Photograph by Chun/Puppy52Dolls.

If you’re coming to Vancouver, BC for BlytheCon Vancouver, here are some things that you might want to remember to bring along:

• Doll stands for your dolls. Because most everyone will have similar stands (e.g. the clover stands), I would recommend putting a label on the bottom with your name or user name. This handy tip is borrowed from Louisa of Blythe Couture who always remembers to bring stands and she has them labelled!
• Despite being in Canada, we do get a lot of sunshine – especially in the summer. I would recommend bringing a refillable water bottle, a hat, and sunscreen! Of course, mind the fluids/liquids restrictions for carry-on luggage. And if you are bringing bottled sunscreen and other toiletries – zipped top bags are your friends to prevent spillage and having clothes soaked through with sunscreen.
• Your transit trip plans! We do have a public transit system here, Translink. This covers our buses, Skytrain, and sea bus! There is no “official” mobile app, but Translink does have a mobile website that is pretty handy for planning your trips. Look up your transit trips ahead of time to save time. There are many locations throughout Metro Vancouver that have free WiFi networks.
• Bring a reusable shopping bag (or pick one up here for cheap!). A lot of grocery shops here charge extra for plastic bags (usually $0.05/bag). Help out the environment by bringing a reusable bag to carry out your purchases while you’re here!
• Chargers – for your phone, camera, laptop, and any other electronic devices that you plan on bringing along. Also, spare camera batteries and portable cell phone chargers/power banks are an excellent idea! If you are coming from outside of Canada, be sure to put your cell phones into airplane mode or purchase a travel plan so you don’t get dinged with horrible roaming charges for hopping onto a Canadian cell network.
• Copies of your flight information and contact details of whatever hotels you’re staying at. Always a good idea to have a hard copy on you in case something happens to your phone/tablet/laptop computer (e.g. water submersion, down a flight of stairs…) or you realized you had uploaded all that information to Google Docs and the moment you need it, there’s no free WiFi around and you didn’t buy a travel plan for your phone.

Save travels to everyone who’s venturing via car, bus, plane, boat, bike or feet to Vancouver for the weekend!

I will be at the pre-BlytheCon meet on Saturday, August 8th. I’ll be the awkward one holding Sophie, the Cappuccino Chat that rules the wardrobe here with an plastic fist. While Sophie won’t be attending BlytheCon Vancouver (she decided that needing to be at the venue at 7am for set-up was going to interrupt some far more important beauty sleep!), she will be hanging out the day before because that’s more her style. For Sunday, August 9th, I will be bringing some dolls you may expect and some that you may not… Any guesses on who?

Today’s the last last day of online ticket sales for BlytheCon Vancouver! Sales had been extended from July 31st to August 4th to accommodate those who were unable to purchase tickets prior to August. Behind the scenes, things are coming along splendidly as we finish getting everything together and put the finishing touches on everything.

Photograph by Chun/Puppy52Dolls.

If you haven’t already, pop on over to the BlytheCon Vancouver website to see what fantastic donations we’ve received! Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets until end of day today!

Proceeds from BlytheCon Vancouver will benefit the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (O.W.L.), who will also be at BlytheCon Vancouver with some of their volunteers and educational birds! We’re very excited that we’ll be able to make a donation to a local non-profit that cares as much about BC’s wildlife as we do.

The troubles with Middies is that I got really used to the Neo/Kenner Blythe size. Because all of my dolls are on either stock or Licca bodies, there isn’t that much of a need to have a secondary wardrobe for a different body shape. This may be different if I found myself needing to dress for a Pure Neemo body or a Mimi Bobeck body.

Unfortunately for Middie Blythes, they are naturally smaller than Blythe. Their bodies are a lot shorter and slimmer. Every single one of their features makes them just smaller than Neo Blythe in general – which they should be because they are a “little” sister – but it just makes for trouble with clothing them or keeping them in shoes because there is only so much one can do with trying to put Neo-sized tops as a Middie-sized dress, which isn’t to say that I don’t try to do that on a regular basis (because I totally do).

Now the real question is: do I want to carry around a Middie at BlytheCon? On one hand, I may be tempted to buy things for my Middie dolls and that wouldn’t be a very good thing due to my personal challenge of crafting my Middies’ wardrobe (why do I issue out these challenges to myself?!). On the other hand, if anyone is selling shoes that could possibly fit Middie, I will have a model right there to try them on. Or perhaps I could just ask people to slap my hands if they see me reaching for a Middie sized dress (or shirt, or pants, or skirt…)? I’m not entirely sure how well that will work for me though – it’s always tempting to buy things at any BlytheCon (in my experience of attending two). Luckily, I will be limiting myself based on the amount of cash I have on hand. I won’t be buying any dolls, but I will be able to buy a few little treasures here and there!

But if you were to choose a Middie to bring along – would you bring a Jackie Ramone or a Yellow Marshmallow?

Middie Monday is a feature that is published on the first Monday of each month! A guaranteed monthly post on Blythe’s little sister – Middie! If you have any suggestions for a future Middie Monday post, please send me an email or use my Suggestions form!

Kitty Brighton’s wearing: top/chelleshocks, capris/unknown.
Lydia Melbourne’s wearing: dress/chelleshocks.

To celebrate BlytheLife.com’s 5th birthday, I announced on July 1st that any non-spam comments made on BlytheLife.com would count as an entry. At the time, I knew that I wanted to do a giveaway but I wasn’t sure what of at the moment. But now here it is:

There are three that open in the front, three that open in the back. And I actually have one more on the needles (whoops!), so that’ll be an extra little surprise for the winner! And the winner will get to choose what colour beads I use for the owl’s eyes in the sweater on the right hand side on the bottom row.

There was an amazing 76 comments/entries this month! I hope that everyone continues to leave comments to add to the conversation. It’s been a great birthday month for BlytheLife.

The lucky winner is…

Olive!

Congratulations Olive! Please check your email for a message from me 🙂

Dear Santa Claus,

I have been an awfully good Blythe this year, I hope you have been paying attention to keep me on the Nice list! As such, I would very much love an advance on my Christmas present this year. I know that August seems a little bit early, but you have to remember that I live in a family of fifteen now and it’s awfully difficult to get any sort of attention from Michelle these days.

If you will recall, Michelle left me at home in 2011 when she went to Portland for BlytheCon with Belarus. She also left me at home in 2014 when she went to BlytheCon in Seattle and took that freak Eden and one of the old ones with her. As her first Blythe, I’ve been feeling a little bit neglected recently. In a family of fifteen where I need to share my shoes, it’s unfortunate that the one who inspired all of this has been left to collect dust on a shelf. No love for Sophie. None. I’ve been tempted to call for Blythe Protective Services, but Michelle insists that this is not a real thing. However, since I mentioned calling them she has been keeping a closer eye on my internet time so I suspect that she is lying…

Anyways, back to what I wanted to talk to you about! I’m hoping to go to BlytheCon Vancouver, third time’s the charm, right? Failing that, if you could please make sure that Michelle buys me some nice things? There are some clothes that I’d love to get my hands on by some fancy dress makers, and I wouldn’t mind some new tights and socks. However, no way should you send me a new sister via BlytheCon Vancouver. I know there will be people selling Blythes there but that is no good to me. No good at all! Some new dresses, maybe a tiara.

Failing this, please get Rudolph to bring me an ice floe – I’d like to push Eden and Primrose off onto it and wave goodbye to them from land.

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.