When I first started out in the Blythe community, I was fascinated by the big heads and those giant eyes that could change with the pull of a string. The magic of Blythe still revolves around the funny little mechanism inside of their heads. I knew of Petites, but I wasn’t fascinated by them the way that I was with the big Blythes. I mean, the Petites didn’t have the same charm. They lacked the changing eye colours, they lacked more of a change in expression. Of course, when I first started in the hobby there was no such thing as the Littlest Pet Shop Blythes – there was only the Takara Petites with their ‘sleepy’ eyes. They reminded me a lot of the dolls I used to have as a child that could go to ‘sleep’ as soon as the doll was horizontal.

It took until BlytheCon for me to ‘meet’ Petite Blythes. Suddenly I got why people had both the Neo-size dolls and the Petites. They had their own charm. Their heads might not be as large and they may have some of the tiniest doll bodies ever, but Petites have such a charm about them that they became interesting to me. They have a permanent wide-eyed expression that can either look slightly dopey to me or just doe-eyed.

Do you have any Petites? What drew you to them?

I am very antsy when it comes to letting people handle my dolls. I’m reluctant to do so unless I trust that they understand that the dolls are both monetarily valuable as well as emotionally valuable. When my dad first handled one of my Blythes (despite knowing full well how much one costs), he put his fingers all over the face, over the blush and eyeshadow. I don’t think I ever snatched something back so quick before! Blythe isn’t the same as a basic Barbie that you can pick up at most department stores’ toy aisles. Blythe is special, beloved and expensive. I’m very bad about letting non-dolly people handle my dolls, but if it’s under my constant supervision I’m generally better about it. I even let some of my (nicer) coworkers handle my dolls and even pull the strings! So today’s question of the week is…

How often do you allow non-dolly people to handle your Blythes? More importantly, do you let people pull on the pull string?

I brought my dolls to work quite frequently to work last summer (being a full-time student from September to April leads to only working full time in the summer term) and my coworkers were, for the most part, quite nice about the fact that I was bringing in dolls to work. It probably helps that I look really young and they teased me about it in a joking way. The only incident I had about it last year was with a pair of coworkers lifting up the dress of a doll to see what she was wearing underneath!

This summer, this have changed a bit. There’s a new coworker who took it upon himself to be quite mean about the fact that I had a doll at work or that I even collect dolls (I should have known better – he was quite rude about the desktop image that I had too and didn’t hesitate to tell people that “Michelle has a dolly on her desktop!”). But new/rude coworker aside, everyone else was fairly nice about me having a Blythe on my desk. They didn’t make repeated comments and most people were curious about the pullstrings and “Does your doll talk?” was a very common question.

Do you bring your Blythes or other dolls/toys to work? What kind of response do you get from your coworkers about it?

Photo by Rebecca/Squirrel Junkie.

What I like about Blythe is that they’re the perfect size to still have their own toys without getting too small. Blythe is versatile in the way that a lot of miniatures do work well for her, and that includes smaller toys. There’s some crafters out there than make their own little stuffies and toys for their Blythes and it just looks so cute when Blythe is playing with her toys. I’ve taken photos of my dolls with the original Polly Pockets and it’s pretty darn cute!

Do you take photos of your Blythes with their toys?

I have a lot of doll shoes. Not as much as some people, but it still seems like a fair bit to me because it’s a lot more pairs that now much I have for myself. The unfortunate thing for both my girls and my wallet is that despite the amount of shoes that I have, my dolls generally go around without shoes. (In fact, two of them went to BlytheCon without any shoes on!) This week’s question is all about those little shoes that are just so easy to collect:

Do you have a lot of doll shoes? Do your Blythe generally wear those shoes?