I’m not the first one to think it: doll clothes have been getting more and more expensive.

On one hand, I definitely think that dolly seamstresses are entitled to being paid for their talent, their time and their work. If you’ve never tried it before, sewing doll clothes can be hard. Small seams, small hems, small everything! It’s difficult to come up with something that fits, plastic doesn’t have any give (at least not compared to humans). On the other hand, my dolls are demanding little bits of plastic and want ‘new’ clothes all the time. Or maybe that’s just an extension of my own personality (but let’s pretend that it’s not).

So what can you do? You could go and buy new doll clothes, but this is Blythe On A Budget, not Blythe On A Shopping Spree. What you can do is shop in your own doll closet.

• Rediscover clothing that you already own. Never really thought that orange top looked good on anyone? Try it on the newest addition to your family or try it when another pair of pants or a skirt or under a jacket.
• Have your dolls out and change their outfits! Give them a new look for the few days (or weeks, or months – if you’re bad like me and never change your doll’s outfit).
• Put together new clothing combinations. Striped tights with a polka dot skirt and a solid top? Sure! Horizontal striped dress with a plaid hat and dotted tights? Why not? After all, some dolls (and their humans) just lack fashion sense (just ask my own dolls!).
• Maybe you got some new hair accessories? Maybe it’d look good with that dress that you don’t remember why you bought it? Time for a doll to get a new outfit on!

And when you’ve got all your dolls in new outfits that you shopped out of your own doll closet, now it’s time for your dolls to do a photoshoot! There’s always nice, budget-friendly ways to enjoy your Blythes.

I’m a huge fan of thrift stores, maybe because I’m always on the look out for that elusive Kenner! But besides my search for a vintage Blythe, I like going through the toy section to see what other dolls or doll clothes there are as well as going through the rest of the store to find some little gems. Here are some of my thrifting tips for you:

• Bring along a spare body. It’s so much easier to judge if a doll is similar in size with Blythe (or any other doll that you’re trying to clothe) if you have a model. Don’t just look for Skipper – I’ve found other dolls in cute clothes that subsequently get stripped and ignored in order to clothe my Blythes. You never know what other dolls out there have clothes that could fit Blythe unless you try.
• The craft section has knitting needles, crochet hooks, sewing supplies, fun trims and so much more. I’ve gotten fabric, trims and lovely sock yarn (a decent thickness for making Blythe knits from) all from the crafting area in the thrift store.
• Please also consider the book section! Most thrift stores have a crafting section and you can most definitely find (from time to time) books on sewing, sewing doll clothes or books on sewing clothes in general – some things can be taken from the human scale to the doll scale.
• Check out the clothes! Even if they’re not quite your style, the patterns in children’s clothing is great scale for dolls and one large adult shirt has a lot of fabric for making clothes for your favourite doll!
• Go frequently. Thrift stores get new products to sell all the time. What’s not there one day will pop up the next. Go frequently, find out when their stocking times are, maybe sign up for a newsletter so you know when their half-price days are…?
• Be prepared to be there for a while. Thrift stores are rarely well organized unfortunately and it can take a lot of time hunting to find a little gem. But that’s what makes it fun (right?). So have some time set aside for digging through the trash to find the treasure.
• Have fun! It may not be for everyone, but thrifting is fun and economical. Keep a note on pricing though – not everything is priced cheaply/to sell. Some things are heavily marked up while others are priced dirt cheap.
• Be critical – you’re looking at used things. Look for stains, cracks, rips, runs and all that fun stuff when it comes to dolly things. There’s no point in dropping $5 on a bag of doll clothes if none of it suits your tastes (or your doll’s) and none of it fits!

Exhibit A: Doll with Blythe-sized clothing I had thrifted:

I love the look of mini-buttons on doll clothing. They’re super adorable and they come in all sorts of colours. My main problem? Even though they’re (somewhat) readily available in scrapbooking sections of stores, the pricing is at a few dollars for less than 20 buttons. If you go online, you’re paying a smaller price for a larger amount (lowest I’ve seen is $2.50 for 100 buttons) but you get all of the same colour. And while I can appreciate beauty of small plastic buttons, there needs to be some kind of alternative that doesn’t cost as much.

It’s been in style lately for human clothing to have large buttons – why not transfer that idea over to doll clothing? If you have buttons that came off of your own clothing, you can still use them! Make a nice peacoat for your dolls and use ‘large’ buttons on the jacket to mimic fashions for people!

Seedbeads are small and come in some fantastic colours! You can buy a lot for very little money – some places will even sell mixed packages or vials for a low cost. This can be great because the beads are an appropriate scale for dolly clothing, but at the fraction of the price of the plastic buttons. You can find them at dollar stores at $1 for a vial or a bag. You can also find them at craft stores. They come in various colours (solid colours, milky, translucent) and can be made out of plastic or glass.

