spooky shelf

Ryan @bostonblythe and Amber @amberblythelife are hosting a 13 Nights of Blytheoween Photo Challenge on Instagram starting October 19!! I'm looking forward to seeing photos from participants so much. Unforch I lack spooky or witchy doll clothes, sooomehow! So I'm still ruminating on how I can fulfil a photo prompt featuring a doll. But in the meantime, it really put me in the mood to set up a witchy shelf with some of my miniatures!

The doll shelves I do have are very modern-looking and plastic or metal, and I wanted something more natural. So I got this miniature shelf kit from Michael's with the intention to give it a super dirty, distressed, disgusting paint job! I had so much fun doing this that even as I sat there at our dining room table daubing on paint recklessly, I said out loud, "Oh, I'm having so much fun!" I did a basic brown coat, then began to layer up a few successively darker washes in the corners of each shelf.

I was thinking, "Okay, this shelf exists in a witch's basement and over the years it has held bottles and baskets of various grotesque spell ingredients and such!" I really pushed for it to even sort of look like it might be growing some black mold, haha.

I really see why YouTubers like to weather and distress stuff. It's easy and the payoff is really satisfying!

Here's a couple more pictures of my paint job in normal daylight. As you can see, I also left out one of the shelves so there would be a large compartment to display some of the slightly bigger miniatures I have.

Also, as you can see thanks to this pic of Zasha next to the shelf, the scale is a little small and odd. It's 1:10, whereas most miniatures are 1:12 or 1:6. That's okay! But I do think the scale is odd next to a Blythe!

Now some notes about what's on these witchy shelves!

tippy-top of the shelf: a couple of hefty cork bottles; a little wicker basket that I also distressed up with some dark dry-brushing which contains a couple of corked potion bottles; a star-shaped potion with star-shaped glitter inside; a little wooden crate full of plant books; a crystal with a star charm wrapped around it; a teeny-tiny tarot card (The Tower, shudder); key-shaped charms on a jump ring that make a little ring of keys to goodness only knows what!

The hefty glass bottles are miniatures from the Dollar Tree! They are actually Halloween miniatures! The labels say things like "wool of bat." I foolishly covered them too well in these pics. The scale is a little large but that's totally okay.

big compartment of shelf: a couple of corked bottles (one with a skull on it, one that says "witch's brew"); a cactus sitting on a couple of plant books; a mortar and pestle; a crystal ball (that's opaque plastic instead of crystal -- I'd prefer a glass or clear plastic one); a tall hourglass that's a charm from the jewelry section of the craft store; a gold moon charm; a fortune-telling board with its planchette; two more teeny-tiny tarot cards (The Star and the Ten of Swords).

third shelf: a wooden bowl (for lack of a cauldron, really); two witchy books (a book of spells and one called "Night Creatures"); a clay mushroom I made eons ago; a couple of handmade books; a spade and trowel from a gardening set. I think a witchy girl's gotta dig up mushrooms and herbs sometimes!

fourth shelf: lots of "potion" bottles (they're from gardening-themed miniature sets, mostly, so the front label often says "seeds" or "lilacs" or whatever; I just turned them around); a couple of kitchen canisters for depth; another clay mushroom I made; a little pair of scissors. So useful.

on the floor: a trick-or-treat jack o'lantern that I also distressed with a dark wash of paint; two more of those chonky jars from the Dollar Tree tucked discreetly under the shelf; a charm of some butterflies in a frame (again from the jewelry section); another distressed wicker basket with some virtually hidden things in it (root beer bottles, lettuce, a charm shaped like a saw); a tiny garden gnome mini because why not; a small glass mushroom bead.

I think it's all quite practical, speaking of a witch who gathers from nature and does a lot of divination work!

I really enjoyed this entire project! Distressing the shelf and some of my miniatures was really fun and not just using miniatures, but charms from jewelry-making sets and beads and things I made so long ago. I also had fun tinting these pictures with one of those sunset lamps -- I used the purple setting.

Miniatures I think would really add a lot to my witchy collection: a cauldron; a crystal ball that resembles crystal; some small candles; something that resembles dried herbs!

e.t.a.

I edited a little reel together last night!

I am perpetually clumsy-feeling in terms of filming these little miniatures scenes. But I liked getting to show off a few specific little miniatures.

I used the background instrumental for my own cover of "Linger" for the music, so it's super home-grown-ish. But I didn't want to use a trending audio or like, "Season of the Witch," as great a song as that is!

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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.

e.t.a.

Had fun putting together a little reel! (I love Effy Harvard!)

