You didn’t really think I was serious about quitting Blythe, did you?!

I am not going anywhere from the hobby, neither are my dolls (or their clothes, or the plentiful shoes). The whole crowd is staying, even the ones that don’t get photographed often at all (I am very sorry for that!). It was meant to be a bit of a joke (I know, I know, I have a poor sense of humour). But sometimes a little bit of a shock to the system can be a good thing.

BlytheLife is not going anywhere, I will still be writing and posting as I’ve always been. As I near the end of my academic journey, I will probably spend a little bit less time replying emails but I will still do my best to reply within a few days. I do have a lot of fun things planned for BlytheLife over the next little while, so I am very much still excited to be blogging and taking photos of dolls and being a part of this online community.

Sometimes you just need to know when to throw in the towel.

Blythe has been a very important and very integral part of my life since 2009, and I’ve also grown a lot since 2009 and sometimes it’s just time to stop with the dolls and to move on from dolls and other silliness that came out of the hobby. I will be listing all of my dolls, clothes, and shoes, for sale over the next couple of weeks. In life post-Blythe, I will be focusing on school (which I’m almost done), and I will still be working on BlytheCon Vancouver as I made a commitment and I intend to follow through.

If anyone has any questions about this, or about the future of BlytheLife, you can email me.

As Blythe’s sisters go, they’re not as exciting as Blythe is. Neither Middies or Petites have a pull string, they don’t have four sets of eye chips, but they do have some features that stock Blythe does not have. Middie is able to look side to side (or front-facing) with the same set of chips, plus she can tilt her head from side to side. Petite is able to tilt her head from side to side, and if you have a Takara-produced, she has stock ‘sleep’ eyes that is more reminiscent of the baby dolls that some of us may have grown up with. Petites have been changed with Hasbro’s Littlest Pet Shop relaunch, so the new ‘Blythe’ dolls in Hasbro’s LPS line are more similar to the Mattel’s Polly Pocket (with the rubber clothing).

Petites and Middies continue to catch the eye of many Blythe collectors. New Middie releases come out in tandem with a ‘related’ Neo Blythe, or they come out with a similar theme as a Neo that did well. Themes that worked well for Neos also tend to do pretty okay with the Middies. And while Petites aren’t as plentiful in their releases as Middies are today, they are still quite beloved and very pocket friendly. A Petite fits into pretty much any pants pocket that I have – and if you’re familiar with fashion these days, you know that most pants pockets don’t fit much at all.

At this time in my doll collecting days, I would probably favour Middies over Petites. I enjoy the larger size, and the dial on the back of their heads means that I can eek out just a smidgen more personality out of the chubby little faces.

Do you prefer Middies or Petites?

There are twenty-four hours in every single day. We all get the same twenty-four hours, but we all do different things with them. At this point, I’m in my last practicum for school so I do 12 hour shifts at the hospital that is bookended with a long commute (40-50 minutes one way). So all in all, by the time I get home, that’s 14 of my 24 hours gone in a day. That doesn’t leave room for much else when you have to consider that I need to sleep in order to function at my next 12 hour shift, which is often the very next day. On the other hand, working 12 hour shifts means that I usually have several days between sets of shifts where I can do whatever I want, which is really nice. However, these days off tend to happen on weekdays and not weekends, and I end up working on homework anyways because that is the life of a student.

So on my days off, I pull a doll off of a shelf, maybe fix her hair, maybe change her outfit (although really, that doesn’t happen often at all…), and then I set her back on a stand or a chair because that’s where they hang out. It’s hard to find time for them sometimes because on my days off there’s laundry to do, groceries to buy, food to cook, sleep to catch up on (mmm, sleep!). The dolls don’t always get a lot of attention, but I’m making a conscious effort to spend a little bit of time with them on my days off because it’s the little moments, the little things, that remind me to breathe and just take a moment for myself (and the Blythes).

Most days, I wish I had a cat or a dog. And then I think about the need for lint rollers, or having wet noses in my face, or tripping over furry mammals in my living room and I do really reconsider it. The thoughts of having my tiny precious doll shoes being chewed up or having dolls knock off of shelves really makes me cringe – although I suppose they do make doors for shelves these days. I do have pets, but they’re of the non-mammalian variety and live in a tank so the amount of interaction with my dolls incredibly minimal unless I force it.

I love photos of Blythe with dogs, cats, and other animals. Mostly because they’re super adorable. But I don’t have a dog, or a cat, or some kind of mammalian pet so…

Do you allow your pets to interact with Blythe?