This week is a simple little DIY project for you: making Christmas (or any other holiday) cards for your dolls!

What you’ll need is:

• Cardstock or paper in any colour – you can most certainly use scrap pieces and I encourage it!
• Pens – thin ones in multiple colours
• Little holiday-stickers
• White-out/correction pens
• Scissors
• Ruler (optional!)

So I found these scrap pieces of coloured paper that were mostly square to begin with, I’m going to pretend that they are. I folded over the edge until I had a size of a card that I liked (one half of the card is 1.5″ x 1″ – so unfolded the card is 3″ x 1″). You can cut out as many or as little of these as you liked – I decided to cut out 7 of these so I would have 1 card per doll.

I like to use my ruler to make sure I get a really good crease on the fold so it doesn’t look like a wimpy fold (is there such thing as a wimpy fold?). Once you’ve got a good fold into the cardstock, you can go ahead and decorate the front however you want.

You can choose to write something on the inside (or not), it’s entirely up to you. Depending on if you like to decorate for  your dolls so they can celebrate the holidays as well, you could put up a string and hang a bunch of the cards up, like so:

Isn’t that pretty nifty?

If you decide to make some holiday cards for your dolls, be sure to share them here!

A certain trio of Prima Dolly Blythes come with little slippers, and another certain yellow-headed Blythe comes with a pair of little slippers as well! I set out to make a few pairs of cute little felt slippers for my dolls and here’s what I did:

You will need:

• Felt – You can find this at dollar stores and craft stores, they generally have a lot of different colours. There is acrylic felt (which is generally cheaper) and wool felt (which can be more expensive, and you’re less likely to find this at dollar stores).
• Thread – Matching the colour of your felt or a contrasting colour.
• Sewing needle
• Needle Theader (optional)
• Scissors
• Pencil or Pen
• Scrap paper
• Decorations – Ribbons, little gems/rhinestones, beads, little fake silk flowers, etc.

What I did first was trace around my doll’s foot. It’s okay if it’s not entirely even because it’s just a rough trace, you can even out the lines and such after. Once you’ve traced it, you’ll want to make sure your lines are even and that the slipper base is symmetrical (so you won’t have to have a left and a right slipper).

I drew lines to see where the edges around my doll’s foot was and then added some more to it at all sides so there’d be extra fabric needed (or else the slipper wasn’t about to get on.

The two paper pieces I used for cutting out my felt pieces. You’ll want to cut out 2 of the half-slipper pieces and 2 of the slipper base pieces.

If you trace the completed slipper base again, put your doll’s foot on top of it and figure out where you want the top of the slipper to go. Draw a line and when you’re happy with that, cut out that piece as well.

You can either pin the paper pieces to the felt or hold it in place when you cut. You’ll want to cut 2 slipper bases and 2 slipper tops.

My felt pieces: 2 slipper bases and 2 slipper tops!

If you’re going to add decorations to the top of the slippers, now would be a good time to do it. Try your best to put the decorations on at the same spot on both pieces.

Once that’s done, you’ll want to match up the pieces to each other and then sew it together.

I used a straight stitch, which is simply going in and out of the felt. You can experiment with different types of stitches for a different look.

And there you have it, one pair of completed felt slippers for your doll that you made yourself! You can make a pair of each of your dolls or perhaps even make them slippers that will match their favourite pajamas? Be sure to share photos of the slippers you’ve made!

Costumes are fun and it’s so much easier to buy enough fabric to come up with a costume for a doll than it is for yourself. But what is your Blythe going to go as this year? I’ve come up with a list of ideas of costumes that should be relatively inexpensive and easy to do, since you do only have 11 more days to figure out costumes for your dolls!

1. Ghost – use tissue paper or a paper towel, drape accordingly and cut out holes for eyes.
2. Robot – use tin foil to make a dress/outfit, remember to include a tin foil hat.
3. Witch – use a plain black dress already owned, pair with a black construction paper witch’s hat.
4. Card Guard (from Alice In Wonderland) – use two playing cards, tape the edges together.
5. Alien – use green cellophane and wrap it around, be sure to use green pipe cleaner to fashion a headband with antennae.
6. Ancient Roman – use a scrap piece of white fabric to twist and drape into a toga, use a brown pipe cleaner to make a ring to fit on top of your doll’s head, tape/glue on small leaves (real, fake, paper leaves).
7. Black Cat – dress in all black, use a curved pipe cleaner wrapped around the waist as a tail, cut out black triangles from construction paper, attach to a headband.
8. Vampire – use little white triangle points a teeth, wear a black cape and carry around a Re-Ment goblet (with fake blood inside!)
9. Zombie – wear ripped and dirt-stained clothing, drool a little bit, have unkempt hair.
10. Another Stock Blythe – steal someone’s clothing, carry your Blythe around in the stock box of the clothing’s original owner.

