I’d like to start this off by saying that I think eyelid art on Blythe dolls is awesome. Some people (coughcough) do some fantastic work – I don’t understand how people can paint and draw such detailed work on possibly the world’s smallest canvas. It doesn’t make sense to me because I’m pretty sure that if I tried that, I would go permanently cross-eyed from focusing so much. That and I can’t draw for beans, so not only would I be permanently cross-eyed, it’d also be a waste of time because it would not resemble what I want it to look like. Sad, but true.

The best way that I think that eyelid art is showcased on dolls is with sleepy eyes. I’m sure many of you know how sleepy eyes are done on a Blythe doll. For those unfamiliar, you replace the use of the spring on the eye mechanism with a secondary string. So you pull one string to change the eyes and then another string is used to open the eyes. This allows you to temporarily see the eyelids and have the doll “sleep”. (I’ve read online before that it’s not recommended that you leave your dolls “sleeping” for long periods of time because it can result in damage to the eye mechanism due to stress.)

While I love the idea of getting to see eye lids from time to time, only two of thirteen of my Blythes have sleepy eyes. This is mostly due to the fact that I am terribly lazy when it comes to my dolls. When I need to change to the next set of chips, it’s because there’s a specific set that I want to have facing for photos and I don’t like having the added step of pulling an extra string. Plus, I have a hard enough time as it is finding charms for the main pull string – now I need to find charms or something neat for another string? That’s just so much work! So, sadly, only two of my dolls have sleepy eyes. The rest just get dosed up with some caffeine so that they can stay up for all hours of the day!

How do you feel about sleepy eyes on your Blythes?