ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb (or "changes" works too)

The seamstress previously known as Calico has left, traveling arduously across many lands and distant seas to Freya of NaughtyPixie! You and I can keep up with her here on Freya's flickr. Bless the internet :D

I'm so happy that TG found a home and that I get to see what wonderful clothes she and Freya make together. I am a little sad -- how strange it was to see her missing from her spot with the rest of my girls! -- because I actually love TG a lot, but I somehow felt like she was not to be played with and I never found a style that seemed right for her. When I put her up for sale on PP I thought, "If no one buys her, then I know she's meant to stay." But then Freya messaged me and I was thrilled. So I think it worked out for the absolute best and that she's now where she was supposed to be all along! It was fun to have her in my little family for a spell though. All my best, lovely girl.

I have a post on the phenomenon of "bonding" with Blythes that I'm still working on. I have thought about it a lot in the past few months.

But bless Freya, I love her natural-feeling dresses! I bought this one for Plummery on the same day I sent TG to her. One day I will buy one for Aury, then all three of my girls will have NaughtyPixie parties.

Right now Aury is hanging out in her stock hat and DLG's stock dress with the apron-thingie I made by hand. It still needs snaps on the back. The real part that is tickling me, though, are the little striped socks she's got on. Note to self: GET MORE CUTE STRIPED SOCKS!

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lightbox: a new hope

I have lately had another go at using the lightbox I constructed back in February following this DIY tutorial. It's been on my bookshelf for the past few months because I wasn't feelin' it, know what I'm sayin'? I was initially pumped about it because my room has ZERO natural light and on top of that, I'm often up all night and never see any sunlight sometimes. (I like it that way; it's very serial killer of me, but I've been a lifelong night owl.) However, that makes it hard to take Blythe pics inside, so a lightbox sounds like a really good solution, right?

Well, it's quite a task for me to unplug and drag all my lamps to an available outlet. The outlets are often crammed behind furniture and hard for me to reach. I need to get a power strip, because all of my outlets are taken and hard to get to as well. And I would say that for optimal results, you really have to light up these suckers, so I personally, with my point-and-shoot camera, need many lights surrounding the box. It is quite a to-do, so it's actually not just an optimal thing for quick snaps for me. Curse you, lack of natural light!

What I do like, though, is that it gets more "true" color than I typically get in my room. For something like the pixie hats I put on Etsy, this picture of Beatrix is a lot more accurate than the pics I have up there now.

I guess I ought to become used to cropping the pictures I take in the lightbox (I'm a little anal and would really prefer my pics all be the same size, but I'll get used to it). The above pictures of Calico just wouldn't be the same with the edges of taped-up cardboard in it.

Best suited for close-ups, maybe? :)

I hope I can work out some other backgrounds other than the default "clouds and ground" sort of thing that's taped in there now.

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You're killing me, Buster.

Sort of a long and image-heavy post! You are warned! I have a small pile of things to catch up on!

I finally got this dress I've been waiting for anxiously in the mail - I'm so happy with it! It's by NaughtyPixie originally, but I got it from PP and couldn't believe my good luck. I just had this lovely inkling it was meant for Beatrix. It really, really is! It was kismet! It was karma!

Calico is also in secondhand clothes right now -- this Dolly Molly dress. I really love getting second-hand Blythe clothes. Sometimes they are a little loved, but knowing that they were on other dollies and a part of someone else's life actually makes me feel connected. Maybe it's silly, and comes from the part of my brain that sometimes forms an attachment to the packaging things I like come in. Who knows.

I'm still discovering Calico, bonding slowly with her. I was really excited to get her, but it was also not a plan. She was a crazy impulse buy. So I'm slowly circling her, wondering what she would like to wear and what makes her look "right"-est to me, and happiest. She is a mystery. I wonder if some customization is in her future. It scandalizes me to think of touching her freckles, though, so they will stay!


Plummery and I watched Forensic Files all night long the other night. It was fantastic because I just felt like crocheting and made up a few hats.

I have to say, this cheap mustard-colored acrylic yarn has gone a long, long way -- I've also made myself a cowl from the same skein -- and is oddly kind of my favorite color to see on my dolls. I made up this little flower-ish circlet out of some lace I got for my birthday and stitched on a sweet little carved wooden button (I am a sucker for wood buttons). I like it!