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to a T

New girl alert! Aaahh!! I mean, you already know, if you actually read my posts, but: I gifted myself Time After Alice for my birthday. She arrived very quickly and I thought it would be really fun to post an unboxing video on my birthday. For funsies and specialness. So I worked hard over a couple of days to film a video and get it ready to go by May 7th. Unboxed her on the 5th, edited hard on the 5th and 6th, and managed to get closed captions done at the last moment!

As always, I make unboxing videos for my own memory's sake. My own enjoyment's sake. It transpired that I filmed this one and felt, even as I was filming, that I was doing a terrible, terrible job. I had nooo energy. I was like, "I look terrible. I'm incoherent. The time has come to take myself off the screen again." (I used to not show my face at all and only filmed the doll, but over time I added in b-roll of myself filmed from an additional angle.)

I recall the last time I filmed a doll stuff haul video, I felt much the same. I remember feeling like I had basically salvaged what was unusable footage. Unusable because of me and how I looked. Another self-esteem battering issue is that, by the time I am done editing a video, I am so sick of my voice, my face, my mannerisms, my sense of humor... everything. I feel so much self-hate by the time I'm exporting the finished product that it almost becomes a joke to think of "promoting" the video. I have to battle against my brain telling me how ugly and irritating I am.

Otherwise I genuinely enjoy the editing process of a video. I like pulling in extra images and referencing memes and doing audio transitions and making all the little extras: hand doodles, writing out names, easter eggs in the closed captions. (There's always extra jokes in the CC.) It is a creative outlet for me. And years later I can revisit the videos and see the dolls for the first time again, et cetera!

Anyway, I am in straight-up love with this girl!!! I named her Tiphanie (which I know is a bit OTT, spelling-wise).

I'm really excited right now because I think Tiphanie is a girl who can pull off the old-fashioned look I love so much, but also I think she can wear modern styles, and both will suit her equally! I feel like she fits in really well with my Blythe family. She and Vesper and Miette are sooo fancy to me that I really want to take a picture of them all together.

On the birthday tip, I had a wonderful day, which is incredible to me. It's rare that happens; hence my annual b-day depression. There must have been some b-day magic in the air.

• Got messages from my besties, of course. L, K, E, and J!
• My parents took me out to lunch! I dressed up in a favorite dress with my lace-up boots and one of my berets, and wore my hair in double braids. Favorite outfit = such birthday vibes, u know?
• At the restaurant, someone else was sung "Happy Birthday" to! That was crazy because it's not a super popular restaurant and it's amazing to me that I was there at the same time as this other May 7th birthday person! And as my mom pointed out, it's as if I got sung to, but nobody was staring at me.
• In the parking lot as we were leaving, and old man shuffled by me and said, "Love the beret." !!! My first beret compliment, and it was on my birthday! Usually people are low-key snarky about them but I felt a bit like if the guy had been wanting to crack a joke, it would have sounded more like a joke than it did. I think it was genuine, lol. Thank you, guy. That was a great birthday gift you gave me, sir.
• Hit up knitting club with my mom, and I took a couple of boxes of bakery treats with me for the ladies in the club. I just wanted to do something vaguely celebratory, but this was an ingenious move because I raked in the birthday wishes.
• One lady at knitting club told me, "You look like Anne of Green Gables." WHAT! I laughed in a flustered way and said, "I think it's the braids." But of course this was a compliment of the highest order, and on top of the beret compliment?? Sheesh.
• After knitting club I got to baby-sit my baby nephew!!! I didn't know that was going to happen, and what a delight it was.
• During this my aunt came by and dropped off flowers (the tulips pictured above) and it was nice to see her, and fun that she got to see the baby.
• At one point I picked him up off my dad's lap and his chubby little arms came around my neck. I wouldn't say it was a hug, but he did cling onto me, and he's never done that before. I said, "This has got to be my best birthday in years." He took a nap on my lap after that. (Picture below!)
• My mom made me an egg and cheese sandwich for dinner which was sooo good. I monched away on it while Nephew was sleeping.
• One of my sister's presents to me was a RAT RING (also pictured above) which is just the most Jane-est thing ever. I adore it!!!
• Received some lovely texts from my great aunt, who just got my digits a couple of weeks ago. Texts to treasure, honestly.
• In the evening I met up with my bestie K and we watched some TV with her mom (a fave activity of mine because I like to hang with her AND her mom; her mom is my secret bestie and doesn't know it). Nice chill wrap-up to the day!

Here's a pic (courtesy of my mom!) of Nephew conked out on Anne of Green Gables. Nephew just turned nine months old on the 8th. These nine months have flown by. But all time with him has been the very, very best.

