I am, unfortunately, not attending BlytheCon this year in NYC. While I would love to attend BlytheCon (I didn’t attend the one in Texas either), it is just not in the cards for me. At least not when it’s in October and I’ve got this pesky thing called school. Plus it costs a small fortune to fly from where I live to NYC (approximate cost is 1.5 Kenners, give or take – this does not include accommodations or spending money, it’d probably be able 2.5 Kenners all said and done), and I just don’t have that kind of cash at the moment – but a girl can dream! You know the true doll fans are those that measure costs of things in dolls, Kenners or otherwise.

Next August, I’ll be in Seattle for BlytheCon 2014! Are you going?

Only another week or so (BlytheCon NY is occurring on October 13th this year), and then I’ll be able to drool everyone’s photos of their fantastic swag and all the gorgeous dolls gathered into one place.

Are you going to BlytheCon NY? What’s on your shopping list while you’re there?

It’s October! Which means that it’s the month of all things pumpkin, skeletal and scary! Unless of course you’re walking into a department store, in which case they seem to think that it’s Christmas already. I swear, if I see another evergreen wreath or a glass bauble for sale before the month becomes December, it’ll be too soon. Halloween is always such a fun holiday and as a kid I liked getting to dress up and go to school and see all of the other kids’ costumes. Now I feel the same way – about what dolls wear when meets come up in October.

Dolls in cute (and sometimes scary) costumes during Halloween? = Fun!

I’m really looking forward to what October has to offer. I love autumn, and candy (and especially November 1st because that means discounted chocolate) and getting to come up with fun costume ideas for my dolls. In previous years, I’ve had one doll dress up as a squid, and then last year there was Medusa, Dorothy (of Oz and Kansas) and Cinderella. Who knows what this year will have in store? (If you have any good costume ideas to share, let me know!)

Something that seems to confuse people is that I am perfectly comfortable with opening up a 1972 Kenner Blythe doll when I’m not comfortable with customizing a newer doll (basically, any of the Takaras – nothing against ADG, I just don’t own any of them). It seems weird to me too, when I really think about it. Considering one is generally more expensive than the other, older plastic and is less replaceable than the latter. Granted, I haven’t done any ‘serious’ fixing work for my Kenners, mostly because I’ve grown to become attached to their primarily unfixed charm. But my dolls need to have limbs and fixed cracks. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I give my dolls limbs.

Eye chips, gaze lifting and new charms. That’s about all I do with Neos!

And you might think “But Michelle, that seems to be some serious restoration work” (and maybe it is), you pause and then continue on with “Surely if you’re comfortable with detaching a hardcap from a vintage doll’s head, you could be comfortable wrenching an eye mechanism out of the front of a Blythe’s face?”. The funny thing is? I’m really not. I’ve done it before (removing an eye mechanism from one of my RBLs) and it was hard! It took a lot of effort on my part (I lack the hand strength to ever do customizing efficiently) and to be perfectly honest, I’m pretty convinced that if I were to customize a doll, it would end up looking a bait doll. That is how much confidence I have in my wannabe customizer capabilities. And you know what? That’s okay! There are plenty of capable customizers out there that I do not need to throw my name into the ring because I’d rather just sit back and lovingly gaze onto the work of others (and believe me, I do). Restoring a Kenner? Let me at her! Customizing any Blythe? Ohhhh no.

Are you brave enough to customize a doll?

I’m not entirely sure who started it or where it originated from, sometimes “Blythe Meet” gets changed to “Blythe Meat” on purpose! I’m not going to lie – the first time I saw it I thought it was a typo. I mean, “meat” and “meet” are both real words, so it’s not like spell check would catch something like that. And then I realized that people were doing it on purpose, somewhat ironically (yes, there are clearly hipsters in the Blythe community). One of the lovely ladies in my local Blythe group uses “Blythe Meet” all the time and when I realized that she wasn’t using it as a typo (not going to lie), it kind of annoyed me a bit. Only because that’s not what the word is supposed to be! But I got over that super quick because others in the doll group use it as well, and then it was being used in comments as well and a lot of other people use “Blythe Meat” or “Doll Meat” instead of Meet. Since then initial thoughts of “What’s going on?”, it’s become more of a regular thing. I still don’t use it (mostly because my brain refuses to let me type Blythe Meat instead of Blythe Meet in an ironic fashion), but I’ve come to smile at it when it pops up on my Flickr contacts. After all, the important thing about a gathering is getting to spend time with friends, new and old, not worry about spelling of words.

What do you call your local and not-so-local gatherings of doll people? Blythe/Doll Meat or Blythe/Doll Meet?

So I have this Human, you know, who seems to forget that I am the sole reason that she decided to go on to collect more Blythes. And I am the reason that she ended up getting “Princess Prim” (gag me). But yes, my loyal readers, you all read her admissions that she plays favourite and that she would leave me behind in a fire if it came to it. And even worse, I found out that she had been buying gorgeous dresses and keeping them from me.

Case in point? Proof!

See? She’s always “blah blah blah, KENNERS” when she should really be focusing on me because I am the reason for everything. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that she acknowledge this on a regular basis with material goods, is it? She spends so much of her time with the precious Kenners and fixing their hair and making sure that they have new things to wear. And what do I have to wear? I’ve been wearing the same outfit for a week, you guys! This is cruel and unusual punishment! (I won’t be showing a photo of that, I cannot bear to be more humiliated to my peers!)

I hope you are all being taken care of much better than my Human does when it comes to me. And if you have any tips to make your Human care about you more than those pesky old and cracked “vintage” dolls, let me know! I may have to hold a garage sale when my Human isn’t looking and get rid of them, Toy Story style.

Sophie is a mostly stock Cappuccino Chat that came to live with me in June 2009. She loves shoes, new clothes, playing with her hair, fashion, magazines full of fluff and shopping. She aspires to be a model and would like to model for some of the ‘great’ dolly fashion houses one day.