haul out the haul-y

Ah, how I do hate to make another "look what I got!" post, but hey. It's that time of year, baby. And I seem to be closing out 2025 with a tummy bug, juuuudging by the amount of times I've vomited the last couple of days. Sorry for the TMI. But the concept of making this post cheered me up! And I always think appreciating the gifts you've been given and one's own savvy shopping is fun. So don't consider this so much a "what I got for Christmas"/haul post as a post I am making to enshrine and appreciate!

For myself, using gift cards/my own money, I have bought a) this cream-colored quilted jacket; b) this gingham backpack; and c) this rust-orange velvet weekender bag.

I have a rust orange jacket (it's my favorite color) but my mom and I are taking nightly neighborhood walks and try if we can to wear light-colored things so we can be seen by drivers. Our neighborhood is very busy. We use our phone flashlights to try and light us up but I just felt the need to get a white sweater or jacket so people can see me easier. This one looks really cute.

The backpack I got because I just need something other than the tote bag I've been using to pack up my music-making stuff (mini amp, wireless dongles, chord notebooks) whenever I bring it anywhere, and I liked this one!

And the weekender tote, well, I don't strictly need it for anything. But I was gifted the matching cosmetic pouch set from my little sister for Christmas! She said the color reminded her of me -- which of course is spot-on. And I really love the baggies. I haven't shopped at Target in a couple of years due to the boycott but I had a Target gift card from last Christmas and got another one this Christmas, so I said what the heck and got the matching weekender bag when I saw it. Matchy-matchy!!! Depending on the size of the weekender bag (I bought it online so I don't 100% know) I can use it as a camera/tech bag or a crochet project bag for knitting club.

Sisters really made the stockings GOOD this year!

One sister got me a crazy blind box and a coloring book (which is so cozy! Colored several pages in it already!) and the other got me this bag set and a couple of figurines relevant to my interests! As you know, I have a number of Stitch figures, many of them from this sister. She found a real cute one this year. But this series looks to be harder to collect. Seems to be from the D23 Expo? I have found a few on eBay but couldn't find a picture of this figure anywhere! So I did take it from an eBay listing, lol.

There's the guy that was in the blind box. Love his lace overalls!

In my family, Nephew aside, we mostly just do stockings now, instead of bigger wrapped gifts. But I still really got some good stuff, as you can see! I also wanted to feature this little thing that was in my stocking at my grandmother's:

It's a little strawberry stationery set?? Full of little mini supplies! A tiny stapler and staple remover, a hole punch, some small tape, scissors, binder clips. Soooo freaking cute and useful! Love it!

On the strawberry tip, I also just now acquired a few things I've been looking for since October!

Five Below has these fashion sets inspired by the '80s Strawberry Shortcake. When I saw them in August I thought, "That looks like it might fit Blythe!" So I got the cutest set of the three available then and tried it out on Aury and Fey.

Not every item fits and not every item is, like, one I want. BUT, for $4 a set, that's such a great price for some little t-shirts and dresses! I freaking love the sunflower dress and the cute Orange Blossom tee. IMO the shoes and bags and hats are better for, like, scene-setting props. So I went back and got the other two sets, which were Blueberry Muffin and Lemon Merengue.

Since then I've been on the lookout for the other sets, which I saw online circa October. But my local Five Below didn't get them until, like, RIGHT NOW! I checked a few times and they were never on the shelves... UNTIL TODAY! YAY!

I'm really excited to have completed the collection and excited to open these up when I'm feeling a little better and see which pieces are the best. Been meaning to do a post all about these sets, and hopefully I will also do that in 2026. I have never been super into getting, say, Skipper or Barbie or Bratz or random other doll items for my Blythes. I prefer the bespoke handmade stuff, I guess. But these sets are an exception. Cheap items, yes, but also really colorful and fun.

The holidays this year were really busy. Craft market; band; lots of singing with family and friends and dinking around on my Omnichord; nightly walks; family coming into town. It is definitely a bummer to end it feeling run-down with this bug, whatever it is. But I enjoyed making this post, even if it is very consumerist.

See y'all in 2026!!!

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lofty ambitions part 1

So I know I said that I felt like doing some more doll-dressing, but what I actually ended up doing is taking off all my dolls' clothes. All twenty-one Neos are standing around nakedly in my room this past week.