I've had a lovely couple of days since, too. Thursday was my mom's birthday and I got to spend time with her. Friday, I saw my RL friends and we went to dinner and watched a movie. You best believe I wore my lavender beret, and scooped another compliment from the waitress at the restaurant! This weekend I cooked and took the time to give Tiphanie a hair brushing and treatment with a hot water dip, then a dip in hot water with fabric softener. When her hair was dry, I also dressed her for the first time!!

Crown: made by me
Dress: From the ORN on Etsy (circa 2020)
Petticoat: MINIJIJO on Etsy (circa 2017)
Socks: made by me
Boots: HelloCoolCat on Etsy

Her hair is muuuch more orderly than it was. During her brushing I discovered she has a metric ton of hair, almost as much as Klara. She had some ringlets after her hair dried but I picked through it a bit with a knitting needle and those broke up some. I think if I give her another treatment and form the curls by hand, she'll end up with ringlets like Holland! Holland had a totally wiry bush and now she has calm little ringlets! So, I may do that, and I might give Miette a similar treatment at the same time.

This could have been two posts, but like I said, Tiphanie was a birthday girl, so she really overlapped with all this! And anyway, it's my blog!

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doll stuff haul video

Hello! Been working on a doll stuff haul video these past few days! Amongst some stuff I've blogged about here already (like these benches and my beret obsession) are some new items like this yellow knit beret and these green daisy applique bellbottoms!

I really do try to keep it posi here, but CURRENTLY, I am so sick of my face/voice/personality/everything that I wanna barf. I almost trashed the footage for this video because I felt so awful about myself. Eventually I got over it and decided to just soldier on, because I had been waiting and wanting to film it for weeks. By the time I was done editing it and doing the subtitles for it and got it all thumbnailed and posted, I could not make myself post about it to Instagram. I almost didn't, but forced myself to do that, too. And now I am forcing myself to blog about it. What am I gonna do, spend days making this and then not post about it?

In therapy a few years ago I hit upon the idea of neutrality, especially with regards to myself. I can't do self-love or self-positivity. To me it's nothing short of delusional. But, what I can do is say, "While I'm not the best, I'm also not the worst." So right now I'm telling myself, I'm surely not the most irritating person on YouTube.

OR AM I?? Bonus Litten pic:

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Zasha dressup vid!

It's been about three years since my last dolly dressup video, but here is one for my girl Zasha! Filmed almost a year to the day after her unboxing video! That feels special to me! :"]

I have been really Blythe-y this last twelve months. Perhaps I shall never be as Blythey as I was my first year or two of collecting, when I was utterly swept away in the magic of everything. But in 2023 I did a lot of sewing for my dolls and, of course, expanded my family significantly. So it is about time I did another dressup video.

I intend that every doll I own have a dressup video, whether solo or paired with another doll, so I will eventually be doing videos for Winny, Vesper, Citron, and Miette as well. The caveat there is that I feel each of them have this very particular style, and so I want to try and attain some items that really feel like them. I have already dressed Citron a couple of times in outfits that don't suit her at all, and thus, I am particularly determined to expand my wardrobe with things that will suit her -- and the other New Girls. I still don't have enough stuff for Winny.

A couple of blog housekeeping notes:

Lately I've been fixing things up around Cure Touch. Most notably, I re-did the entirety of my Blythe Family page. Somehow it got flagged as having inappropriate content. I have zero clue what content was inappropriate?? But I just scrapped the whole thing and rewrote it. Some girls have new pictures and some don't! But they all have little nameplates I wrote out in Paint Tool SAI for them!

I also changed my About Me page very slightly, mostly by changing out old photos. I haven't had pink hair in way too long to keep pink-haired portraits there! I'd like to change it even more sometime, but who knows.

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new year, new girl (jail for One Thousand Years)

Happy 2024 and all that, but aaah! The Blythe I bought myself for my Craft Market Success arrived, and she is a BEAUT. She's unique in my collection. A) She's an anniversary doll -- my first! B) She's got translucent skin -- for me, another first! C) She's the first Blythe I've bought that's been produced under the Good Smile Company rather than Takara.

Also, she's so fance~

I of course made an unboxing video, should you like to see!

I have named her Miette... after the cat!

Five Blythes in a single year is a lot, I know... some of the most substantial growth my collection's seen in many years! But this year I've enjoyed Blythe more than I have in the longest time. I always enjoy this hobby in a neutral way, but I did a lot of sewing this year, and therefore bonding with my girls. Besides crochet, which I technically did far more of, I had the most fun with my doll hobby this past year out of all of my many other hobbies.

