new and old minis

I finally got one of those jewelry boxes that are shaped like sofas and just so happen to be playscale! I took it as an excuse to set up a scene! Olwenn and Plummery joined in! They were both already dressed but coincidentally I realized they're both wearing green boots.

Real quick:

Plummery's romper: Reve de Rui yearssss ago
Plummery's boots: Takara Eye Love Shoes White set
Plummery's strawberry bag: I made it!

Olwenn's sweater: gifted by Anne
Olwenn's dress: PrincessPiccolina yearssss ago
Olwenn's boots: Takara Knees and Toes Serene set

I loooove the color of Olwenn's sweater. Such a gorgeous yellow-toned green.

I like the greens in this jewelry box sofa, too. The pattern is, I guess, not especially attractive to me, or not my aesthetic, per se -- but I also think it'd be really great in a midcentury roombox or scene, with lots of wood tones, and gold or brass or amber accents! And I do like the colors!

That's what it looks like inside. It doesn't have any kind of closure so it flops open when you're just holding it, but still, I think it is such a fun piece. I'm glad I finally got one because I recall seeing these on Instagram over a year ago and really wanting one! Mine was $13, which is a pretty good price, imo, for a piece of doll furniture that looks this nice. Not just a hunk of plastic, but covered with fabric, and well.

I propped this Michael's shelf piece on top of ye olde Huset cube shelf for some height and had fun filling the shelves and cubbies.

Such a pleasing conglomeration to me! Although I still suck at setting up scenes.

Another couple of things I wanted to use in this scene:

Recently I spent a Barnes and Noble gift card and got this so-called "Teeny Tiny Turntable." They have a lot of small novelty type gifts of this size cluttered around the checkout area. I was in line buying a Calico Critters miniatures set (it's got miniature fruit and a little toaster and blender, heh) and decided to get this too, just hoping it'd be Blythe scale! Also I really want MGA's Miniverse Real Music Record Player but it's sold out, and I thought it might scratch the itch.

Well, in my opinion, it is not really properly scaled for any kind of doll, since it's just a novelty item and not a proper miniature. But I'd say it's more American Girl doll-sized. Like, it's pretty big, and the records for it would be about the right size for one of those chonky American Girl hands. Waaay too big for Blythe! And I think it pokes off this shelf a lot. But, hey. It doesn't look too bad...! Especially paired with these miniature speakers from Daiso!!! Honestly! I got these little black hunks of plastic today and I'm kinda tickled with how they make it look like a real little setup, even if the scale of everything is kinda iffy! Vintage turntables can be kinda big, can't they? :)

Decided to load down my little DIY dollar store coffee table, too.

Featuring the miniature knitting needles/project I made back in 2015!!!

The top of this table is vaguely coaster-sized, so it's making me think about finding some fun coasters to possibly use as tabletops...

I have to say, it's been gray as heck outside for the last few weeks. Every time I want to take pictures I am suffering for sunlight. I wish these pics were so much brighter -- as it is, I threw on a lot of vibrance/saturation layers, plus a warmth filter at a low opacity, and they still have an odd gray tone. Ah, photography.

Still, as always, arranging little miniatures is a form of play that does me good! Still really needing any source of fun I can get.

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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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more drawstring dresses

I have been wanting to post about this but have also been riddled with shyness, haha. Last year I got really into sewing little drawstring dresses! And this spring, to combat my months-long state of inertia, I cannonballed back into doing so. It seems I love nothing more than to develop a whole workflow and produce a whole lot of something, whether it be deer hats, socks, tights, skirts, or these dresses. As a result, I have made far more dresses than I personally need, just because I enjoy the process, and I enjoy picking out fabrics and coordinating thread and ribbon colors.

Someone once asked me if I'd sell these on Etsy, so that's my intention! I also intend to have them be fairly inexpensive -- in the scheme of Blythe doll dresses, anyway! I'm thinking $12?

And only that much because all the sewing I do is by hand. Although these are super simple, it still takes a little while to do all the hand-stitching to construct one dress. While I typically work in batch mode (cut a bunch of dress pieces, iron all the fabric, sew all the dress pieces, iron them all again, sew them all again, actually put the pieces together, put all the ribbon drawstrings in -- in that order, for these), I'd estimate a dress takes about an hour and a half to complete, from cutting the fabric to finished dress.

