You have a doll-related website/shop/blog and BlytheLife has your target audience!

BlytheLife.com is an active doll website with a high readership that primarily consists of women who are Blythe and other doll collectors/hobbyists. By advertising your doll-related site or business with BlytheLife, you can ensure that your ad is being seen by the people that are your potential customers. Every time someone visits BlytheLife, they’ll see your ad on the side!

Did you know? Sponsorship costs are purposely kept low to keep advertising accessible to people in the doll community.

There are three spots currently available for the month of December and all sponsorship funds from now until July 2015 will be donated to BlytheCon Vancouver 2015!

Large – 1 spot available for December! (325×200 pixels)

• $10 – 1 month
• $18 – 2 months
• $26 – 3 months

Small – 2 spots available for December! (160×160 pixels)

• $5 – 1 month
• $9 – 2 months
• $13 – 3 months

If you’d like more information on how you can advertise on BlytheLife, click here.

Velcro is an amazing thing. Except when my hair gets stuck in it, or one of my Blythes’ hair. I’m sure many of you know what I’m speaking of. Whenever I’m buying dolly clothes online, I like to see if the seamstress listed what kind of closure it is. My personal favourite closures include metal snaps (I’ve also seen them referred to as ‘poppers’ online), and dolly velcro. Dolly velcro is like this amazing invention because it is super slim and my hair (and doll hair) doesn’t snag in it. And once in a while I end up buying something that has regular velcro in it and I just feel so bad for my dolls when their hair gets tangled up into a nest.

Dolly velcro (left), regular velcro (middle), and a metal snap (right).

After a while, it’s gotten to the point where unless someone specifies that it’s dolly or thin velcro, I might not even buy it because it’ll just cause a bit of headache for me. Snaps all the way though. Unless they’re plastic. I may have broken a plastic snap before when I wasn’t 100% gentle with it, which is why I greatly prefer metal snaps on doll clothing. When I actually take the effort to add a closure to the clothes that I make for Blythe, I use metal snaps (this may be only because I don’t actually own any dolly velcro in which to sew in). As long as dolly or human hair doesn’t snag in it, it works well for clothing closures in my opinion. I find that snaps are so much easier to find in local stores than dolly velcro though, as I’ve only ever seen dolly velcro being offered for sale online.

Do you have a preference for snaps over velcro?

Welcome to the 2014 Blythe Holiday Shopping Guide! This is part 1 of a 3 part mini-series to help those who are trying to figure out what to buy for themselves, or what to buy for the Blythe-lover in their life. Over the next three weeks, I will be mentioning 5 (or so) things that I think Blythe lovers would love to receive for the upcoming holiday season.

This week, it is all about those who want to dabble in customizing their dolls! What do I think might be great holiday gifts for that customizer in your life?

1. A base doll. Like how a painter needs a canvas, a Blythe customizer needs a doll to work on. So that your gift give-ee isn’t cursing while opening up the head, I would recommend an RBL, FBL, or RBL+ , for ease of opening. There are many inexpensive stock dolls to choose from. Some that are fairly inexpensive and can be found online include: Simply Love Me (RBL), Simply Delight (RBL), Simply Mango (RBL), and Simply Guava (RBL).

2. Pastels. What customizer couldn’t use some new pastels do use in their face-ups? There are many brands available, and you could stop by a local art supply shop to see what’s around. Please note: you want to get chalk pastels, not oil pastels. They are two very different beasts. Get the chalk ones. Trust me.

3. Glues. What a world that we live in that there are so many different types of glue available. From my personal customizing experiences, I use a lot of hot glue sticks and water soluble glue (Aleene’s is the brand that I use). These are super easy to find, you can get them at department stores that have craft aisles or in Big Box craft stores. And who couldn’t use more glue?

4. Matte sealant. This one may be a little tricky. You’ve probably heard your loved ones mumbling about MSC or Testors – that would be Mr. Super Clear (MSC), and Testors Dullcote. These come in spray cans, they are aerosols – you are best off trying to find these in a local store than ordering online, because there are so many rules about shipping aerosol flammables in the post. Try out some craft stores, call around and see if they carry them – and if you ask early enough, perhaps they could order it for you if they don’t carry it!

