🗝️ chatelaines part 2 🗝️

Featuring the triumphant return of the twin mayors of birthday town: I made a couple more chatelaines for my girls! I wanted to make a silver one and a gold one, and here are Vesper and Citron to model them!

Lowdown on the silver one: Wow, I found some little tassels amongst my craft supplies that I got to attach to the miniature suitcases I made YEARS ago, and since there was an all-silver one, I thought, "Sure!" I don't know what the item could represent in terms of a tool or useful item for Citron, but hey, who knows. But upon further inspection of charms at the craft store (I went back to get more chains for these chatelaines) I actually found one that had tools, specifically! Two types of saws (I used one on here), hammers, wrenches. That's so funny to me. While the wrench might have been the most useful for an artificer-type gal, I liked the shape of the saw the most! I believe this one is a hacksaw, specifically! And I found a fork charm at a local bead store, as well as whatever the one on the rightmost in the photo is. I don't know what exactly this is, other than a drop-style charm, but in my imagination, this could be some kind of scent pot or holder for some little tool or gadget!

Again, I used a gear for the medallion portion of the chatelaine, and just jump ring-ed it on.

For the gold chatelaine: Another local bead store finding, but there is this little gold clasp-looking charm, and I don't rightly know what it is. But it looked like some sort of pocketbook or a cover for a notebook, so that's what I'm pretending it is. (It might be a clasp, but I'm really not sure.) There's also a clock hand from the gear packet, and a colorful charm from the Explorer packet I got for my first chatelaine. Also, I made a little keyring out of a jump ring and several small key charms from a packet I got at Michael's. Even though the keys aren't bright gold, I still felt like it gives the chatelaine a more lived-in, vintage and useful look, instead of just being fancier-seeming items.

I didn't put a medallion on this chatelaine since I didn't really have anything I liked for that.

But here's Vesper's full 'fit...

As you know, I like more elegant looks for Vesper. Things that make her look, dare I say, elfin! While nothing will ever look as beautiful as her stock, which to me is exquisite, this outfit gives her the vibe that she is the keeper of a little fairy garden. One surrounded by a rock wall; one with an ancient well hidden within, which may or may not be a wishing well. She strolls and tends to the flowers in the fairy garden.

I don't think I listed all the outfit deets for Citron in my last chatelaine post, so I will do that now!

Vesper's deer headband: made by me
Vesper's leaf crown: made by me
Vesper's peplum top: Sugar Mag (I got it in 2010 off eBay)
Vesper's skirt: CraftyCoraShop on Etsy
Vesper's shoes: her own stock

Citron's goggles: her own stock
Citron's black blouse: HelloCoolCat
Citron's skirt: CraftyCoraShop
Citron's shoes: Time After Alice's stock shoes

Finally: "the twin mayors of birthday town" is an old My Brother, My Brother, and Me reference (I was an early MBMBAM adopter back in the day, and also an early MBMBAM abandoner, haha) and when I Googled it just now to find the episode I was referencing, the first result was not MBMBAM, but my own blog post about Vesper and Citron??? Whoa. Wild. Real snake-eating-its-own-tail stuff.

Read More

🚨 emergency chatelaine post 🚨

I made Citron a chatelaine!!! And I'm only calling it an emergency because posting about it is knocking other doll dressup posts further back in my post queue, haha!

Let's talk chatelaines without me being anywhere near a historical fashion expert. They're basically belts (more usually belt clips) from which dangle useful items a woman might want to carry around with her. These, to me, are an exquisite combination of function and beauty. What your own personal chatelaine might hold was very relative to who you were and what you might need on you at any given time, and they did range in, say, fanciness. I found this page on chatelaines useful for not just explaining the concept of a chatelaine but also its accessories.

(I sourced all these images from Google Images, so they're a mix of extant historical examples and costume recreations!)

Objects one might find on a chatelaine: a pocket watch, keys, scissors, knives, hooks, sewing supplies such as tape measurers, pencils encased in a tube-like holder, notepads, dog whistles, scent/perfume containers, smelling salts, a little purse for some coins or a hankie or something. You could trick out a chatelaine to be hobby-specific, even. Tote along all your needlework stuff on your needlework chatelaine! Are you a lady who needs a magnifying glass multiple times a day? Keep yours with you on the ol' chatelaine.

Inspired the by the various sizes of jump rings Anne gifted me, I decided to make Citron a chatelaine, and to have it be steampunk in style. I got the following additional supplies for it:

Just a couple of cheap $2 chains (one is silver and the links are shaped like hearts and the other is black) so I could harvest some links and also their clasps. I found some gear ephemera ("inclusions," the packaging says) and also a charm set ("Explorer Charms," it says) that I got particularly for the sun and moon charms. I also bought a set of tools with some pliers and cutters, since I didn't have anything like that already, which was half the cost of my purchase. But worth it, if I explore any more crafting of this sort! I couldn't have succeeded at this without them!

