When I first started in the Blythe community, I noticed that a lot of other people had dolls other than Blythe. I thought some of them were pretty cute, but I also thought it’d get very expensive very quickly if I were to indulge in other dolls. But there’s just some things that you just can’t shake. And sometimes, just sometimes, you fall in absolute love with a dolly and just have a need to get her. This little dolly belongs to a member of my local Blythe group, Jen. My first mistake was asking if I could see her/hold her. The second mistake? Posing her arms and legs.

It didn’t take very long for me to find one online to buy. It also didn’t take very long for the doll arrive in my grabby little hands (yay for EMS!). And now I have my own ball-jointed doll to call my own! My sisters were impressed that it look so long for me to branch out into other types of dolls. It was difficult for me because I had to find a way to reassure myself that this wasn’t the beginning of the end of my bank account (!) and that it really was mostly a one-off purchase because I can’t afford to clothe multiple sizes of dolls and I really don’t want that many dolls! Blythe will always be the number one dolly in my heart, but there’s always room for more dolly love to go around.

For those that are curious, this doll is a Doll Leaves 16cm ball-jointed doll with the stock name ‘DingDing’. The model was discontinued before I bought her, so you won’t be able to find her on the Doll Leaves website, but you can still find her online at various resellers or on eBay.

When I first started looking at photos of Blythe, the ones that really drew me in were the ones with the fantasy coloured hair. I totally thought I would end up with a rainbow family with red, orange, yellow, green, blue and somehow find a purple one. That’s what I had thought would be the case when I was dreaming about what my “dream” doll family would be.

Oddly enough, it’s two years in and I have only two fantasy coloured dolls (Simply Peppermint and Cappuccino Chat – I consider the silver to be ‘fantasy’ because she’s not old). All my other doll are brunette and otherwise dark-dark nearly black/are black. What happened? What happened to that rainbow of pretty doll hair that I was convinced that I would have? Luckily the third doll that arrived in my doll family was Simply Peppermint (Tertiary Jane) – the three dolls that followed after her were all very dark browns/black haired dolls.

Somehow my ‘ideal’ doll family changed, it went from rainbow to more natural colours. And completely without being intentional, the dolls started to have hair close to my hair shade rather than all the colours of the rainbow. This isn’t stopping me from getting dolls with more varying colours in hair. That’s why there’s a new ‘dream’ list, I really do need to make the doll family a little bit more well rounded (and to also include a few other mold types!). I don’t think I would give up any of the dolls that I currently have, but I would like to have more variation in terms of hair colour (which is why I’ve put a self-ban on any more brunettes or very dark browns/blacks from entering the family).

In a way, not having all fantasy coloured haired dolls is a good thing – no one in my house really notices when a new one arrives because they all look the same. If I started having blue-haired dolls, someone might notice that there’s yet another blue-headed doll in the house.

What kind of Blythes were you drawn to when you first discovered Blythe? What kind of Blythes do you have  now?

Blythe costs a lot of money. She costs more money than the average Barbie, Monster High and Moxie Girlz doll combined. And let’s not forget the hefty price tag that doll clothes can have on the secondary market… But regardless of your dolls’ wardrobe (clothes are just clothes that are just clothes), it is important to remember that the doll is one of the most expensive part of the hobby. Especially when you start creeping up in the number of dolls that you have.

In light of a recent event that happened at my summer work (there was a fire, I had to leave the Blythe I had brought into work on my desk when I was evacuating the building – I also left my purse, cell phone, all my identification…), I had to consider things. Like “What in the fudge am I going to do if the *building* burns down?!”. Very fortunately, the fire was contained to an area that was outside and away from the main building – but the alarm was still pulled so we were still evacuated. Which really just led me to think about what I would do in the event of an emergency like that – mostly considering my home because that’s where my dolls spend most of their time.

Without needing to get into details of how much my doll collection costs, let’s consider the average stock doll is approximately $200. If you have a collection of just three Blythes, it’s at least around $600 (less if you’re only buying Simply dolls or the non-limited Prima Dolly dolls; a lot more if you’re only buying Kenners, anniversary dolls or older/limited releases). Despite being varying types of plastic put together, Blythe is an expensive item. Losing a collection would be both horrifying and expensive to replace.

If you do have a pretty large (or just pricey) collection, it could be worth your while to either have the dolls included in your home (or rental) content insurance or a separate type of insurance for collectibles. I did a little bit of research and I was able to get my dolls added to the content insurance for only a few extra dollars per month (after I submitted proof of purchase price so they had the model names on file).

Grail dolls are special. We need to save for them, wait for them, potentially spend hours and hours looking through photos and auction listings just to find the perfect one to bring home. It’s a doll that’s so special that you’re willing to sell off other dolls for, maybe even sell the prized designer dolly duds. Whatever you end up doing to get this doll, you know that she’s special.

I’m currently saving for a Kenner – probably going with a red-headed beauty. After that I’d like to bring a BL (or two) into my dolly family and then see how things go from there. I’ve gone from adding and adding dolls into my family to going very long periods of time without buying a new doll (that’s good, I think!). My ideal dolls to bring in at this point would be a red-headed Kenner, Parco (!) and either a Mondrian (or Dottie Dot) or a Sunday Best. I had decided a while ago to have at least one of every mold type. While I do have multiples in EBLs and RBLs, I’d like to stick with a ‘core’ group of dolls.

I’ve noticed that many dolls that people save up are usually those that are rare or just up there in price. Dolls that come to mind include Kenners, Goldie and Kozy (and the rest of the BL crew), and then there’s the popular anniversary girls (Darling Diva, Princess a la Mode). So many dolls, so much money. A lot of people have different ideas of what’s the ‘right’ doll for them, especially when it comes to the more expensive, more rare types. Some people don’t even want them, after finding out how much money they cost!

What is your grail doll? What’s the ‘ceiling’ for the amount you’d spend on a doll?

On Twitter, I follow many Blythe people. I get alerted about dolly drama (boo), when someone’s having an Etsy sale (yay) and when someone got a new Blythe (!).

It fascinates me how people come up with names. Some people name their dolls after places, or street names. Others just choose a word that sounds ‘right’ to them. For some custom dolls, their names just stick. No one else is ever going to call them by any other name after they’ve been in the hands of a well-known owner. Others rename their lesser-known custom dolls because they want to put their own stamp of ownership onto their dolls. Of course, you don’t find this problem with new dolls that are freshly pulled out of boxes and get a first hair washing.

Most of my dolls’ names were decided before they even arrived. Belarus (#2), Bennett (#5) and Kindred (#6) were all named before they had arrived. I loved the sound of Belarus (yes, like the country) and at the time Bennett had been named after a character I liked on a certain cancelled sci-fi show (somewhat appropriate named Dollhouse). Kindred was originally the name I would have loved to give to my first Kenner, but I just knew that Velvet Minuet was the ‘right’ doll for that name as she had been one of the first Blythes I’d ever seen on the internet way back when I first discovered Blythe. It took me a while to figure out Sophie (#1) and Tertiary Jane (#3) but Eden (#4). Her name just came to me when I first saw her.

Despite it not being a competition, I like knowing that I was the first person to name a doll a certain name. I don’t know why it matters to me, but it makes it feel like that particular doll is more special. But other times it just doesn’t matter as I know there’s probably been dozens of Blythes named Sophie before I named my Blythe that.

How do you like to name your Blythes? Do you keep old names from previous owner(s) or do you start fresh?