Right now the dream consists of sewing and crocheting while I hang with the girls (the new girls especially), window shopping for Miette, and working on a dolly dressup video for Zasha.

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a doll clothes haul video

So relieved I finally had enough energy to make this haul video I've been meaning to make for literally months! Just been saving up so many little purchases for the video...

That's actually a bad habit of mine from my more active video-making days, and one of the many reasons I began to feel that doing semi-regular YouTube videos negatively impacted my doll hobby. I used to buy doll clothes and then save them, hoping to make a haul video, but then I'd just not touch my purchases for months. I felt irresponsible, spending money on doll clothes and then never unwrapping them, never enjoying them, never using them.

But, I really felt like making a haul video. It sounded fun to me, to talk about the clothes and appreciate them. Generally I don't save up purchases like this to share anymore because it so easily leads to me hoarding items instead of enjoying them.

I really enjoyed making this one though. Gingham and lace doilies and purple were the aesthetic staples! Used little sound bits from Animal Crossing games. Sourced so many little extra images to illustrate things I mentioned. Shot so much extra B-roll.

In other news, I got some storage boxes for my too-hefty-for-a-person-who-sews-so-little fabric collection. Time to organize!!

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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!

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new girl :)

So I recently welcomed a new Blythe into my family! I have been wanting another for about a year, but Zyanya Remembers was not the girl I had in the back of my mind! But she caught my attention, and I really liked how she looked out of her stock. (To me, that's more important than stock!)

Welcome, Zasha! This is a very Russian-sounding name for a Mexican girl, but I like it.

Here's her unboxing video, if you like that kind of thing. I do. I make these for myself, so I can relive these special memories whenever I want to.

I've since combed out her hair (I found several knots in it and had to cut them out!) and changed her clothes. Discovered in the process that her arms are very stained.

I must admit this is disappointing! I know she has been in a box in black clothing for almost two years. They put this little white bralette/crop top situation on her, I imagine to help protect her from her own dress? But they ought to have wrapped her arms in plastic, in my opinion. I know I've seen girls with wrapped limbs in my day. Vinter Arden came with thin netted tights to put on beneath her navy blue stock tights to help with staining. Some similar netted shirt could have been created for Zyanya.

If I'm honest, while this clearly sucks, I'm also too tired out by... you know, everything that is Real Life... to be heartbroken by this. It's of course very annoying Blythes are so expensive and yet come with knotted hair and stained bodies. (And we'll still buy 'em!) But Zasha's wanted and welcome here, bruised or no. It can be one of her quirks. In time the stains might fade, or they might be a permanent feature.

And to end on a positive note, LOOK AT HER ORANGE EYE in that pic. I love orange chips, and these are arresting on her! Should I change out her pink and blue chips? I think I might...

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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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dolly dressup 2: dawn of a new day

I decided to do it.

I decided to make more dolly dressup videos.

Since my last dressup video in April 2017, I'd thrown away the old wobbly desk I used to use for dressups. I'd broken one of my three filming lights. I barely touched my camera. I think I even switched to a new desktop computer.

It was sort of a journey, just prepping to do this. Finding a place to film. Fixing my broken filming light (by hand!). Getting out all my old doll "set" stuff. Cleaning the wicker pieces with q-tips. Getting my filming equipment together. Re-learning how to use my tripod...

Filming was also just a long process of thinking, "How did I do this...?"

You have no idea how arduous filming a dressup can be. My arms are unnaturally outstretched because the tripod is in front of half of me. Like, one knee is INSIDE THE TRIPOD. If I bump the tripod by moving too much, I have to either do something again or cut around the footage somehow. I am looking through the viewfinder of the camera the entire time because I can't see the doll or the clothes due to the angle in which I'm holding her. My camera does not have autofocus for video, so I'm manually focusing it the entire time.

(That doesn't even touch the post-production stuff -- editing, et cetera. That's hours of work.)

However, towards the end of the dressup, I started experiencing some...

I felt legitimately pleased with the outfit and was so enjoying just looking at Mallow, and I really remembered why I have loved Blythe for so long now.

So... I am actually working on another dressup video. I'm also planning on making an Etsy shop update. (When I tell you I've made a bunch of these headbands, I'm serious.) But I've decided that I need to engage with Blythe hobby stuff differently than I was engaging with it five years ago.

My mental health is different. YouTube itself is different. 2020 certainly hits different.

I haven't drawn up a contract with myself or anything, but I'm going to try just doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. I'm going to try not to worry about what other people think of anything -- my hands, my voice. I'm not going to do requests. I'm not going to make informational or tutorial videos. Set boundaries. You know??

Do it for the serotonin!

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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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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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"So..."

