filling a miniature shelf (+ Gavin and Miette)

There are Blythes in this post. Can you believe it!

So I got this cute arched miniature shelf thingie at Michael's. It seems like every spring they have some accidentally-doll-sized something. In the past it's been chairs/benches. I cannot for the life of me find this small decor item anywhere on the Michael's website, and it was the very last one on the shelf at my local store. But I think it was part of the "Next Chapter" collection they had this winter/spring; it was in that area and is a similar color to other bigger shelving in the collection.

I've really been living for the possibility that there might be something that's accidentally Blythe-sized at craft stores this spring, so I was so happy to score this. It was 60% off, too, which really took the price down, from ~$15 to $6.

For the past many years now I have been slowly but regularly adding to my collection of miniatures, a few pieces at a time. I got a couple of spring miniatures from this year along with the shelf, and when I got home, I got the urge to style the shelf with some of my springy/floral/gardening-related minis!

Some things for you to espy:

• Top shelf: tiny snails!!!
• Middle shelf: I painted that little light blue mushroom back in 2010!
• Bottom shelf: The little turtle acting as a bookend!

Placing each item one at a time into this little shelf brought me incredible amounts of joy and satisfaction!!

But I couldn't leave it at just the little shelf. I had to dress a doll and add her to the scene. Not just one! But two!! And I added even more miniatures into the scene.

One: On Gavin, I put these teeny-weeny purple flower hair clips! Two: I bought these miniature pastel macarons forever ago. I set them on Miette's lap! Three: I also had these miniature shopping bags from circa the same miniatures collection (from Michael's) and had never even opened the package. This one that says "la petite bookshop" matched the lavender/lilac vibe. Of course anything French is right up Miette's alley! Four: I really wished I had a miniature dog or cat to place in the loveseat next to Gavin! The closest I could get was digging out this dog-printed cushion from Didee Eureeka's stock (!!!) but it simply looks like a pillow to me, and not a companion. Still, what fun to actually use that random bit of stock.

Other stuff in the scene: Some wicker furniture I scored a long time ago on Etsy (not sure when but they were in Lamb's dressup video in 2015!) and some stuff I crocheted over the years (a tiny ripple throw and a rainbow-shaped rug or throw, whichever) and tiny cushions I sewed (helping to support the dolls).

It's been so long since I've indulged in playing with my miniatures and doll furniture and setting up a scene. I'm not as good at this kind of thing as many doll photographers are, so I always have to remind myself that it's fun to do it for the love of play and not perfection. It does bother me that the rug and shelf aren't perfectly aligned, but I just gotta let it go, man. I really, really benefitted from playing around with this today!

I imagine that Miette and Gavin got dolled up in their springy frocks, went shopping (perhaps to "la petite bookshop" and/or to a bakery), and came home to gossip. Gavin kicked her shoes off.

Finally, I really try to cite where I attained all my dolly duds for any interested parties, but I got almost all of what Gavin and Miette are wearing secondhand. I'll make my finest attempt anyway.

Gavin's dress: I think sleepforever (I was gifted the dress last year and I already don't remember!)
Gavin's hot pink Mary Janes: eBay circa 2015 is my best guess
Miette's dress: secondhand in 2012 (it's one of my FAVORITES!)
Miette's petticoat: MINIJIJO in 2017
Miette's white strappy shoes: thehandflower

I have made a couple of posts about putting miniatures in little shelves before! Here and here! There's one item that's been in all three posts.

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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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two videos

Don't want April to escape without noting the two Dolly Dressup videos I did this month! The above picture is a screen grab from Wisp's. I had paused on it while editing in Premiere and saved it because I thought it was pretty. Or maybe it's just that I really love Wisp!!

As I noted in the video, Wisp has a downcast gaze on this set of chips, so I'm thinking of giving her a slight lift. I did that for Mallow a while back because she also has the downcast gaze... And while I'm at it, maybe a new set of chips for Wispy! I just leave this set on her all the time.


Finally dressed Gavin! I feel unsatisfied most of the time with how I dress her, but I like this outfit!


For some reason, the volume seems low on this one. Either that or all the other ones are too loud. No clue which.

I think Mallow is the only girl who hasn't been in a dressup vid yet, so I'll do her during May! And also probably a haul... the ol' birthday's coming up.

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90s Teen Witch

It seems we're saying goodbye to winter -- it's been springy here, although I'm sure we'll get snow in May. It's happened before! But before February is out and Easter colors start kicking in, I thought I'd make a post about my bizarre fall/winter aesthetic~ of the past six months.

I'm calling it "90s Teen Witch." It's not particularly any one of these three words -- not fully 90s, not fully teen, and not fully witch.

It's very nostalgic-feeling for me, though. In October I was strongly feeling 7th grade vibes. It was the mid-90s at the time. I wore plaid flannel shirts and blue Converse high tops. I was having memories of random things like the blue lipstick my friend and I bought at Walgreens; the tiny jar of "fairy" glitter we wore on our cheeks; the jewelry we had at the time (happy face necklaces, zodiac sign necklaces, mood rings, and anything with a celestial theme); the music we listened to (a blend of radio hits and stuff like Meat Loaf on cassette tape).

