Sometimes I wonder if I’m too cheap for the  Blythe hobby. Or rather, too frugal. My dolls, unfortunately for them, don’t wear very much designer clothing. If they do, it rarely costs very much – either received through swaps, or small commissions. But sometimes I look at what my dolls wear and then look at what other people’s dolls wear and thing that my dolls, if they were on a playground, would get made fun of for not wearing the best of the best. But maybe that is just a reflection on the kind of experiences I had with playground bullies in school.

Realistically, I know this isn’t a cheap hobby (have you all seen the prices of dolls?). And then at the same time, I’m reminded by the fact that I have spent a fair bit on clothing over the period that I’ve been in this hobby. But at the same time… I believe the most expensive item that I own in my dolls’ closet is around $20 USD. Not that expensive compared to some $50+ dolly items that I’ve seen floating around the internet.

I think how much I spend on the dolls’ clothing is a bit of a reflection to what I spend on clothing for me. I’m a fairly frugal person. It’s the occupational hazard of being a full-time student and also the youngest child in the family. I grew up on mostly hand-me-downs and, in a sense, so do my dolls. They get a lot of ‘used’ clothing (likely, used clothes in doll terms isn’t the same as used clothes in human terms), some thrifted, loads of stock items and handmade. As much as I would like to get dolly mail on a regular (daily!) basis, it gets expensive after a while. Although I would love to get daily mail, don’t get me wrong (it’s fun and the only mail I get on a regular basis is a monthly credit card statement), it just gets a little pricey at times

I think I do an okay job with supplementing their wardrobes though. I have been making a lot more since giving myself the goal of making at least two items per month (so far so good! touches wood), so that’s been adding to the closet. I also do a lot of swaps and trades with people, which helps.

Are you frugal with your dolly (or dolly clothes/shoes/accessories) spending? How do you supplement their closet? Please share your tips!

And I didn’t spontaneous burst into flames or anything!

I’ve been in this hobby since 2009 and I’m still not comfortable with pulling a doll out in public unless I’m with other people that I know. It’s a lot easier when there’s other people who also have Blythes too… But I wasn’t going on vacation with my fellow dolly enthusiasts, but I did have family around instead. The first place that I ever took a doll out was to the aquarium, but there were so many kids around and kids get curious about why some grown up (hah, grown up!) has a dolly that it gets annoying with all the questions. Same with children on playgrounds. Enough complaining about children with curious hands…

It is hard to choose which doll to take on vacation. Because I had to take into consideration how much room I had, I limited myself to one doll and one small bag for doll stuff (clothes, sunglasses, shoes, hair ties). And it’s so hard to decide who to take on vacation. I decided not to take any of the Kenners, then decided against anyone with very long hair… These cuts still left me with five Blythes to choose from. So who did I bring on vacation…? Moxie!

I still have a lot to learn about photography, I know, but at least I had fun!

Or maybe it just seems that way to me? Back in early May I got a bunch of new-to-me doll shoes and I mentioned them on Twitter. Which then turned into me organizing them into plastic boxes and then I did a really stupid thing.

I counted up how many doll shoes I had.

First I counted how many pairs of shoes that I had for Eden Mouse – my little Punkaholic People who only wears pink. She has twelve (12) pairs of shoes! And then I went and counted up all of the other pairs of shoes that I had. I had 38 pairs of ‘other’ shoes, which brought the total up to 50. And then I counted how many pairs of stock Blythe shoes that I had, and I’ve kept all of the stock shoes that came with my dolls, – there was 15 pairs. Which means that I have 65 pairs of shoes. 65 pairs of shoes. I don’t know when this happened, or really how it happened. I know that several pairs came from thrifted dolls, one bunch of shoes came from a sundries sale that I caught a while ago. And then in May I added the 9 pairs of vintage boots.

The fantastic thing about doll shoes is that they’re small, easily organized and stored, and don’t take up so much space. 65 pairs of shoes does not take up nearly as much room as 65 Blythes would. I just need to keep it in perspective sometimes. And it’s also kind of interesting that I’ve got a collection within a collection. My main collection is Blythe, but clearly I’ve also got a collection of shoes.

I wanted to share my recent experience hosting Makani, the Moofers custom Blythe that’s going around the world (along with Compass, customized by Happibug, and Aurora, customized by Sglahe). I was Makani’s second stop (yay!) and her first stop in Canada.

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Last month I hung out at a friend’s house. She also happened to be a Blythe enthusiast and we were chatting about Kenners and dressing up the dollies. While we were setting up the dolls on the couch, her boyfriend and his friend arrived.

Cue the awkward looks at dolls. The friend physically recoiled away from the dolls whenever they went close to him and just shook his head.

I likened the doll hobby to people having hobbies in other aspects – video games, model cars or trains. He just shook his head and said something about model cars and trains not having eyes. It’s always back to the eyes. Which is funny, because I find that one of their more endearing qualities. Large head, large eyes, small body. It’s basically the same traits that make human babies and other mammal babies super cute so we don’t kill or eat them (speaking in an evolutionary sense, of course).

I’ve had awkward (or outright negative) comments about Blythe before. And funny looks. I’m sure we’ve all gotten some form of negative feedback at one time or another.

At the same time, how can you think something negative towards these sweet little faces?

Maybe I’m biased… I probably am (a lot biased…) – the two on the left belong to me.