Craft your own mini-buttons! Get some polymer clay and make them for yourself. Just a reminder that they will end up very thin so your best bet for curing the polymer clay is to boil them rather than to put them in a oven (they’re likely to burn). Quite possibly the more expensive of the three ideas, but polymer clay comes in great colours and you can make them the same size as the miniature buttons without completely breaking the bank. And when you’ve made enough buttons in the colour you have, you can use the clay to make something else entirely (maybe make your own doll-scale foods?).

Knitting is one of my many crafting-related hobbies and I know a lot of other people in the doll community share the love of needles as well. A lot of great doll fashion crafters also knit, it’s great hobby and you can do it almost anywhere (just like crocheting, which I did blog about back in September 2010).

There are a lot of great resources available for beginner knitters, all you need is a pair of knitting needles (or just two smooth skewers) and some yarn (or string). My first project was a garter stitch scarf, but you needn’t be that boring! Like crochet, knitting has different terminology for UK or US terms, there’s also different sizing methods for the needles themselves and different ways to describe the types of yarn (ply, weight).

You can get your supplies for learning how to knit (yarn and needles) at most any craft stores, at yarn shops (expensive!) or at thrift stores (be sure that both needles are the same size – they can get bagged incorrectly!). You can find free patterns online at sites like Ravelry or just poking around. You can find fantastic resources at a public library or also on the internet! Some great websites to help you get started are:

• knittinghelp.com
• knittingonthenet.com

Don’t be discouraged if you’re not knitting fantastic lace dresses for your Blythes from the start – everyone needs to start somewhere and it’s always important to learn the basics and fundamentals before branching off into newer things.

For those looking for a free pattern with very little shaping, you can check out the Knit Empire Dress pattern here on BlytheLife.com. The skills you use in that pattern are casting on, knit stitches, purl stitches, cast off, cast on in a row and casting off.

If you’re a knitter and you have any hints or tips for beginner knitters here on BlytheLife.com, please share in the comments section!

Kenner, the name of a defunct toy company and the name we use to describe the Blythes of the year 1972. Now a show of hands, how many people want a Kenner? It’s probably many people in the Blythe community. Myself? Well, I didn’t really “get” it until I saw a Kenner in person and then heard that soft little pip that they have. Then I realized how badly screwed I was in terms of not getting a Kenner, it just turned into want mode.

Photo by me/chelleshocks, Kenners belong to Rebecca/Squirrel Junkie.

So I decided to start saving up for a Kenner. My Kenner funds come from tax credit cheques that I get from the Canadian federal government for a) not making a whole lot of money and b) being a poor student and also from all of the overtime that I’m earning from my full-time summer job. But that is just one method of saving for a pricey doll. I do it this way because I don’t budget for having overtime because I never know when there’s not going to be surplus of work available to me, and I don’t budget for my tax credit cheques because I don’t remember when they come (even though there is technically a schedule). So money that I don’t take into account when budgeting for school and other life’s expenses equals dolly funds.

Some other methods for saving up for a Kenner or another expensive Blythe or just something else that you want:

• Craft and then sell. Take a set amount of money to invest into supplies and then craft something to sell. Always invest some of the money you make into more craft supplies but then save a portion for your fund. Bonus points if you’re making something awesome for Blythe.
• Sell your old textbooks. My sister can’t be the only person who’s holding onto textbooks since she graduated from university 9 years ago! It was money spent and then just kind of stayed there. It’s like having cash hanging out on the shelf, just collecting dust. She recently sold many of her textbooks (all older editions, newer ones have since been published) and earned some money to put towards her furniture fund (she really needs to get a couch).
• Start couponing (just don’t go crazy) and whatever money you save and would have otherwise had spent gets saved. Please don’t go out and buy a bunch of things that you don’t need, you’re not saving money by doing that. But just go and use coupons on things that you would need and then set aside the money you’ve saved for that Kenner (or Darling Diva, or Art Attack, or Parco…)
• Closet clean out! Do your dolls never wear those dresses anymore? Maybe no one in your dolly family actually wears pants. And those shoes, does anyone wear those boots? If you have a lot of doll clothes that are still in good condition that you no longer want/need/use, it’d be a good idea to do a closet clean out. That way you’d be freeing up space (not necessarily for more doll clothes or shoes!) and getting some of the money that you’d already spent in the dolly community back for your next big purchase!

What are your favourite methods of saving for a new doll or more sundries? Please share below in the comments about how you save for a new doll!