I got a plaid flannel that really jived with the ripple throw I was making for my gentleman friend, and I gave into the yen to collect some celestial jewelry that pinged my nostalgia radar.

I've acquired lots of rings because I did it old-school style, via Claire's, The Icing, and Forever 21. The 90s have been back "in" anyway, so Claire's has jewelry frighteningly similar to the kind they had when my best friend and I hung out at the mall for fun when we were twelve.

I also got three resin rings from the Etsy shop ARTISUNtis. They have gold flecks in them. I bought one in lilac and one in amber, and got a third for free in a darker purple. Perfect!! I love these rings. I actually bought two for my best friend K as well. They're probably the only rings I've got that won't eventually turn my finger green/blue!

Another major aesthetic pleasure for me has been my Nicoletta Ceccoli tarot deck. It was a gift from my little sister and I love it. The beautiful art wasn't necessarily created to be tarot cards, so I am not using the deck to learn (just the basic Rider-Waite deck), but hopefully I'll be able to use it someday. For anyone particularly into the big-headed creepygirl Blythe aesthetic, I recommend Nicoletta Ceccoli's art!

My 90s Teen Witch aesthetic has stretched to encompass geodes and rocks -- although I'm not looking to start collecting crystals or stray Wiccan. My phone case has a bunch of beads and rocks glued to the back of it, haha. "This speaks to my aesthetic," I noted. I have realized that my aesthetic has been that of that one store at the mall that sells incense, pewter figurines of dragons, crystal balls, Enya CDs, and three wolf moon tees.

I've said "aesthetic" a lot now. Here's an interesting video about the trend of using that word, by the way.

To truly harken back to 7th grade, I'd have to add a grape Blow Pop to this picture. I have plenty, but I only just thought of it...

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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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a good old-fashioned deer hat party

I was making a couple of deer hats by request this past week, and while I was at it, I made myself a couple, because actually, I never kept but one single fraise (red) one for my own girls. Since I got into the groove of cutting felt, I wound up cutting out enough ears/antlers for eight hats...!

I get to zone out and watch true crime shows or listen to podcasts while I work, and finishing up a hat is always satisfying!

I feel all pumped to get out to the craft store and get some yarn (I definitely want to make a foehn hat) and churn out a few hats. I don't actually have any yarn left at the moment. I'm also out of white/ercu/cream floss, which I usually use to stitch up antlers with. While I was pawing through my stash last night, I did find that I had crocheted, but never antlered/eared, a flora hat and a fetti hat... so I remedied that quickly!

Gavin's wearing a flora hat (she's also breaking in these dusky pink boots I recently got). I chose to stitch the antlers up with mossy green floss. Oddly, it doesn't come off very green in pictures. But it is green.

Mallow's rocking the fetti hat. You might also notice that she has new front-facing eye chips!! They're light blue, which I think really suits her, recalling her stock. I took out the uber-dark brown ones. (Two of my other girls got new chips, too. Pics sometime soon!) I also outfitted her with a new pull string -- hers broke while I was filming my Blythe collection video, if you recall -- and de-sleepy-eyed her, since I wasn't sure if that had contributed to her pull string snapping! While I was in her head, I also gave her a tiny gaze lift. It may not be noticable. I don't tend to go overboard with the ol' gaze lifts.

Neither of these hats are particularly wintry, but there haven't been hats in these colorways in my shop since, I think, 2011. When international shipping prices got jacked up a couple of years ago, it really depressed me and put me off even wanting to make hats at all for a long time, because mostly, I shipped international! Still can't figure a way around this, but I think I'll indulge in making hats while I feel like it!

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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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I'm a fool for April

Dressed up all my Blythes for a family portrait! Lamb (second to right) fits right in. Alas for Bonnet, I am not too great at taking pictures of Middies.

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mandatory Glo Worm Gang wear

Hey, I finished a knitting project for the first time ever -- this slouchy hat, pattern from blythetoday!

I finished it with much jubilation and help from a friend, I, who can actually read patterns and deduce their meaning. I cannot, let me tell you. Every time I was like, "What does this mean? I'm lost and confused!" my friend I would make me a video and upload it to YouTube and show me exactly what I needed to do. It was so helpful, and thanks to her, Gavin is rocking this hilarious hat.

When I put it on her head, I started laughing and couldn't stop for about forty-five minutes solid. It's the funniest-looking thing ever, mostly because of the yarn I was using, I think. It reminds me of Glo Worms and it looks like something Dobby from the Harry Potter series might find very fashionable!

I can't believe I knitted something... I just find it so difficult, I'm really surprised I was able to finish this. I definitely couldn't have if it had not been for my kind, patient long-distance video tutor.

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Ripple Throw Progress Report: three-quarters there

(Pardon my pajamas and feet.)