I did this because:

• I wanted a blank slate for all the girls. Some of them have been wearing the same 'fits for a really long time (over a year) because I liked them, and I just realized all of a sudden, "I'm never going to want to change some of these outfits, but I should anyway."
• I wanted to see every single pair of shoes I have, specifically!
• I wanted to see if I had proper storage, still. All my dolls being totally undressed is a thing that never happens, really, but I wanted to see the state of my storage options. I need to change some of what I'm doing; boxes are overflowing as it is.
• I wanted to see if all my girls had underwear. A couple don't! I don't strictly think they need panties. Some things fit better without that layer in the way, taking up valuable space. But I also irrationally don't want any of them to feel less loved because they don't have undies. Hahaha.
• Just really want to do Blythey stuff right now. I want to do dressups I've never done before. Revisit my doll wardrobe and find pieces I've never used (I have many, haha) and use them, finally. Maybe even declutter??

I kind of had fun grouping my girls somewhat, as I put them all back where I keep them (atop my desk and on a ladder shelf). All the blondies and peachies. The gingers. The sandies/brunettes. I love seeing new (old) girls like Olive betwixt Fey and Zasha. I love seeing Lamb and Holland side by side -- those curly girlies. It's inspiring me. And the utter hilarity of Klara and Tiphanie sitting on the same bench when they have scads of hair that fells them so easily...

So, I'm going to have to dress all these girls again, when I hardly have the time to even do so right now! Because I am trying to do a lot of stuff right now. So as ridiculous as that sounds: Dressing all these gals again officially falls under the heading of Lofty Ambitions. I'll post about another Lofty Ambition I am undertaking quite soon. I feel insane for trying to load more onto my plate these days, when I have sort of bitten off more than I can chew already.

Finally -- and this has nothing to do with any of the rest of this post -- I did some light Halloweening with some cat ears and makeup for a family party. My mom took this pic of me and my nephew, who has grown so much lately. He is fifteen months old, a big boy who has started walking and can say "hello," "bye-bye," "kitty," and "night-night," and I have been treasuring time with him especially of late because he and his parents are moving a few states away in just a few days time. So this is just an addendum of a memory, for my own enjoyment.

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family portrait 2024

Yooo! Class picture!

I've actually gotten a few requests for an updated family portrait in the last couple of years, but even with five less dolls than I have now, I have been like, "I have no idea how to accomplish such a thing..."

I used to take my dolls out into the backyard and pose them on a bench we had, but we don't have the bench anymore, and ~20 dolls makes a quick hike to the backyard not terribly feasible anyway. It took long enough with seven dolls, and now I have just one shy of twenty. You might not think it's a lot of work to wrangle them, but just moving them across my bedroom to line them up here took sooo long.

(I know that people have far larger Blythe collections and manage to photograph all their dolls at once, but I don't know how these people do it!! Lots of time?)

For this, I turned some plastic storage boxes upside down in order to create a riser, like this is choir class, and draped the boxes in fabric so they wouldn't be too distracting. The dolls aren't in any particular order per se, except that the back row is RBLs, the middle row is FBLs, and the front row is RBLs again. Also, Aury is in front because of course she is!! The newer dolls are in front just by virtue of having been farther away from the desk, and so the last to be placed on it.

There was nothing on god's green earth I could do to keep the dolls' hair from sticking to each other and falling in their faces. I tried to fix Gavin's hair so many times, but it just wouldn't cooperate! So, what you see is what you get, in terms of all that doll hair.

Speaking, you might notice that Drew has her original scalp back on, even though the fading on it is so atrocious.

As a bonus, I have a couple of other group pics to share:

The redheads! The gingers, really, as Fidelia is certainly a redhead too. I have been seriously wanting a little pic of all my gingers together since I got Citron!

Also:

The blondes! Are you seeing these ringlets on Holland??

I thought of breaking down the family into groups by hair color and doing a whole series of portraits, but the rubric breaks down by the time it reaches dolls like Gavin and Miette. I didn't want to have a group I was mentally thinking of as "the leftovers." I know they are just inanimate objects and cannot care, but I still would have felt bad! So I stopped here.

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video: Doll Stuff Haul

Yo! It me. Your friendly neighborhood maidensuit.

I finally filmed a haul video I meant to film several weeks ago. (I had hair issues after my latest round of root-bleaching! It took me a week and a half to gently fix it, and in the meantime I wore a hat, like, everywhere. Also, I have 24/7 face issues, so it's morally questionable that I'm ever on camera at all; I'm just generally apologetic.)