Finally filmed that haul I mentioned last month.


I also filmed this doll collectors tag!


I'm halfway-ish, I guess, through my Habitica party's November "Work On Your Project Daily" challenge. Many are writing, one is painting, one is coding. I've missed 3 days out of the 17 so far. I have definitely not written every single one of these days, but for me, writing on this project (which is currently 64k words -- for perspective, the first Harry Potter book is ~77k) often includes hours of research (aka Googling) to decide on details, and hand-writing pages of notes.  It's been a trying time, in terms of what's going on with politics and the state of things, to try and concentrate on something that is comparatively silly, even if I need that kind of escapism and to not be frantically worried all the time.

After I publish this post I hope to hop right into my writing (but lbr, I'll probably watch YouTube videos for a while, then roll sluggishly into my writing).

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neither looking forward nor looking back

It's been a grip!

First things first: I finished another dolly dressup video.  Here it is.


My dad is out of the hospital now. He was there for 12 days, most of which were spent on a ventilator in the CV ICU. Despite a rough transition home and some hard days and nights, he's on the road to recovery. He isn't able to speak above a whisper yet due to the ventilator messing up his throat, even though he's been off it for a few weeks now.

I'm grateful he's home and doing well. But I can't wait for this period of time in my life to be over. I'm so glad it's September. It won't feel like autumn where I live for another month, at least, but I am looking forward to it being autumn just to feel like this summer is in the past. I want to feel adjusted and like I have the mental room and physical energy for other things.

Yeah, it's been a rough time. But I have to end on a positive note. When I journal, I dump out all the negative things first, then finish off an entry with a list of positive things, no matter how small and inconsequential they may be in comparison to the negative things. It helps to remember things aren't all bad. My therapist has asked me to keep a journal of positive things, and I'm like, "I'm way ahead of you. I already do this."

• my cat was being super cute yesterday
• clean bedsheets!
• fresh haircut/bleach = fresh pink
• crocheted a deer hat while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, and man, it was pleasant!! I wanna do it again! Maybe even today!
• visited with my friend and his wife
• don't make fun of me, but... the only celeb I remotely care about dropped the name of his Snapchat and has been blessing me with ridiculous selfies and videos!!! 

It really, truly is the small things in life.

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video: Vintage Ken Doll Duds

Hey there! Here's a video I just recently uploaded about some vintage Ken doll tops that I scored for Beatrix via eBay.


On a technical note, some reason the video is really cool-tinted and it's bothering me so much. It looks normal on my desktop (where I do all my video editing), but that monitor has a warmer tint, and my laptop monitor is more cool-tinted. So it looks like it has this major gray cast to me now that I see it on my laptop. However, my last video didn't have that issue, so I don't know why this one does. Furthermore, I often notice color differences between the video file and how it looks on YouTube, so this extra and random degree of color variation is super annoying!!!

Since everyone has different monitors/phones with varying settings, I'm sure it looks different to everyone. Yikes.

As of late, I've been:

• studying frequently
• exploring my new Nintendo 3DS XL (I've never had a handheld gaming system before, and I'm from the Gameboy/Game Gear generation and literally everyone I knew had one, so it's pretty exciting for me; my birthday's coming up and I'm going to ask for DS games!)
• dealing with a super stressful health insurance situation
• wasting time on the Miitomo app

I'm unspeakably exhausted from this health insurance thing. I feel like I am neither eating nor sleeping enough, like I just can't recharge fully. If I don't resurface again till May, don't be terribly surprised!

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video: Get Fidelia Ready With Me!

This week I filmed a couple of dolly videos, and here's one of them. Dolly Dressups are my fave and I really like the ensemble Fidelia ended up in. (She's really tricky to dress to my satisfaction!)


In other news, I'm ready for Lent to be over!! I've been failing more and more at keeping from Laptop Lounging (which, again, means essentially doing nothing; if I'm actually doing something -- even if that something is catching up on Pretty Little Liars and throwing a fit because NO TO ALL THESE DUMB OLD COUPLES -- then laptop usage is fine).
Easter looks like it's gonna be a bummer this year. Usually we hunt eggs, even though the youngest of us is 17 or so, but it looks like that's not in the cards. For a long time now it's been the only reason I don't hate the holiday as much as I hate Thanksgiving. It's not that I particularly love to hunt eggs -- there have been years where I've hidden them rather than hunted -- but I enjoyed it as a way to spend time with my sisters and cousins. I'm sad when things like this, traditions, change.

I came back and added this picture to this post! It shows Fidelia's brown chips that I mentioned in the video... and it's about as Eastery as it's gonna get this year!

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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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