5. Last, but certainly not least, the eyechips. The eyechips are such fun things. You could buy coloured chips (from online retailers such as Cool Cat or Brainworm), plain clear chips for those eyechip painters (also from Cool Cat or Brainworm), or you could go to Etsy and search for handpainted Blythe eyechips and get that special someone something really pretty.

Come to think of it, a lot of these items are small and (fairly) inexpensive, aside from the base doll. You could definitely make up a customizing-themed stocking filled with goodies if you wanted to.

Happy shopping!

Way back when I was a newbie Blythe collector, I thought stock dolls were it for me. Not only stock doll, but Takara stock dolls. I didn’t have it in my head that Kenners were worth it (oh, how I shake my head at my old self now!) because I hadn’t had the opportunity to see a Kenner in person (or hold one, hear the Kenner pip, admire their pretty chubby cheeks…). At the beginning, I was definitely all “Yup, stock dolls are pretty rad.” I may have been slightly in denial because I always saw customs as being crazy expensive. When you consider that my first two dolls were stock, and cost about the same amount as a textbook for one of my university courses, and I thought that they were expensive as not incredibly limited dolls (Cappuccino Chat and Love Mission), customs were seen as being ridiculously expensive at $300 or higher. I think at that point, the highest price tag I saw attached to a custom was maybe around $500, maybe. That seemed like a lot of money to me back then. Especially since I saw that as being “Why would I buy one doll for $500 when I could get three to four dolls for the same amount of money?”

I clearly had no clue.

But as time went on, and I was exposed to more and more dolls and different photos of these beautiful custom dolls, I kind of knew that I would eventually succomb to getting custom doll. But, I would fall weak to Kenners first. I know that Kenners are the ‘grail’ doll for a lot of people (grail as in holy grail, for those new to Blythe-lingo), and for a long time they were for me too. Then I got a Kenner. And then I upped that amount to three. And then I added a custom, a handful of stock dolls, and then another custom. I’m on a roll. I like to think of it as my tastes in Blythes becoming more sophisticated with age. Like fine wine. Or something. All I know is that I haven gotten more pickier as time goes on because it’s almost like an internal struggle whenever I add a new doll to the family now. The curse of having too much in such a small space, I think. Maybe I just need more room.

So now I have stock dolls (mostly stock, they tend to have eyechip changes, maybe some charms, a gaze lift), custom dolls, and vintage Kenners. I am pretty much an equal opportunist when it comes to Blythe dolls and loving them, but I do have more (mostly) stock dolls than anything else. And that’s okay, because if I didn’t have stock dolls, I wouldn’t have some of the colourful characters that show up on BlytheLife from time to time. When I started this website in 2010, I only had 6 Blythes and now I have… well, now I have more. I don’t get the opportunity to take as many photos as I want to when I’m busy with school and school things (hello, papers-worth-a-ridiculous-percentage-of-my-final-grade!), but I do appreciate them because I have them set up in a way that I can see them every single day. And that’s what makes it worth it to me to experience them, even if I’m not experiencing them.

How have your tastes in Blythe changed since you started collecting?

As the temperatures drop and there is a distinct chill in the air that makes me think that it’s going to snow soon (temperatures below 0°C always have been bundled in knits), it also puts me into the mood for the upcoming holidays. The holidays are the best because of all the togetherness, the decorated trees, the hot chocolate (!), and so much more. It’s also the time of the year that I start to really consider who’s on my nice list and what kind of presents I want to wrap up for people. Which, of course, leads to me thinking about what I want for the holidays. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what people want – but what about me?! (The me-me-me attitude is leftover from my birthday, it’s mostly gone now!)

“Even stock, there is still only one of me. Any twin would be inferior!” – Bennett (MML)

Someone to pay off my student loans. Maybe a car (that has a good gas mileage). New winter boots! Chocolate – a lot of chocolate. And then it comes to the dolls. Well, Santa, I would love a new doll – it is no secret that I love Kenners, and I wouldn’t mind another Margaret Meets Ladybug (who remains, to this day, my absolute favourite stock doll). And some more doll shoes (and boots!), and perhaps a new camera – all for the better photography of dolls, of course. And maybe a few new carrier bags. Gosh, that seems like a lot, doesn’t it?