Yes, it's That Time. The time for me to bask in the ever-increasing glow of my ripple blanket. It really is quite the beast now! I would guess it's about 70-75% of the way done. It's very warm and heavy. As the weather grows warmer, it becomes a sweaty sort of affair to work on, covering my lap and legs as completely as it does. There are cooler days here and there, or evenings when the air conditioner is on, and I like to work on it then.

So far it's about four feet tall, and getting hard to take pictures of.

Here are some visual aids...

Currently I need to buy one more skein of yarn (I'm using three different whites, although I'm not sure you can tell, and I want them to feel evenly distributed between snow white, dull white, and cream) and then I think from there the goal will just be to keep going till I'm out of the yarn I have left, and call it done! I estimate a couple more feet or so! It's all by ear, so whatever works out is pretty fine with me. This has been such a fun project for me so far. I hardly ever do things bigger than little Blythe hats. I have liked having a pet project that I can pick up and feel like I've made progress on, even if it's one stripe here and seven there.

Today's delights:

• nachos - yummm
• springy, stormy weather
• doing hard burn on a writing project! Tunnel vision!!

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these are the golden days

Hello, October! I love you and I'm glad you're here!

Tiny delight of the day: my nails match the gold lettering on my Fender guitar pick. This polish is outrageous. It's Milani Gold Glitz. I love gold nail polish of all types, but this is the only glitter polish I've tried that doesn't take about a billion coats to get a good glitter-encrusted disco ball build-up.

I'm still playing the guitar daily. It's been four months since I took it up, and I really love it. It's very relaxing for me because it takes intense focus for me to play and sing at the same time and it really helps me forget everything outside of what I'm doing... music is the best therapy!

(Blythe and crafting are pretty good too, of course!!)

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brides of Burton

Gavin and Drew are rocking the black and white stripes lately. With their pale matte faces, it's very Burtony!

Gavin's wearing a dress nicked from her cousin Clementine and glasses nicked from Beatrix, Tailor Gibson's stock blouse beneath that, purple heart tights, and Punkaholic People's stock shoes, a recent score from Blythe Kingdom. Drew is wearing a lacy white Sugar Mag dress and a pair of black and white striped tights, also BK scores, Gavin's bunny boots, and a lovely black and white hat knit by my best friend E. E, we love your hats!

The Burton-esque-ness must mean I am in the mood for autumn already... around September/October, I always get in the mood for Sleepy Hollow in particular! (Yep, I mentioned this last year too!) It's funny, I'm not into Tim Burton as a rule, but I just adore Sleepy Hollow because of the atmosphere and costuming and Katrina's dresses. Gavin has always reminded me of a platinum-haired Tim Burton character anyway...!

I've had Gavin for almost a year now! I got her last September. Time sure flies!

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it certainly is summer

Wow! I took Gavin outside for some pictures and just about died of heatstroke in the two minutes I was out there in the crunchy, sun-bleached grass. Gee, is it July?

Here's my to-do list for this week:

write on my short story, which is getting way long...

ship a frost hat to France!

keep practicing the guitar every day

watch Point Break with my Keanu-lovin' boyfriend

see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 again!

I'm still waiting for the guitar I bought to come to me. The wait is excruciating. But Gavin is keeping me company today!

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bunny nuggets!

Last weekend, Blythey hangouts were had: Gavin and I went to see E and her SC, Cora. It was an FBL party (not to be confused with an NFL party). Gavin got a new hat from E!! It's so fly, I'm going to have a photo session with her later. Also, E knitted up some bunny nuggets for my girls! They are basically the cutest things I have ever seen.

They all have "M" names. You know, like the Duggars, but bunnies, and more pagan.

Here's Milton...

Mortimer...

And Maxine... (she is the mama)... and she's paaaank.

Where ya goin', Milty?

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March family portrait

I finally had a new family portrait session!! I have been a bit nuts about color-coordination in my girls' outfits as of late, so I kept putting it off and putting it off because it didn't look right somehow? I cannot help it, I just get like this about things that are next to each other much of the time. There's a lot of green, some yellow and brown, and pink happening. Frankly I am proud I didn't compulsively dress them all in yellow head-to-toe. (Although that sounds fun... I don't think I have enough yellow dresses.)

Looking forward to April!

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"mania" is the umbrella term

It has been crazytimes here. I have had so much work to do! For some crazy reason I thought I'd be done with my work by November 14 and I could just spend the week faffing around attaching antlers to everything in the universe and, I don't know, watching Pretty Little Liars. Don't they say, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans"?

Beatrix is due back from her time away as a Blythe carry bag model after Thanksgiving and I can't wait to see her again. I looked at a bunch of pictures of her the other day and just wanted to kiss her shiny little forehead. I got a sleepforever dress I'm keeping aside for her to wear when she gets back and I'm also looking forward to dressing my girls up in red and green -- I guess I've already gotten started on the red part.

Man, am I going to goof off BIG-TIME in December. (I hope God does not read my blog.)

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