This video is half Blythe stuff and half "other," including some Ever After High dolls that have recently been added to my collection (I guess I have to admit that I sort of have one now...), and also a bit about a small high-def camera I got in December that I thought might help me out with tutorial-style videos.

In the video, I display how the clip on it is loose, but I got some sense and tightened the screws on it that while the video was rendering, so... I'm happy about resolving that issue, but I also suspect it might be a situation where the screws simply loosen with use and will require regular tightening. I hope to experiment more with it now that it is fixed and see what it can do for me. I really have no clue whether it will be a helpful piece of equipment or not! But apparently it can do time-lapse videos and I really want to make one of those!!

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video: Get Beatrix and Fey Ready With Me!

Greetings, loved ones. (I really like saying that, because... Snoop Dogg.)

I finally got to work on a video, so here it is, if you like those. I kinda piled on the dolls in this video. I had to show off Aury!!


(I made that last shot into a Christmas card. Now I have to email it to my mom.)

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September styles

Right now, a bunch of my girls are wearing a particular combination: sweaters + shorts. I'm so ready for fall, but acknowledge that it's still summer out, so I wind up compromising with a little of each.

Beatrix's vintage Ken doll sweater is actually too big... the sleeves come down over her hands, and I have a bobby pin cinching the sweater in back. But it's such a gnarly retro look! I love it! She looks ready to get back to school and nerd out in the library.

Still doting on Wisp. This is only her second outfit change. I'm sure I'll put her in something other than lovely browns, but her hair is swaying me big-time.

Wisp and Aury (I love taking pics of my first girl, Aury, with my latest doll!!) are wearing mimundoblythe sweaters -- I highly recommend them!

I haven't just sat around taking pics of my dolls in what feels like a good while. I enjoyed it so much!

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hiveminded

I'd like to pretend I just thought of dressing up a bunch of my girls like bees while I was decluttering my dresses, but that would be a lie. I have wanted to do it for, like, a year. I have a bunch of yellow dresses and enough stripes to go around. It was getting some free socks from CoolCat (the gray and white striped ones Mallow is rocking) that finally pushed me to make antennae out of gold sparkly pom-poms and black pipe cleaners. It was fun!

It's absolutely summer now, though. It's so humid where I live!! So gross and unpleasant. Getting outside, even as early as possible (it was about 8:30am when I took these pictures), was like slogging through a swamp.

Worth it! I do look like an insane person, though, with half my dolls dressed as bees (Soleil and Lamb not pictured... I can only haul so many dolls) and the other half naked.

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hat swap part two

Oh, I guess it's March!!

As I mentioned, Andi and I did a hat swap last month! She very sweetly made me two! I was so flipping excited when I opened the package and discovered this, because these hats are to-die-for cute. Aury has been in this pink one non-stop since it arrived a couple of weeks ago.

As you can see, it's snowed here. Several times, toward the end of the month. I even got into a winter precipitation-related fender bender with a friend of mine last week, which apparently was one of hundreds on that day. Thankfully, it wasn't major and everyone involved was okay. It was an alarming situation and the cars were not as damage-free as ours, so I'm counting myself very lucky, even though it doesn't feel like it was a lucky situation.

Anyway, I waited until the most recent snow melted to grab a picture of Lamb in the other little kitty-eared creation from Andi.

The button on the side is a heart, you guys!!!

Anyway, February was a really busy and typically pretty expensive month for me, but this year there were several stressful occurrences -- the car accident being the least stressful somehow -- so I didn't feel very much like posting here. Cure Touch, as I've said before, is where I try and keep it happy, like a little sanctuary.

A little bit of positivity to end this post:

• I really do love these hats, haha!
• I'm tapering off taking a medication that had made me really uncharacteristically unmotivated. Mental health, yeah!!! I hope I get back to my normal swing soon.
• I've been playing the guitar a lot lately.
• I saw Jupiter Ascending with a couple of friends (and it was awesome; I have no taste) and bought a bunch of grape Blow Pops for contraband movie concessions. Grape Blow Pops take me back to seventh grade in the best way. Sometimes I don't necessarily enjoy nostalgia, but in the event of grape Blow Pops, I definitely do. 