I decided I wanted to lean into a mixed metal look instead of an all-silver or all-black look so her chatelaine could go with any dressup. And despite my best efforts to try and find tiny charms of useful things, tools of any variety, I couldn't find anything in my local craft stores like that. No charms of scissors, knives, science equipment. Most of the charms, intended for human-sized jewelry, were on the larger-to-unusable side in terms of scale, anyway. So I just decided that it's alright if this chatelaine doesn't exactly offer Citron useful items. I did manage to find a key charm that came with a set of beads I bought off Amazon in 2022 -- such a lucky find for this project!

This was, for the most part, a super easy and quick make that I really enjoyed! I just snipped off the end of one of those chains to act as my belt, used several jump rings from Anne to attach charms to small lengths of chains harvested from the bigger lengths, and also used jump rings to attach the small lengths to the main belt. I did attempt to vary the length of chain from which each charm was dangling so I could get that satisfying drape of objects, but I think this was sometimes not noticeable because the size of each charm differed greatly.

Charms used: the tarnished-gold sun charm from the pack I purchased, the silver key charm I already have, a black gear from the gear inclusions pack, and a bronze clock handle charm also from the gear inclusions pack!

For the medallion at the top of the chatelaine, I superglued three gears from the pile of gear inclusions together and attached them onto the belt with jump rings. I thought that'd be better than just supergluing it onto the chain, in case I ever wanted to change it out again. And also because superglue is a FREAKING MESS. I already accidentally damaged my cutting mat during the process of gluing the gears together, hahaha. Lesson learned, there, but I just didn't want to superglue the medallion to the belt. For whatever reason, attaching the medallion to the chain acting as the belt was the hardest part of the whole project. It was so fiddly and wrangling all the chains to hang in the proper place while the medallion got hooked on took the most time of anything!!

BUT I DID IT! The mixed metals steampunk mini-chatelaine of Citron's dreams. Or rather, my dreams. Maybe Batman's dreams, too.

I feel like I could have made this into more of a belt clip situation with something like a pin back glued to the "medallion" made of gears. And I maybe could make the attachment of the medallion to the belt chain cleaner by sewing it on?? It might be less visible than the jump rings, and still temporary. There might be several better methods of construction in general, indeed.

Still, despite the fiddly-ness and the feeling that I could have constructed something more "accurate" or something, I'm super happy because I want to outfit Citron with fun stuff like this. I feel like I will definitely attempt another chatelaine! For her, and maybe also one for Vesper?? Doing an all-silver or all-gold one would be satisfying, and seeing if I can locate some tinier and more specific charms on Etsy seems satisfying too!

Read More

neons of time

These pics of Citron make me want to SCREAM! I was making pterodactyl noises editing them. The editing on them is super minimal. Just boosted levels of saturation and a tiny color correction layer to try and reflect true colors. But ohhh my goodness. What a gorgeous girl. She is a Blythe I sincerely cannot believe I own. Scream, scream, scream!

Citron is one of the handful of girls I have where I am somewhat particular and picky about how I dress her, and feel I have only put her in a 'fit that I really like on her a couple of times. Like, my dressup success rate with Citron is middling at best. I really, really want to lean into more historical dress elements with her.

Here are a couple of pictures of her in other 'fits from elsewhere on my blog:

As per my Blythe family page blurb re: Citron: I have grandiose ideas [on how to dress her] but very little wardrobe to support them. Keywords: Lucca from Chrono Trigger, fire magic, metallics, vintage adventurer (think Rachel Maksy), Gibson Girl. I want to absolutely indulge in the steampunk elements of SV's concept when I can. There are so many aesthetic elements of steampunk that I love, but also there's a lot of goofy, overly exaggerated aspects of steampunk that I would like to shy away from, if possible. Liiiike the goofy top hat that's part of SV's stock!

Maybe another mood board is warranted...

Particularly of note in this mood board:

• As noted, Rachel Maksy
• Anne Shirley
• Bree from Outlander
• Chrono Trigger
• the Antikythera mechanism which I have been obsessed with for years (name-dropped it here in 2013)
• this pretty art piece

I have a few blouses and a few long skirts that I can put on Citron, but I'd love, for instance: a vest or something that resembles stays, a chatelaine type of rig (maybe I could make something like that out of jump rings and charms?), maybe some kind of other eyewear that insinuates steampunk??

All that aside, this is a super duper simple dressup, but I love this dress on her, wow! I love the tone of gray and I love the square neckline. In person it actually cuts across the plastic swells of the doll's breasts in a Regency gown type of way that looks appropriately historical for her!

The dress from MissFreyaJ (whose shop seems to only sell eyechip sheets and not clothes now -- I purchased this dress way back in 2013 and you can see it on Plummery in this old post). She's wearing Time After Alice's stock shoes, which match her dark blue nails!

