Moxie (SBB) wears ericaduh (dress); Sophie (CapChat) wears Kult of Kulta (dress); and Belarus (LM) wears ericaduh (dress).

There are a variety of stock hair cut styles available out there for Blythe:

• Side-part, no bangs (or fringe)
• Side-part, with bangs
• Centre-part, no bangs
• Centre-part, with bangs
• Short, medium-length, or long hair

And then for the type of hairs:

• Straight hair
• Curly hair

And any creative combination of the above. I’m not going to get into the different ways that they decide to cut/style the bangs, because I don’t even known how to refer to them (normal-looking vs. wonky?).

I’ve found that I greatly appreciate centre-part hair styles over side part, and I quite like it it with or without bangs. I find that the evenness of bangs is quite hit or miss when it comes to Takara quality these days.

What are your Blythe hairstyle preferences?

Sometimes I like to think back to what I used to do with my spare time before Blythe came into my life. And sometimes when I think back, I sort of draw a blank. I was 19 at the time, working away on my B.Sc, leading a very internet-centric life (such as now) and just working out this whole ‘being a grown up’ business (which I still haven’t quite mastered). I did knit and crochet before Blythe, but now I do teeny tiny items and I’ve written up patterns! for doll-sized items, which is always fun. Designing, for me, is a huge part of being creative with the hobbies that I already take part in. Even if I’m designing human-sized items, I still have a lot of fun and end up considering what it’d be like to redesign it in Blythe-size!

A photo from warmer times! Kanin (Petworks Usaggie) in LuxieLou (shirt) and rainbow scarf (by me).

As it is, I now go through stores eying up things that may or may not be scaled correctly for Blythe, and have way too many other dolls (hello, Monster High…) that go along with the Blythe collection. And then all the photography! Pretty sure I got my first Blythe, and then my camera. Gosh, this has been a rather expensive hobby, hasn’t it?

Did Blythe lead you to other hobbies?

Cameo wears: black helmet (made by me), rainbow scarf with fringe (made by me), Chill Chasers faux fur coat (vintage Skipper, 1966), cat dress (Plastic Fashion), cat tights (Endangered Sissy), squishy brown boots (vintage Barbie).

It is starting off to be a chilly December! My dolls’ must-haves of the wintery season include, and is not limited to, the following:

• A good winter jacket
• A warm toque (wooly hat, for those that do not speak Canadian)
• A scarf (bonus points if it has a fringe!)
• A good pair of boots (extra bonus points if they are fashionable)
• And lots (and lots!) of candy canes.

What are your dolly winter must-haves?

Choosing my first Blythe doll was an interesting experience. I actually bought a Cappuccino Chat in a local-ish shop in British Columbia, back in 2009. That store only carried a handful of Blythes and most of them were marked up at prices above what they were going for on eBay – except for one. Cappuccino Chat. I wish I had some crazy story about how I won a bidding war or happened across a lowly marked Blythe was being sold as a Buy It Now, but I really got her because she was the only one that they were selling that was slightly less than eBay prices. Sad but true.

You may know her just a little bit better as Sophie, my delightful and stylish drama princess. She was my first Blythe, and she still resides here. I know some people who have sold on their first Blythes in exchange for better ones, but Sophie holds a special place in my heart. If I wasn’t so enamoured with her, I never would have gone on to get so many more Blythes. In a way, she is responsible for all her sisters and how many dolls she has to share a shoe closet with.

Who was your first Blythe doll?

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?