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video: Get Aury Ready With Me

Man, I have a lot of requested videos to finagle for my YouTube channel. I'm not even sure I can do most of them! There are also videos that are my own ideas that I want to do... and I'm not sure I can do those, either. Videos where there are demonstrations are often way harder to shoot than you'd think, especially without a second party to be camera-person and make sure things are in frame/in focus... and without any natural lighting... and without much room...

So, while I am trying to finagle the projects that are larger in scope, I wanted to do a shorter video in the meantime -- one that isn't a big production taking multiple days of shooting and whatnot. I decided to just re-dress Aury and have the camera on while I was deciding what to put her in and changing her and everything.

It's also an experiment, of sorts, to see if I can tackle a request having to do with Blythe styling tips (like I am a person who should be giving styling tips).


I am at 399 subscribers as I write this, and I'm surprised! I wonder if I should do something special if I reach 500 subscribers? That's totally a lot of subscribers.

Yes, I still have my little white Christmas tree up.

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Merry Christmas Eve! (Also, a video!)

First, here's a shot of Lamb under our tree!

Okay, so you guys would simply not believe the amount of Christmas cookies made in our house the past couple of weeks. I didn't get pictures of them all, but this is only about a third. I helped pipe on these as well as the chocolate horses/teddy bears below, but mostly, these were made by my sisters for parties and friends and such.

(Oh, my little sister made these candy sleighs for her boyfriend's family's kids!)

And one last shot of Fidelia with Jack Skellington. I'm listening to The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack right now!



Finally, a video... a vlog, I guess. This was a request. Took forever and ever, as usual. I keep thinking I've got this whole process mastered, but nope. :)

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Neo Blythe Collection video/YouTube musings.

I spent the majority of my time last week working on this YouTube video, which is about my collection of Neo Blythes -- or, rather, a "review" of each of them.

This had been suggested/requested a few times. But it took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to tackle this video, format-wise, and how to do it in a way that would be pleasing to me. I knew I needed some kind of backdrop to keep the dolls front and center, so I made these two poster boards covered in fabric. And I knew I needed to film it in a place with natural lighting, at least as much as possible. Days are short right now, so it's hard to find that happy medium between direct sunlight and not enough light. I spent a chunk of four or five hours filming each doll last Saturday, then another couple of hours in the middle of the week to capture the eye mech changing bits as well as film my small introduction. I'm pretty bad off the cuff so my intro is very... "Please, Jesus, let me get through this."

Between transcoding the HQ footage into something that's actually workable, rendering time, and exporting (factoring in any unfortunate mishaps or program errors), a lot of time spent creating videos is just waiting for things to finish so you can keep going. The actual editing -- choosing clips and where to lay them, slicing and splicing, flow, color correction, messing around with music or audio -- takes a lot less time than everything else takes and is what I enjoy. I love the editing process of making videos and I loved filming my Blythes in their stock... especially Aury!! I was transported back in time to when I first got her and felt these crazy love pangs.

So if you want a 20-minute intro to my dolls (there are 13, and they each get about a minute and half of commentary, so it adds up...) feel free to watch my magnum opus. I broke Mallow's pull string at one point.

Awesomely, I've also hit 200 subscribers on my YouTube channel. Really cool since I never meant to have a channel.

It's sort of interesting to be putting myself in front of the camera a bit. Whenever I put anything creative out into the public, whether it's writing, something I've done in Photoshop, or a video, I have to fight off this immediate kickback of self-loathing and tendency to feel bad about myself in some way -- or several ways. After a video goes live, if I'm not thinking I'm dumb as rocks, ineloquent/unable to speak clearly, ugly, old... it hasn't been something I've put effort into, I guess! So I can't help cringing.

I value Blythe both as a creative hobby and a source of comfort, and I sort of feel like if my sense of comfort is eroded by doing YouTube videos -- even if I enjoy the editing aspect -- I'll probably just shut it down again.

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everything in progress

It seems right now I have a bunch of plates spinning! Lots of crafts in progress with their materials all over the place... videos partially completed... a long-time writing project that I'm desperate to finish... I have a feeling I'm a little overloaded!

I'm happy that I managed to get these backdrops done today, because I've really been needing some for video-filming purposes (I'm working on a video about my Blythe collection, which is actually a big undertaking, as I have 13 dolls to film). They're just pieces of poster board with fabric stretched over them and Scotch-taped to the back... so they're not huge projects or anything, but I'm really pleased. These are just some test shots I did with Aury to see what they'd look like on camera.