Finally, tonight I sat down with some plain pink fabric and an oval embroidery hoop and decided to make up something, anything. I knew I would do the word "maidensuit" (a long-time username for me, and the name of my Etsy shop besides) and then thought, what do I like? Kawaii smiling teeth! Toadstools! Pixie hats! Hearts! Flowers! I think it took me about four or five hours. Luckily I have a large appetite for the true crime shows that run at 3 AM.

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"One of my best, don't you think?"

After a while of stalking the sundries on PP, I found a stand for Calico! It's a Cassiopeia Spice stand, but I think Tailor Gibson's stand was also brown, so hopefully it's the same-ish thing. The brown looks really good with her, I must say. Also, the dress with crowns on it was a birthday gift from my friend J, the same who got me Dear LeLe Girl. Crazy kid. Let the record show that he picked it out all on his own.

I've been hooked on embroidery these past several days. I did this one over the weekend:



I'm going to miss new episodes of The Big Bang Theory this summer!

In more recent news, I woke up yesterday morning sick, rather weird and out of nowhere! So I haven't felt up to much. I did, however, watch the entire first season of Community yesterday, along with last night's The Big Bang Theory and the last two episodes of Chuck. (No one can marathon TV quite like me.) Community is great fun. It reminds me of Arrested Development, humor-wise, and Glee, self-parody-wise -- they bash Glee once, which I think is odd because in some ways they've got a really similar feel going on -- with some small smidgen of The Office (US) in there, too, somehow. So I wholeheartedly recommend it if you like any of those three shows!

Glee tonight! :)

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Beauty and kindness.

So, although my Blythe family has gotten scandalously large with the addition of Plummery (what! Three Blythes! No one can live at that speed!), I had actually been saving up a little for her, and getting her as a birthday present meant that I had a small amount of money saved up that was suddenly not mentally squared away. Thus when I saw this Tailor Gibson on Plastic Paradise (without stock, but at this point in my Blythe life, I've realized that I hardly ever have the girls in stock clothes, so although I like TG's stock, I wasn't bothered by not having it) I was really tempted by her and decided to mull it over. Then my birthday came and I was given some money by awesome family members, and suddenly she became much more affordable and I decided to just go for it! Tailor Gibson has always been a girl I've liked, but not pined for in the way I pined for Ice Rune and Dear LeLe Girl. However, I literally had dreams about this doll all night long after seeing her. My brain was enamoured, I think :)

The girl I adopted her from is absolutely one of the sweetest people I've met online in a long time! I traded TG's darker blue chips out for a slightly lower price on the doll, and she asked me if I'd like stock green or blue chips in their place. I found this so nice! But as I have a pair of Beatrix's pink stock chips hanging around, I thought I might as well use those, and told her I would. She sent TG along very quickly. She arrived today, and when I unwrapped her I discovered Chrissy had put in pink stock eyechips for me! And I had been expecting her to arrive nude, but Chrissy even put her in a little pink dress, written a little note, and included a necklace from her Etsy shop too!


It's incredibly cute, and the consideration and kindness of her efforts touches me so much. I guess I've become old and jaded on The Internets, especially since I have an extensive fandom history and have experienced a wide range of pettiness and strife. I would sooner expect a Bad Dolly Deal than a good one, as much as it pains me to say that. It's not that I haven't met some of my best friends ever online (most of my friends are online or started out as online friendships) and that I've never been afforded kindness and generosity, because I definitely have been. And in general, the Blythe fandom seems mostly very healthy and supportive in comparison to most other fandoms I've been in. But I was still really touched, and I hope to pay this forward somehow, karmically speaking, and take the experience as inspiration.


Anyway, TG's been in a box for most of her life! So she's got box hair to speak for her experience! Today, one of the first things I did (after waggling her in my mom's face, going, "Look, look! My doll is here! She's got freckles!") was boil some water and give her head a careful dunk. Then I combed her bangs down and put the sad little blindfold on them while they dried.


Then I ironed them, let them sit, checked them out, then ironed them again. (Look at that gaggle of girls on my desk! That's where they hang out.)


Her bangs hang straight now, but they are very uneven. Partially, I like the unstructured-ness of them -- they look cute and less like a thick chunk than some Blythe bangs -- but I think they need just a little trimming. Crap! I'm not good at that!


I settled on a name for her a few hours after she got here: Calico. It seems good for a Tailor! I will have to get her a stand sometime soon. She's borrowing Beatrix's.

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