Image from sxc.hu user nazreth.

A year ago, my very first post on BlytheLife.com went live and I was pushing a little fledgling site out of the proverbial nest and into the world for everyone to see. I had hopes for this website, I wasn’t entirely sure how often that I was going to be able to keep it updated, but I had hopes in making it a somewhat visited website just to justify the time that I spent on just making that darn eye in the header.

And my expectations were surpassed. I was introduced to so many people, I was told by people new to the Blythe hobby how helpful the website was to them as a resource and I got to interact with just so many people. It’s been absolutely amazing. Writing BlytheLife has certainly made me more active in the doll community – needing to keep up with hot topics and get things posted. It’s been such a huge undertaking and effort and it’s nice to see that I kept it up for a year!

• 1 year
• 15 giveaways
• 18 interviews
• 35 Blythe On A Budget articles
• 170 posts
• 1066 comments
• 81585 visitors (in May 2011!)

Thank you so very much to everyone who has ever visited this website. It’s my baby and it’s growing up so fast! I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store for the second year of BlytheLife.

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If you know anyone that you think would be interested in getting interviewed for BlytheLife.com, please send me an email (michelle@blythelife.com) or refer them to the How to Get Featured page! I’m always looking forward to doing more interviews and showcasing more talent in this great dolly community!

New to BlytheLife.com is the Events page! You can find it by clicking either here or looking over on the list of navigation list on the menu to your right.

My hope is to maintain an up-to-date list of big Blythe events happening in the dolly community right here on BlytheLife.com. So if you’re running a big event or just happen to know about one, let me know! I’ll need to know things like the name of the event, location, date(s) and times, ticket costs and if the event has a website or a Flickr group page (or something), that’d be awesome too!

Events should be fairly open to the public. If your event is happening in your backyard and you’re only inviting your 10 closest Blythe friends, it’s probably not the kind of event that will go onto the Events page for everyone to read about. But if you are organizing a large-scale Blythe event (like what BlytheCon was in Portland, OR!), that’s definitely the kind of event that I want to tell people about!

If you have an event that you would like added, you can email me at michelle@blythelife.com or comment below with the following information:

• Name of the event
• Web-link (to the event homepage, Flickr group, etc.)
• Location
• Date and time
• Cost of event ticket – if applicable

BlytheCon 2011 occured this year in Portland, Oregon. It happened on June 20th (Monday) and it was a blast. The venue was Venue Pearl, which was easy enough for me to find from the nearest MAX station. It was so much fun. There were so many people, a lot of vendors and a lot of dolls to see and (politely) drool over.

(If you want to find out more about the photos, click on them and it’ll lead you to the Flickr pages for those photos!)

irulethegalaxy’s Matilda surveying the crazy that is BlytheCon:

Squirrel Junkie’s amazing nautical Kenner display:

Gorgeous custom dolls:

More gorgeous custom dolls:

irulethegalaxy’s amazing Kozy (Matilda) again:

More and more gorgeous custom dolls:

Cute display on a vendor’s table (I loved the Hello! sign):

luxielou’s gorgeous Zella (Gbaby custom):

Super cute outfits on equally cute dolls:

I hadn’t seen Petites before BlytheCon, so getting to see them was a treat (I also never saw customs, BLs, FBLs or Kenners in person before):

On Sunday June 19th, there was a Early Bird Meet for those already in Portland for BlytheCon. It was organized by happibug and happened at Director Park. It also happened to be my very first Blythe Meet ever. Here are some of the photos that I took while I was there:

(If you click on the photos, it’ll lead you to the Flickr pages for them where there’s more information – some of the dolls I’m unsure of who they belong to, unfortunately.)

Photos from the actual BlytheCon (June 20th) will be going up on Friday!

In just a few weeks, BlytheLife.com will be turning one year old! I’m very excited that the site has managed to survive for so long as well as all the lovely visitors that come back to check out the new content on a daily basis. As BlytheLife.com heads into year 2 of existence, I’d like to ask for your help! And here’s a handy-dandy little survey for you to answer for me:

1. What kind of articles have you liked reading in the past? What kind of articles do you want to see in the future?
2. Was the doll blogging series useful to you? Would you like to see more articles on creating your own doll site/blog?
3. What kind of D.I.Y. tutorials do you want to see? (Keep in mind that I have limited mental capacity for sewing intricate things…)
4. Did you like reading my interviews with customizers and crafters in our dolly community? Who would you like to see me ask to do an interview with me next?
5. What methods of giveaway entries did you like? What other methods of entering giveaways would you like to see used on BlytheLife.com?
6. What do you want to see more of in the future, in general, here on BlytheLife.com?