by designer/maker and some are multiple sets in a bag, others are sets as they were meant to be (e.g. dress + underskirt + bloomers):

It’s hard to take photos of things in shiny plastic!

This is a relatively inexpensive project. I bought two boxes of zipped sandwich bags that were $1 for 50 bags. The only problem is finding the time to do all this sorting and organizing. I haven’t made a very large dent yet in my organization, but I like what I’ve done so far.

Since school started nearly a month ago for me (I started two weeks before Labour Day), I’ve been very busy with presentations, assignments, readings, projects and clinical. It doesn’t stop when I want it to and I find myself going for days and weeks on end without even touching my Blythes. This isn’t to say that I no longer like them, the truth couldn’t be farther from that, but rather I’ve had to change my priorities because my education is important to me and that needs to come first. At the same time, I love my dolls and I have missed even having them out with me. Most of them are on display on my desk, but the others are usually tucked away, so I made it a point to pull a few of them out the other day because I just needed some ‘dolly time’.

Not the best photo, but Halo is still adorable!

And it’s not even as if I do it intentionally with the thought of “I’m just going to ignore my Blythes for a few days” because that’s not it at all. Like or not, Real Life can be busy. And unfortunately things like hobbies fall to the wayside. But recent events (like getting dolly mail!) have rekindled my love for the big-eyed dolls that we all know and love. I was recently on “the hunt” for my first BL when I had a large unexpected expense come up, so now I’m needing to really pinch the pennies and just be happy with what I have – not to get caught up in the never-ending cycle of spending money on more and more dolls and doll things. At least for now, I should enjoy what I have. (And the new dolly clothes that recently arrived…)

Do you ever go through periods where you don’t play with your dolls very much? What makes you decide to spend more time with them?