Stuff On My Mind:

• So bummed Selfie is cancelled. It was actually really cute and enjoyable. I'm sorry I doomed you with my death touch, Selfie.
• I have got to update my vegan lip balm blog soon! Yet another spinning plate about to fall!
• 1989 is turning my love/hate relationship with Taylor Swift into a just plain love relationship...

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ready for autumn

I know it's still a couple of weeks away, officially, but can it be autumn now?? I'm absolutely pining! It's vaguely cool today and it's really tripping the trigger for me.

You can really see how intense Soleil's hair is next to Aury's! (I love taking "first girl with newest girl" pics. I want to take an all-blondes picture with Lamb and Bonnet in there too!) Ice Rune's blonde has this slight peach tint to it that can be very hard to capture in photographs. I think putting it next to Seriously Saturated Yellow hair makes it easier to see.

These glitter acorns are just one of the many autumnal purchases I've made this past month. All of the purchases are cheap knicky-knacky things, and stuff like pumpkin pie-scented candles, but still, the need for cooler weather and crunchy leaves and October is clearly totally getting to me.

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New family portrait!

(click here to embiggen!)

From left to right: Gavin, Lamb, Aury, Klara, Mallow, Bonnet (the Middie), Clarke, Plummery, Petaline, Beatrix, Fey, and Drew!

It was about darn time for new family portrait, seeing as how it's been a little over a year since the last! Oh my gosh. Toting eleven Neos (and a Middie) out into June heat, trying to find shade, is quite an undertaking. And now that I have so many girls, they're kind of hard to fit into a line up-style picture! There I was, taking picture after picture where Aury looked like she was about to fall over, and I didn't even see it in real life.

It is definitely amazing to see how my gaggle of girls has grown over the past four years. They each have special memories attached. Some were gifts (Plummery, Petaline and Lamb were given to me by friends!); some have traveled with me; some have been my muses; some had technical difficulties; some have been deboxed on YouTube; some have been called particularly creepy; almost all have worked as models for Etsy.

And it all started with my Ice Rune, Aury. I love her so much. My favoritism is absolutely blatant. If my house was on fire, she is the one thing I'd grab to rescue.

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march of March

Man, Aury is just livin' in pink lately. Me too, Aury.

In case you wonder why I usually take pictures of my Blythes in front of a tree, I live on the plains, where everything is flat, and the tree in my backyard is this lone sundial, providing the only shade... and I think a tree is a better neutral background than the siding of my house!

Finished up this floral striped journal I got from Staples a few years ago; it covers 2013, plus January and February of this year. It's time for me to make the jump to this adorable green journal with foxes, owls, hedgehogs, and toadstools on it that my little sister got me for Christmas. Spot-on, right??

Listery:

• Listening to: Glee's cover of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; emotional and nostalgic.
• Eating: A Snickers ice cream bar... don't judge me
• Playing: Ace of Base's "The Sign" on my ukulele
• Dreading: my major dentist appointment on Friday...

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keeping warm

Of course, I am digging this winter weather! Everyone else has cabin fever, but I am basically always close to hibernation. I love when it's very bright out at night because of the snow.

Snow makes me happy in part because I know my Ice Rune, Aury, is a winter girl. I don't think I've failed to take her out in the snow once since getting her in December of '09. Hard to believe I've had her for nearly four years! I can remember so vividly the extreme excitement and enchantment I felt when I got her. It's something I have felt rarely since I was ten or so.

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wearing my fingers out

My left fingers sure are tender between hexipuffing and guitar-playing. I didn't play my guitar too much last month, so now my fingers are letting me know it.

I managed to make another hexipuff today and I think I improved! I also managed to bind off, which involved a crochet hook... perfect. My comfort zone.

I'm not sure I'm doing the very last bit of the bind off right! But my knitting's often lumpy, so who knows?? I'll just keep practicing! Right now it takes me 4-5 hours to make a single hexipuff. I have seen people talking about making one in, like, half an hour. Since comparison is the thief of joy, I won't compare my time to anyone else's. I just hope no one out there takes their skills for granted.

Yesterday I also finished off this rust-colored slouchie hat. It's the fifth time I've made the pattern and I intend to do it again since I'm still so likely to muck it up! Gotta practice, practice, practice!

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