I did a lot of craft hobbies prior to entering the Blythe community. Before Blythe, I mostly designed jewellery and crocheted. Since Blythe, I’ve sewn a lot more (out of motivation to have new clothes for my dolls without breaking the bank) and knitted more as well (small sweaters, scarves and even dresses).

There’s a lot of things I like about crochet. All I need is a hook and some yarn (or just various types of string) and it’s easy to get started. There are a lot of online and offline resources for those wanting to learn how to crochet. I recommend going to your local public library for some books. This may sound silly, but I always recommend that people get the books written for children. Why? They generally have great illustrations and simply written out directions for those learning how to crochet. Projects designed for beginners will be roughly the same for both books written for children and adults, but it’s really the value in the foundations of learning how to crochet that differ quite a bit.

How do you get started with crochet without burning a hole in your wallet?

• Borrow books from the public library
• Find a free pattern (online or in a library book)
• Choose a project with yarn that’s not too ‘fancy’ (simple yarn is best! no black or very dark colours!)
• Buy a crochet hook that corresponds with the pattern and the yarn that you have chosen to buy (you can always buy more crochet hooks later or find some at a thrift store)

I suggest starting to crochet by finding a project geared towards beginners. The pattern will tell you the hook size and the yarn weight and all other things you need to get started. Good patterns will also tell you what the abbreviations stand for and also if they are using US or UK crochet terms (this also makes a huge difference what stitches you use).

Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew – once you understand the basic stitches (chain, single, half-double, double, triple) and some shaping techniques (increases, decreases), there’s a lot that you can do with crochet.

Here’s a free pattern available from Chelle-Chelle.com (one of my other websites) written for Blythe, the Blythe Monster Hat. You need to know how to do slip stitches, single crochet, triple crochet, how to increase and how to do the magic ring.

What are you in excess of? Do you have too many hats for your dolls? Too many pairs of shoes? (Wait, no one can ever have too many shoes, right?) Maybe you hoard every single doll’s stock pieces and never put them on anyone? What do you have too much of in your dolls’ wardrobes?

When I first started in the Blythe hobby, I had one Blythe doll and just the clothes that she came with. She wore her stock outfit for a few weeks before I broke out the knitting needles and made her a little sweater and then crocheted her a hat from some leftover yarn that I had lying around. Just over a year later, I have 6 dolls, 6 dolls worth of stock, a bag of shoes that I bought from a closet clean out, some Skipper outfits, some great clothes I got from organized group swaps and some clothes from a few dress designers.

So while I’m slowly building up the amount of shirts and pants and dresses that I have to go with the amount of dolls and shes that I own, there’s one thing that definitely sticks out to me as being the most abundant in my dolls’ wardrobes. Some people have a lot of dolls and not enough clothes. I would be the type who doesn’t have enough dolls nor enough clothes. But there’s just one thing that I have enough of that I kind of wish I didn’t have so many of…

For me, it’s definitely the hats. Especially the crocheted ones. Kind of like these ones…

This is probably because it’s my go-to project when I’m feeling like crafting something for Blythe. I’m a big fan of making the little crocheted helmets for my dolls and, as a consequence, I now have upwards of 30 of them. They also used to all fit neatly into a little cardboard box that I had for them, the lid no longer goes onto the box and stays closed. But I love making them, I like coming up with ears to put onto them, or different designs or what to embroider onto the surface of the hats. I like testing out different yarns – I was trying out a new yarn and wanted to try felting it, so I made a Blythe hate and felted it. I find Blythe hats to be relatively quick to make up and then it’s sort of like a not-quite-instant gratification.

So my question to you is…

What do you have an excessive amount of for your dolls (or do you have an excessive amount of dolls)? Did you make all of them or did you buy all of them?