I can sew together one of these dresses on my machine, but I feel like they don't look as tidy... I'm still trying to befriend my machine.

I think regardless of the fact that these are a) so laughably simple they barely qualify as garments, and b) hand-sewn, which they definitely look, they have a nostalgic charm to them. They remind me of scoring similar dresses and simple hand-sewn items second-hand on Plastic Paradise or Blythe Kingdom back in the day. Some of my most beloved wardrobe items are handmade and slightly wonky.

And I think there's not a whole lot of things like them on the Blythe fashion market right now. I do a fair bit of browsing for Blythe dresses, very specifically, on Etsy. The typical silhouettes of Blythe dresses I see for sale these days are A-line shift dresses (it's always that one pattern, right?? Speaking of nostalgia) or party dresses with a fitted bodice and flared skirt. Sometimes the party dress style looks more babydoll dress in style, but the silhouette is still "fitted top, flared skirt."

I am a huge fan of such a silhouette!! Clean and classic. So, so pretty. But these have a different silhouette and look, with a ribbon tied at one shoulder. While not all that sophisticated, I think they can still be styled really cutely with different colored tights or socks, sweaters or jackets on top, shoes that match the ribbon or a color in the dress... et cetera!

All this to say: I put some of these up on my Etsy. I have a lottt more to take pictures of/list...!

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I told you so.

Hey! So, here are some of the drawstring dresses I've made (I told you I would). Olwenn's modeling one that I really like. The pink hearts on this red fabric are so tiny, it gives strawberry vibes! So I paired it with this strawberry cardigan from CuteDollDressUA. Golly-gosh, Olwenn looks great in red. The bow on her shoulder is where the dress fastens, and for this dress I used more of a wine-ish red ribbon. It's just what I had on hand at the time!

Anyway, Fidelia, Olwenn, and Aury are all wearing drawstring dresses right now, plus I have made two I'm sending to my bestie for her Daunting Drusilla, and then there are these that nobody's wearing right now.

You can really see how these dresses are just tubes with little areas for the arms to poke out!

I'm not quiiite done making these little sacks yet; I got a couple of new fabric scraps and some more ribbon today...

Other stuff I've been doing since you last heard from me:

• waiting for dolly mail so I can make a spring haul vid
• reading Dark Rise and Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat
• hyperfixating on the Pokemon anime series, Sun & Moon specifically
• working on a smol ripple :3
• trying to figure out what I think about The Tortured Poets Department

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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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cinnamon girl

Hello! Happy June! Happy pride!

I've been in survival mode the past few months. Sort of painedly sticking out a rough season of life. Makes it a challenge to know what to even say in a post here on good ol' Cure Touch.

Here's Olwenn. Man, Takara knew what they were doing, putting Sporty Spice Lover (err, Sporty Lover Finesse) in red. She looks so dang good in it. I love her orange eyes, too. I think the only ones I want to change are her green set...

(Shorts: fromtheORN. Blouse: dollykiss, but it's from a long time ago. Boots: Takara I Love Shoes Red set.)

Haha, the last thing I need is more doll shoes (I bought both Takara I Love Shoes sets last fall), but I just bought a buttload of 'em on Etsy. Look, my Licca-bodied girls have but two pairs of shoes! One pair for each of them! I've been meaning to buy Licca shoes for years and only just did it. I hope they fit. It's a bit of a gamble when people lump shoes/clothing for many types of dolls under one umbrella, because surely what fits Barbie will fit Blythe.

Of late, I've gotten heavily into needle felting. I got a Woolbuddy felting mat and can't be stopped. My main interest is making Blythe stuff, such as small bags, and headbands in the style of sugarduckfairy (who doesn't seem to sell Blythe headbands currently, but her shop is dinosaurparties). I'm literally copying her designs. I have three of her headbands and love them so much, and would like thirty of them. I hope I can send her pics eventually. Like, as a fan. I really think these headbands are what inspired me to get into needle felting.

So, my guilty pleasure has become looking at wool roving packs on Etsy and picking out the perfect cinnamon colors, et cetera. Here's a pack that would match Olwenn today. All images sampled from oneoftheflock!

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playing catch up

Hello, 2021!

Your girl's been sick most of the year so far!

"I really want to concentrate on my novel in January," said I, thereby cursing myself.

