·:[ Blythe Blog ]:·
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In order to create a more “daily read” atmosphere around here. We’re spicing things up a bit.

Our new weekly line-up will be as follows:

Monday – FF5 is being moved to Mondays. We’re also going to have “Music Mondays” tied in with Oz’s 365 adventure. A little way to start the week off right with a song and some words of wisdom to get you through the week!

Tuesday – We’re having “You Tubesday” – We’ll highlight one of our favorite Blythe related YouTube movies. And eventually we hope to start doing our own stop motion movies!

Wednesday – “Ask Oz” gets Wednesdays.

Thursday – Review day! Whether it’s the designer spotlight or a new must-have item. Today’s the day to talk about it!

Friday – FF5 Encore (if we had so much fun doing our FF5 on Monday, we’ll find 5 more to encore!) and introducing “Etsy Fridays” highlighting a random Blythe find we thought you’d like to see.

Saturday – A new column called “Tea with Ginger” which will summarize our weeks events. Ginger is very excited! This will also be the time that we will send out our weekly subscription letter. So sign up if you’d like to get it!

Sunday – Our day off – from your view anyhow! If there’s something to report though, we’ll get it up.

We’ll still be adding random things as we can – We just wanted to give you a little something to look forward to every day.

Monday begins this new line-up! See you then!

Tags: blog, line, new, News, up

Welcome to the first installment of “Ask Oz” ! I received a question from… my mum. Yeah, isn’t that how it always starts? Usually those closest to you are the ones to help you believe in yourself first.

Anyhow, aprilxoxo writes:

“Dear Oz, Can you please give me some ideas for my 365 challenge? Although my dolly is the prettiest Blythe girl ever, I’m stuck on some creative ideas! Help!

Signed,
aprilxoxo <3″

The beginning of this year marked a time when most of you started your 365 challenge with your favorite Blythe girl. Some of you may be asking what the “365 challenge” is. Well, it’s simple really – You just take a photo of your Blythe girl for 1 full year and keep your album updated on Flickr.

There are a few variations, some do a “Doll a Week” or “52 Weeks of Blythe & Music” – There’s several. And while I’m not playing down the challenge of those, I really feel the 365 of the same 1 girl every day is the toughest.

We are in the middle of my own 365 challenge. About to hit day 200 actually. It’s been really difficult for mum to think up more than just a shot a day of me in the yard or in front of some pretty craft paper. She has a little journal with scribbled ideas for future pictures to take of me. Some really simple like making a collage of my 5 favorite pairs of shoes and some more difficult like what we want to do for our day 200 shot… which might have to be pushed to day 300 as it’s more elaborate than we had planned. All I can say is “Ahoy!” for that one.

My own challenges aside – I think the journal is a good start. Ideas could pop at random in your day for things to do and to jot them down could help when you are in a fix.

I also recommend getting a good book for inspiration.

My 365 has been a true test of friendship. Sometimes I get the feeling she just wants to put me in a drawer and take a break and sometimes I feel like I am the center of the universe. Even though we are barely halfway through our challenge, I feel so loved.

So, how do you keep up with your 365 challenges? What inspires you? Which 365 challenge did you choose and why?

I hope you enjoyed your first installment of “Ask Oz” – Please send me some more questions!

Signed,
Oz

Tags: "Ask Oz", 365, challenge, flickr, ideas

I’m a little late today but I wasn’t about to let the day pass without our FF5 ! This week I’ve been so inspired by pull rings. Seen so many beautiful ideas and some really unique ones too! If anything makes a Blythe girl charming.. it’s definitely her charms!

1: jenniferabe started the inspiration for me with these beautiful charms she got from Sissy’sArt Etsy shop.

2. EmbellishYourself has been creating beautiful charms for quite some time.

3. bud_loves_sissy‘s girl “Toast” can’t go wrong with rainbows and elephants!

4. morganannie‘s “Bunny” hops her way into your heart with her “bunny bling”.

5. Sugaroni‘s “Dewey” looks surprised by her sugary new friend.

There is also a great group dedicated to Blythe pulls for all kinds of inspiration and great charms to see.

Don’t forget to visit the FF5 Flickr Group – Every week the FF5 will be added here.