Haha, well, I am going to be posting more batches of doll pics in the next few days, so!! Buckle up, baby. I think posting doll pics every day (or at least on the reg) is more of an Instagram thing, and I might post a small round-up of all the pics I've taken lately there eventually. But honestly, I just prefer blogging 'cause I wanna yap and do mood boards and stuff. I'm trying not to feel self-conscious about a) yapping a lot, and b) posting a lot. I used to post EVERY DAY here, once upon a time!

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

some fall lists

Happy October! Which is almost over already. I've kinda missed it.

As usual when I neglect Cure Touch it's because I'm having A Time. A highlight reel:

• week-long power outage
• dad in the hospital
• sister having a scary medical ordeal
• weird dating/breakup experience
• COVID-19... after three careful years, I finally caught it 😥

Big sigh. I know this is just life. But I feel like I've not had much time to recover between each of these things. I felt really tired before catching COVID, so COVID's just exhausted me.

Really, it was rough. Not just because it knocked me on my ass, but because my bestie and I came down with it while we were having a much-coveted visit. Being sick as dogs together basically became the bulk of our visit. She stayed for a week and a half, and only two of those days were we functional. COVID hit us both so hard we couldn't stay upright. Even just eating took us both out. We slept a ton. It was really surreal, but also unfortunate and disappointing, since we only get to see each other every few years.

(That's my bestie's Daunting Drusilla with Vesper, Citron, Zasha, and Winny!!!! We got in a skosh of dolly time before taking to our beds like Victorian invalids.)

But, this blog is meant to be more of a place to blog about happy things and accomplishments and fun hyperfixations. I feel like listing some positive stuff too.

• I've made a new friend in the last few months. A rarity for me 🥰
• caught some Pumpkaboos in Pokémon Go (Pumpkaboo being my favorite, and I had only ever caught one before! I loveeee watching her on the AR camera!)
• made beef stew, so incredibly comforting while sickness dragged on
• finished up a big project I've been working on since December
• watched The Cat Returns and really enjoyed it
• went on a little 20-minute walk in the rain yesterday morning, and saw colorful foliage and Halloween decorations all over the neighborhood. The temperature was ideal, refreshing and cool, and the rain was mild. It did me sooo much good after three weeks of feeling dreadful!
• close to finishing a ripple throw

And my visit with my bestie wasn't a complete disaster, despite everything.

• As mentioned, she got a Blythe!!! Of her own accord! I can't believe it! We dressed our dolls together and it was so much fun. I also sent bestie home with a care package of socks, tights, and little crop tops I made! I loved doing this!!!
• we attended a concert together and made Swiftian friendship bracelets for it! Successfully traded 'em, even! And the concert was great
• we watched Over the Garden Wall together 🐸 (barely managed it, but we technically did it)
•  if I had to be that freaking sick with someone, she'd be my #1 choice. we both felt godawful but true comfort is being able to be in a bad state with someone without it being super awkward or damaging your friendship at all. New friendship level unlocked...?

I'm really behind on everything and that'll just have to be okay for a bit yet.

Read More

twin mayors of birthday town

Well, this is wild beyond belief for me to be typing. But I was gifted two dream dolls for my birthday: Lady Panacea and Shelley Victorian. My Neo Blythe family has expanded by four dolls this year. It's been a long time since it's seen that kind of growth, and I am in a state of shock, a bit!!

Of course I filmed my unboxing of them both, if you would like to view it.

I named these girls Vesper (Lady Panacea) and Citron (Shelley Victorian). Currently they're standing on my desk with Zasha and Winny. The new girl gang!!

They both break my heart with their beauty.

Directly after unboxing these girls, I lost power for a full week. (!!!) There was a huge wind storm and the vast majority of my city was without power for multiple days. It was a miserable week, to say the least.

As a result of the outage, I kind of lost out on what is ordinarily a super special time for me as a Blythe collector... those first days after I unbox my new girl, wherein I am bonding with the doll via touching, dressing and undressing, combing out and washing their hair, changing them out of their stock for the first time, shopping especially for them, and other general fussing. It's such a fun time for me. Feeling happy and spoiled and thinking about the dolls' name, their style, how they fit in with my Blythe family.

So that experience was delayed by the power outage. I felt sweaty and grimy and grumpy 24/7 while the power was out, and after the power came back, I was exhausted. I had work to catch up on, Etsy orders to complete and ship. I had to throw out everything in my fridge and get replacement groceries during a time when the store was picked over and swamped (because everybody had to replace their groceries). Et cetera, et cetera!!!

Finally editing my unboxing video afforded me the belated opportunity to get tactile with my new girls, since I wanted to take pictures of them for the video and for this post. My twins, my special purple-eyed gworlies. That time fussing with them was something I needed, emotionally, after such a rough week. I feel doubly blessed, let me tell you!

Nearly two weeks after getting power restored, I'm still recovering from the week without it... or so it feels. I want to dolly-sew and crochet and craft and spend even more time with The New Girls so bad!

Read More