It’s been a little while since I last posted here. I don’t really have a good reason why. Perhaps I was feeling a little bit burnt out, or maybe I was just making time for other things (work, family/friends, taking care of my health, etc.). Regardless, as the days went by, I was feeling a bit embarrassed for not posting. And then it just became easier. Ignore, ignore, ignore. But then I was feeling the itch again to post, so I think the break was really my brain’s way of telling me that I needed a sabbatical from posting about dolls. And what better day to restart than BlytheLife’s birthday?

Fun fact, today may be BlytheLife.com’s 7th birthday – but it’s also Canada’s 150th birthday and it’s basically a party all year long here in Canada with fun events and commemorative things everywhere.

The break allowed me to recollect myself, reevaluate my doll collection and thing about what was important to me about Blythe. And it wasn’t stressing about getting posts up on time. I’m looking forward to going to New York in the fall to attend BlytheCon Brooklyn, and I’m looking forward to interviewing new people, working on new projects/tutorials, and just having fun again. Less stress, more fun. Like Blythe should be all the time.

Wilhelmina’s wearing: dress/astrosnik.

It’s just like me to open up a can of worms, but it is something to think about. For me personally, my most expensive doll was my (first) Kenner. She was an eBay auction that I was determined to win after having saved and set aside all of the over time that I had earned over the summer. In comparison, my two custom dolls (both bought secondhand, both are Friends With Blythe customs) were considerably cheaper compared to any of my Kenner Blythe dolls. This is in part to the fact that the customizer wasn’t active in the community, and at the time wasn’t a highly sought after artist.

There are certain names, of which I’m sure you can think of right now, that command top dollar. When a doll starts hitting four digit price tags (especially before the conversion of USD $ to CAD $), I get a bit antsy. I’m always aware that the Canadian dollar is doing poorly compared to the American counterpart. That $30 doll dress turns into a $50-plus purchase after taking into fact the costs of shipping to Canada and the price conversion. With the way that the market currently is, and how poorly the dollar is doing, I’m highly resistant to actually buying new dolls right now unless it’s an incredibly good deal – whether it be a Kenner, a custom, or a stock doll of any kind. The dollar isn’t kind at the moment. However, I think for the right custom (or Kenner!), I’d be willing to open up my wallet. Chances are though, I’d spend more on a Kenner than a custom (but that’s just where my personal preferences are).

Would you pay more for a custom or a Kenner?

Cameo’s wearing: helmet/Cakewalk Queen, dress/Plastic Fashion, leggings/Endangered Sissy.
Prim’s wearing: dress/Endangered Sissy, capris/Fancy Pansy stock.

We are going to completely ignore the fact that my Petites aren’t wearing very spring-summer clothing. This is because I don’t actually have spring-summer Petite-sized clothing for them. (I’m a bad dolly owner, aren’t I?) That said, I actually got them off the doll shelf for a photo and what I did do was marvel at how small they are. Yes, they are called Petites, but still – they’re small!

Today is just a little bit of a Petite Appreciation Day. They often get over looked and ignored – partially because of their size, partially because they’ll never be quite as popular as their Neo-sized big sisters.

How many Petites do you have? Besides these three, I have one more (named Pipsqueak). She’s in an even more winter-themed outfit (complete with a toque!) so I didn’t take a photo of her as well. I have two LPS Petites (stock), one custom Takara Petite and one stock Takara Petite. I think they’re pretty cute! I wouldn’t mind getting a few more Petites in the future, since they don’t take up a lot of space. They’re handy as little travel companions, but the thing I find most difficult with Petites is finding clothes for them as not a lot of people sew for these teeny tiny dolls. While I do own a lot of pattern books and they do have Petite-sized clothes in them, I don’t have the motivation to sew that small…

Top photo (left to right): Shrimp and Chickadee.
Bottom photo: Lark (Sirenita custom).

This is a loaded question because for me it really varies. I still haven’t fully unpacked since moving last summer (I’ve been busy…), so I’m not 100% sure where all of my Middie Blythe clothes are (in which case it doesn’t take much to change their outfits because I don’t know where all their clothes are). For my Blythes, it really depends. If I’m taking them to a meet, it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes depending on how many dolls I plan on taking. The more dolls I decide on, the longer it takes. And then comes the added time of getting on the tights or socks if I’m going for a completed outfit.

A lot of my dolls haven’t had a proper outfit change in a really long time (yes, feel sorry for them, I do too!) and I recently decided to change Kindred’s outfit. She’s been in this outfit for definitely more than a year. Possibly close to two. I’m terrible at times when it comes to being a Blythe owner (I’m really sorry, Kindred). And it took me about 15 minutes to come up with what I wanted to put her in and another couple of minutes to do the full outfit change. I find sometimes it really depends on my mood as that kind of determines how long I wind up sitting on the floor, pawing through drawers of tiny clothes.

How long does it take you to do full outfit changes?

Kindred was wearing: top/Joelle (swap), overalls/Nostalgic Pop stock.
Kindred is wearing: cardigan/made by me, dress/Giulia (swap).

Happy first day of May! I’d post that Justin Timberlake meme, but I’m sure you will see that elsewhere (on Facebook… on Instagram…). It’s the first Monday of the month, which means it’s time for Middie Monday!

I was terribly uninspired in the month of April for all things Blythe. I’m not sure what happened there. I had some time off from work for vacation, which really just turned into a whole lot of time off from the internet in general because I spent a lot of time outside of my home doing things, and going places and making plans! Now that I’m back at work, I’ve had a bit of time to get back into a routine and I’m all energized again to do things with my dolls. Mostly because I have a lot of sets of eyes looking disapprovingly at me whenever I leave the house without them.

I have some projects on my knitting needles right now, but they’re not done yet so I’ll probably have photos available for next month’s Middie Monday (this is also partially because some of those projects are for a swap – even if my Middies will get a chance to model before I ship things off). But until then, you get the following photo mostly because I think it’s hilarious (and proof that I actually changed outfits on one of my dolls for the first time in forever?):

Middie Monday is a feature that is published on the first Monday of each month! A guaranteed monthly post on Blythe’s little sister – Middie! If you have any suggestions for a future Middie Monday post, please send me an email or use my Suggestions form!