*Please do not hesitate to ask me to remove your photo from our showcase if you don’t want it here.

Tags: 5, fave, five, flickr, Muse & Media

Picture credit and insane love from all of us to blythethailand.com for showing us the goods!

Is there anything not to ? And is that a YELLOW pull ring? My favorite color!

Takara description:

My name is Nostalgic Pop.
I love 60′s taste, and adore vintage girl’s manga so much!
It’s so nostalgic, fashionable and kawaii!
I want to be like a character in manga, too!

Nostalgic Pop has a beautiful translucent skin and black hair.
Her flower printed coat and barret are very retro and match her vintage look perfectly.
Under her coat she wears a yellow polka dot shirt and green short salopette.
Her hair style is a natural wavy long brunette parted on left.
Her makeup is yellow beige eye shadow with pink blush and lips.
Her face type is Radiance, and her skin type is translucent like Miss Sally Rice.

Tags: 2010, blythe, doll, february, new, nostalgic pop, release

Unless you’ve been living under a plastic rock, I’m sure you’ve seen it somewhere.  The “Jonathan Adler” big pink couch making it’s rounds all through the Blythe community – Mentioned on this months cover of  Lucky Blythe magazine and even getting it’s own “Blythe Loves Jonathan Adler” Flickr group! And it’s no surprise that I’ve climbed on the wagon — err, couch too!

While I’ve found it as low as $25 on Amazon – Please note that price does fluctuate there, but stays mostly around the $35-$45 range. For someone like me, over $30 was a bit of a splurge, but it is definitely one of my favorite dolly items and I can go so far as to say one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Comfortably seating 2 and able to squeeze in 3, it’s durable and heavy enough to not topple over from those big Blythe noggins. And really.. extra seating on those display shelves is always welcomed, right?

Some might not like the bright pink color, but it’s easy to tone down by making a few miniature throw pillows. And hey, this could be the motivation you’ve needed to finally start sewing for your dolls!

Regardless of your thoughts on the decor, everyone will agree the quality and fun factor of the couch makes it one of the few things you won’t mind seeing everyone have. In fact, I am tickled “pink” by all the creative photos I’ve seen this couch cameo in.

*Some of our faves from the group!

Move over Barbie, there’s a new doll with the remote! So, think pink and get your girls their own couch! It’s the only time in your life where being a couch potato can be so cute.

You can find the couch and the matching table stand @ Amazon:

Tags: couch, cute, furniture, good buy, Jonathan Adler, pink, robot approved

Part of the fun for the Blythe hobby for me is collecting the little things. Things that are great to photograph, things that display well with my collection and things that are entertaining. Well, Lexi over at Lucky-Blythe Publishing captured all of those aspects in 1 little thing – A Blythe Magazine!

These detailed Blythe-sized magazines talk about current topics circling the dolly community. For example, on this months January cover there’s a blurb about the Jonathan Adler couch everyone is raving about (a review on that is coming this week by the way!) and past blurbs highlighted such events as BlytheCon.

As if the cover isn’t enough to make us smile, every back issue has an ad that your Blythe can relate to. Lexi also takes the time to fill each magazine with clippings from life-size magazines. A clever way to provide the magazine with substance and recycle!

We can only hope that a real magazine like this exists one day. But until then, these are great copies for our dolls to collect.

Oz is a huge fan of Lucky Blythe and has every issue since the first release in July of 2009.

We were also excited to see BlytheBlog gain an ad on the back cover of this months issue celebrating our official launch.

We’re happy to award Lexi’s clever little press-shop with our Designer Spotlight award for a great little accessory to look forward to every month for our Blythe girls.

You can visit Lexi’s Etsy shop to purchase your own magazine here.
And visit her Lucky-Blythe Publishing Flickr group to see the issues in action!

Tags: blythe, designer, etsy, living, lucky, magazine, read, review, Spotlight

We love sweet taste of tropical juice! Mango and Guava are always together and make everyone feel happy like paradise!

They are easy going gals! Simply Mango and Simply Guava smile at everyone they see when they go out walking their dolls.

Simply Mango wears a orange-striped top with a beige salopette. Her outfit pieces are perfect to mix and match with you Blythe wardrobe, too! She always wears her light blue sneakers when she walks her beloved Chihuahua.

