Every month’s last Friday (almost every month…) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to this month’s instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of June, I wanted to highlight doll communities that are out there for doll enthusiasts. All of the communities are free to join and make accounts on, you just need to read over their forum rules

1. Blythe Kingdom – a popular forum, you do need a ‘referral’ in order to register an account, but it is very active. There is a Buy/Sell/Trade section, a section on customization and an off-topic forum, among other sections.
2. This is Blythe – a big Blythe forum that’s run by Gina Garan, author of This is Blythe. There’s also a shop (that sells dolls, customization goodies, clothing and shoes), a Buy/Sell/Trade section and lots of posts! It is less active than Blythe Kingdom, but there are a lot of posts still on the forums that are relevant.
3. The Blythe Doll Community – on Livejournal. You don’t necessarily need a LJ account to read the posts, but you will need an account to edit any posts that you anonymously post.
4. We Play With Dolls – You will need to get an account to read all the posts, but there are some public sections. I love the forums for sewing, crafting and customizing and greatly enjoy reading the posts there. Be sure to check it out! It’s a fairly big Australian Blythe community.
5. Knitting for Blythe – on Ravelry. You do need a Ravelry account in order to join the group and read the posts, but it’s a good group! And it’s not just knitting either – people also discuss crocheting and sewing for Blythe as well as other topics.

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.

Every month’s last Friday (or just once a month, sometime on a Friday) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to this month’s instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of May, I wanted to look at fun and great blogs – all doll related. It’s great for inspiration! I love looking at photos and all of them are free to read and look at.

1. Smidge House – I love Smidge House and Smidge House has been great for BlytheLife in return. Carmen makes fantastic 6th scale furniture in amazing detail. Sometimes she even has some things for sale, but I’m mostly inspired by her photos with all the little details.
2. Sirenita – I love looking at photos of customization work. I also love looking at photos of customization works in progress. Feel free to check out the beautiful eye candy, glorious, glorious eye candy.
3. ericaduh.com – I love Erica’s photos! She has some amazing Blythes, amazing ball-jointed dolls and she also sews! I’m a huge fan of her work and her dolls are always well dressed!
4. EssHaych x OnePinkHippo – A blog by two friends! Amazing photos and a beautiful friendship all in one blog. What’s neat is that a lot of their blog entries are letters to each other. Very awesome!
5. blythe fashion – A great blog that talks about the clothes for dolls. Goes from knitted items, dresses, skirts, tops and pretty much everything. Very cute resource and I like looking at photos!

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.

Every month’s last Friday (or just once a month, sometime on a Friday) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to this month’s instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of February, I wanted to highlight some creative and fun sites. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

1.  Because I love Kenners (and lets just talk about Kenners some more), I’ve been reading up on how-to’s and tips on fixing up Kenners again over at This is Blythe. You do need an account to read the posts! Current favourite thread is about cleaning and repair tips. Accounts on This is Blythe are free.
2. On Flickr, there’s many groups that I love, but lately I’ve been looking at Blytheopedia because I’m a little unfamiliar about some of the newer releases (haven’t really been paying attention!) so I’ve gone back to see all the stock promotional photos and illustrations that I’ve missed.
3. For those that craft, there is a Blythe group on Ravelry (account is needed!). It’s called Knitting for Blythe, but they also discuss customization, sewing, crocheting and (of course) dolly goodness in general! Accounts on Ravelry are free.
4. It’s winter around here (and everywhere else in the northern hemisphere) and the sun goes away fairly early still. I found a tutorial on how to take better photos in low light without using flash, so I thought I’d share it for fellow amateur photographers!
5. I’ve been looking at printable miniatures again. My favourites lately have been little cereal boxes and you can find more on this page.

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.

Every month’s last Friday (or just once a month, sometime on a Friday) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to this month’s instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of January, I picked out some of the sites that I kept going back to during the month. I hope you like them too!

1. Blythopia.com is a fantastic resource website. You can look up any of the NEO Blythes to see release dates, names, types of stock. There’s also information about the dress sets and shoe sets! It’s run by Jennatomic, who took over Blythopia and revamped the site.
2. There’s the Dolly Dress Challenge group over on Flickr. I love seeing photos of what people have made! There’s a few different challenges that have happened in the group. One was to make a clothing item per day, the new one is to make one item for each doll.
3. I’ve been wanting to make a doll house (or just several room boxes) for ages now, but I just don’t have the room. This doesn’t stop me from thinking about how I would like to decorate the rooms though! You can find fantastic free printable scrapbook paper on sites like ScrapbookScrapbook.com and MrPrintables.com, all you need is to supply the printer, paper and the ink.
4. More printable minis! I found TreeFeathers.com and their site has things like vintage Valentines, movie posters and some super-cute vintage travel posters. All printable pages have a little 1″ ruler at the bottom.
5. And another Flickr group that I want to draw attention to is Kenner 365, or also known as A Kenner A Day. I love looking at all the great photos of the vintage girls. There’s also weekly themes, which is fantastic if you’re stuck and unsure of how to take photos of your 1972 Blythes!

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.

Every month’s last Friday (or just once a month, sometime on a Friday) is part of a feature on BlytheLife.com, Freebie Friday Five. Welcome everyone to this month’s instalment! I mention 5 things I love every month that’s free to do/read/see.

If you have any suggestions for next month’s Freebie Friday Five, please don’t hesitate to email me! Maybe you have a site you think that I should feature or a pattern that’s free and up on the web? Tell me!

For the month of December, I wanted to find things that would hopefully serve for inspiration for whatever goals you have for 2012 so I’ve included sites for photography tips, crafting and more.

1. For the 365-enthusiasts, I found photocorrect.com which has free tips and tricks for taking photos. My favourite article was on bokeh in photos.
2. If you’re new (or not!) to knitting, knittinghelp.com is a fantastic resource with videos and a forum! Many of the videos are free and there’s a lot more cast-on methods that I ever really need to know – and it’s always a good idea to use the method recommended in the pattern to get the desired look!
3. For a lot of lovely free patterns (if your goals this year are to craft a wardrobe for your dolls), you can join Ravelry! It’s free to join and there’s a pattern search engine. You can key in the type of yarn you want to work with, how much you have and even search for Blythe and see what you find.
4. Wanting to edit some photos? Maybe correct the colour a bit or just blend two together? GIMP is a free photo program and there are a ton of tutorials out there for you!
5. Start writing! Write a blog (BlytheLife.com has a guide to get you started!), and you can start one for free on Blogger or WordPress. And when you’ve set up your Blythe-related blog, be sure to let me know so we can exchange links!

And this my last blog entry for 2011! I hope you all had a lovely year! See you all in 2012!

—

** Special Reader Deal ** If you saw my blog entry last Friday about advertising here on BlytheLife.com… If you apply for January 2012 advertising (and already have an appropriate advert image), you can tack on the month of February (so you get both January and February!) for $15 (large size) or $7.50 (small size) if you mention seeing this deal in the comments section.

—

If you know of a site, group or activity that you think I should highlight in next month’s Freebie Friday Five, let me know! Comment below or email me.