I don't have COVID (thankfully), just a lingering cough. I try to speak and I cough instead. It's no fun. And there's some unfortunate overlap between this and the whole winter weather situation going on in southern USA right now. It is not as bad here as it is in Texas. I'm so thankful for that. I've been through severe, national-emergency-type winter weather before, sans power, and it was traumatic! But last week was still rough. I'm pretty much in survival mode right now.

I fell really behind in Animal Crossing New Horizons last year, so while I've been sick and snowed in, I've been catching up. I've only just started December in the game. Above is the entrance to my island. I can't believe that the game's been out for almost a year!

Another thing I've been doing is sketching, mostly digitally. Anne's been doing digital art lately and it's really motivated me to get back to it! I just dabble in self-indulgent fanart and the like (I like to warm up by looking at Adventure Time media and sketching off it by eye), but here's a rough sketch of Olwenn.

I am not an artist; don't think that's what I'm claiming. I just wanted to post this here just because it's representative of something that's kept my head above water of late. As you know, it's all about getting that SEROTONIN!

Stay safe, y'all.

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holiday dressup

Final video of 2020!

She said, as though she has been making videos for more than a couple of months.

Well, four videos is a lot to make after several years abstaining from such a thing! That's a whole lot to suddenly do. I've really got no plans for how I want to spend my hobby time in the upcoming months, but I may take January off from making doll videos so I can do other stuff: work on my novel (which I've had a hard time with the past two months), crochet, maaaybe get some stuff up on Etsy, finish up other video projects. Or I might film another dressup! Who knows! I'LL DO WHATEVER I WANT!

Anyway, here's a double dolly dressup!

My heart squeezes when I see these girls.

Have a nice Christmas, y'all, and STAY SAFE.

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Olwenn dressup video

This week I posted a dressup with my new girl Olwenn!

Under the filming lights, I was totally taken by her blue chips. When I unboxed her, I didn't care for them at all. Clicking them over to the blue and being wowed was such a delightful experience. As I say in the video, I forgot to film more after that. I got excited to take her picture.

Perfectionist me doesn't love that I forgot to film more panning shots of her outfit, but I'm making a concerted effort to try and ignore that.

I didn't mention this before, but I made a little animated bumper for the end of my videos and I'm kinda enjoying it. I plan to change the colors for every video. I matched the colors to Mallow and Olwenn's outfits. It's extra. But you know, sometimes you just gotta do what makes you happy.

I noted this in my video also, but I have undertaken putting closed captions on all my (public) videos. Not quiiite done yet, but I've been working steadily on it. The automatically generated CC are real bad. That's my own fault; I speak sloppily. I will do it for all my videos from now on. I hope it will help someone out there.

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If you wanna be my Sporty Lover Finesse, you gotta get with my friends.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I bought a Blythe!! It's been five years since I bought my last girl.

Meet Olwenn. She's a Sporty Lover Finesse (which is the funniest Blythe name to me). She's my first Radiance Renew girl. She's got Vinter Arden-esque peachy hair and lovely gray chips. I don't quite know her personality yet. "Olwenn" is welsh and it apparently means "white footprint," which I thought fitting, as her stock outfit includes white sneakers.

Truly, I know not what came over me. I have thirteen Neo Blythes already, and they've been a family for these last many years. Also, you might say, "Jane, do you not already own Vinter Arden, a girl with peachy hair and gray eyes?"

Yes, imaginary voice of dissent. I do. But VA is an FBL and has very minimal makeup. SLF is an RBL and has much more vivid makeup, which to me changes the look quite a lot! And anyway, let me live!

I filmed her unboxing, if you like that kind of thing.

I picked the weirdest time to dip my toe back into the Blythe hobby. Economy, et cetera. It does feel ridiculous to indulge in what is an expensive hobby. (I forgot just how expensive!) But also, since everyone is always home now, I am very self-conscious about taking pictures. This is one of the main ways I enjoy my Blythes, so I feel stifled. I have to just do it and let people be curious and comment. But that is hard for me and I hate it, haha. I have some stuff to throw up on my Etsy, if I can just make myself take pictures.

Anyway, I must window-shop for Olwenn! I had a tradition of getting each of my girls their very own dress that suits them the best, and I don't want to break tradition now!

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