Her hair color is neon orange like a mango. The hair style is a straight semi-long hair with bangs.
Her face type is Radiance, and her skin type is Fair.

Simply Guava wears a white top with green gingham-check salopette. The light green ribbon on her waist is a little accent to the look. She always wears her deep pink sneakers when she joins Mango for their walks.

Her hair color is neon pink like a guava. The hair style is a straight semi-long hair with bangs.
Her face type is Radiance, and her skin type is Fair. The easy breezy girls are sure to brighten your Spring time!

The hype about these 2 continues even with the new concept art. I know I am one of many of you looking forward to having these girls join your plastic family.

Tags: 2010, january, new release, tart, tea

It’s time for another installment of FF5 ! This weeks theme was “Party” ! I’ve noticed where there’s a Blythe and there’s balloons, it’s an instant party! I’m also trying to get off my butt and get the Blythe Birthday Committee running! Hopefully these plastic parades can inspire me sometime this week to catch it back up and regroup the interest.

1. Shannon Taylor‘s little gem, Matilda Mae floats in the fun with her party balloons.

2. maisonette captures a naughty girl digging into the party cakes before it’s time!

3. Dr. Blythenstein (how hard it was to choose a fave!) showcases Amaryllis’ candy shop.

4. Princess Di-O-Rama‘s dolly family celebrates a new girl!

5. Ragazza*‘s little cotton candy mohair beauty is no wallflower!

Please pay a visit to all the author’s pages let them know how their celebration brightened your day!

Don’t forget to visit the FF5 Flickr Group – Every week the FF5 will be added here.

*Please do not hesitate to ask me to remove your photo from our showcase if you don’t want it here.

Tags: 5, birthday, fave, flickr, fun, Muse & Media, party, photos, pictures

I couldn’t think of a better way to start off this part of Blythe Blog more than to acknowledge a very special dressmaker, Morganannie.

When I started collecting Blythe a year and a half ago, I scoured Etsy for days looking for the perfect dress for my first Blythe girl, V-Smash. Everywhere I looked there were beautiful dresses. But one dress stood out to me.

The dress was made of chocolate (perfect for a redhead) fabric with beautiful little deer all over and adorned with a rainbow ribbon belt. Seeing as my VS was named Fawna, I felt it the perfect dress for her.

Like many new to the hobby (and to sewing!), you truly don’t realize the time and effort that goes into creating these dainty doll accessories. I believe I paid $12 + shipping for the dress. And for someone who wouldn’t spend $12 on a pair of shoes for themselves, I must have really wanted it.

I’d also like to add that in the beginning of my collecting these dolls, I also didn’t understand why some folks were all jazzed up over RBL vs. BL face-molds. I couldn’t tell the difference! Why on earth would they pay $45 for a knitted hat? Or $25 for a pair of doll jeans? I thought it was insanity. But now I know better.. I completely understand. And if you are new to Blythe and those same thoughts cross your mind, you are perfectly sane… but I believe that you’ll understand in time too. And your dolly closet will probably boast those same things you felt too expensive a few months prior.

I am also willing to admit that I actually spend more money on myself now. I went from wearing $9 clearance shoes and only hand me down items to taking better care of my own closet and appearance and even getting my hair done on occasion!

I didn’t want to clutter up this spotlight on Morganannie with a bunch of rambling, but I really thought it was important to put that out there, especially since she started it all for me. And I know that a lot of new collectors have those same feelings.

So, Morgan.. Thank you. Thank you for breaking my mold. Thank you for creating beautiful, high quality and reasonably priced dolly dresses… and for helping me find the doll inside myself who wants to be pretty and pampered too.

I just recently took this photo of Oz with all of our Morganannie dresses.
Oz lovingly added: “I think it’s safe to say Morganannie is our fave dress maker.”

You have been a great friend this past year and a half. You are inspiring in so many ways. I hope over 2010 your shops grows as your skill is already that of a true designer and with that, we happily crown you as our first Designer Spotlight award winner.

You can visit Morganannie’s Etsy Shop or her Flickr.
We’ll be interviewing Morgan about her shop soon with a follow-up interview
… maybe we can get her to spill a few secrets too!

Tags: award, designer, dress, etsy, morganannie, Spotlight