She's here!

It's such a rare treat to be able to buy a Blythe and have her arrive within a few days. Amidst a busy day of sewing, my new Star Dancer turned up this afternoon and even though I really am a bit pressed for time, I had to snap a quick pic to show her off!

I bought her used from an Aussie girl on the This Is Blythe forum at a very very good price. To be honest, I was half expecting her to either not show at all or be horribly flawed, she was that much of a bargain, but thankfully it's all good and she is in very good condition for a doll that was released in 2006. Her only flaws are are some tiny marks on her face (really not noticable at all - just like scuffs in the clear finish over her make-up) and a little blue stain on one leg. Otherwise she's perfect and I cannot believe my good luck! I was a little surprised by how tan she is - she's much darker than my other Blythes, and her hair is not as crazy to manage as Nos Pop's as it isn't as thick. It's a really lovely natural blonde colour and I'm itching to give her a quick treatment but it will have to wait until tomorrow as I have to run out and take Miss B to choir.

Bargains Everywhere!!!

This is a great time for buying Blythe if you are a collector - there are bargains everywhere. Or at least it seems that way to me, I think that when I first started collecting they were at the peak of their price range and now for some reason (perhaps due to the factory girls?), they have come back down to more reasonable levels. I've also noticed that a few people seem to be leaving the hobby or downsizing their collection and parting with a lot of the older dolls at very reasonable prices. Sales threads on forums are full of amazing deals right now if you are looking for a used doll and don't mind if she's nude.



The reason for my excited post? I've finally found my perfect natural blonde girl. A Star Dancer RBL who looks to be in great condition. And I got her for a great price too, made even sweeter by the fact that she will be my first etsy funded doll purchase. Finally I've made enough through the shop to buy a new addition to my collection! I am kicking myself a little as that seller also had a Miss Sally Rice who I have always liked for an amazing price but I really could not justify getting the two of them so Star Dancer it was, and I'm sure some other collector will be thrilled to be getting MSR at such a good price.

I am a little nervous as I am not familiar with the seller, and it's on a forum that doesn't really police their sales threads, so I hope that everything will be OK. The price was just so good that I could not resist, despite the fact that I was all set to get a Bohemian Peace. Although, who knows, I may still get her.... I am thinking of selling Ash to fund her purchase.

I still haven't found that elusive scalp screw so that I can put my Blythe-in-bits back together. Looks like I'll have to order from Ixtee. That's the thing with the fixer-uppers - they have so many annoying little issues.

Speaking of fixer-uppers, I have seen so many Disco Boogies in great condition at just a tiny bit more than I paid for Poe that I am kicking myself. At the time, I thought I was getting a really good deal, which just goes to show that sometimes it pays to wait. I honestly did not think that their prices would drop so radically - it seems like the market is flooded with them at the moment and they don't seem to be moving, which is surprising because I think she's so lovely - and her hair is amazing in it's stock state. Poe's scalp is in such a state that I have decided not to order the saran until I am sure that I have a viable scalp to work with...and I must confess that I have been procrastinating somewhat on tackling that enormous lump of glue. I'm sure that the scalp is torn underneath and I am not really sure how to proceed from there. I just need to bite the bullet and get on with it.

A little problem....

I bought this factory girl purely for her scalp. Due to her being the ever-so-easy-to-customise RBL, I was able to swap Roxy's scalp for hers without having to remove the dome and it was easy peasy. Then the poor thing sat about in pieces for quite some time until I felt like doing some customising and I decided that she would have the Adorable Aubrey scalp I had bought a while back - meaning that I would have to pull the dome out of the Saffy scalp and put the Aubrey scalp on. And that was easy too, given that these factory girls have no glue.



Now however I have finished customising Nameless Factory Girl, I am having a few problems getting her back together. This is the first time that I've encountered an issue like this and it's driving me crazy! It seems that the scalp screw that came with her isn't right and I can't get her scalp and dome to sit nice and tight on her head. It's so annoying! I've put out an SOS in the Aussie Blythe community in the hope that someone might just have a spare they are willing to sell. Otherwise I'll have to order one from Ixtee and wait a couple of weeks - grrrr!

Ash's new look

Here's a better pic of Ash with her new lips.

After looking at the other Blythe's lips, the ones that have taken me time after time to get right...I've decided I still don't like them, so off they must come again! They were looking pretty good until I decided to get fancy with the second coat and just intensify the colour in the middle. Now they look blotchy. *sigh* And her blush is horribly uneven, it would seem.



How ironic that it only took me 3 attempts to get Ash's looking good - I wasn't even intending to redo them.



I've got some pretty new eye chips on the way for my new girl. Can't wait until they get here :) I love getting new eye chips in the post and it's so handy now that there is an Australian supplier - I can get them in my hot little hands within a few days. These are from We Play With Dolls. I was a little disappointed that they had sold out of several colours that I would have liked to buy, hopefully they'll be restocked soon.

Ash gets some new lips

Last night I was banished from the computer (or "dolly porn" as Mr P likes to call it!) as my big photo heavy downloads were causing problems in Mr P's epic World of Warcraft raid, so I decided I'd do something with my Blythe in bits. My intention was merely to sand matt her so that when I was in a customising frame of mind she'd be all ready to go, but once I'd finished I decided I'd try to learn (or improve at any rate) how to paint lips.

Lips are really really hard for me. I can't paint or draw in 2d, so naturally doing something three dimentional that's about half an inch long is a bit of a stretch for my extremely limited talents. For once I didn't get frustrated and quit but just kept on rubbing out my mistakes with isopropyl and trying again. And again. And again.



My first attempt at lips was on the Basaak and was a total failure. I used pastels to colour the lips first (and tbh, they looked quite good at that stage), then I attempted to seal them with a clear gloss lacquer and ended up with...well that.


Lip attempt number 2 was on Ash, again I used pastels, but this time I didn't seal it. This time I ended up with them looking kind of undefined, and still not great.

On my third and fourth customs, I chickened out completely and just sanded carefully around the stock lips!



Lip attempts five to twenty something were on Blythe in bits. When I went to bed last night I had achieved this look and was pretty pleased with it. Then when I woke up this morning, I thought it was quite horrible really, and took it off for yet another attempt. Unfortunately I ran out of daylight, so I can't show you how they look at the moment. I ended up going for a much more understated look.

Then I looked at Ash and thought I'd see what I could do with her and came up with this.



The pic is not the greatest as it was taken late this afternoon, but you can see the difference. I'm quite happy with them now...for the time being at least!

So far the best technique I have managed to come up with (without the use of MSC, which apparently will make it all wonderfully easy) is this. I tip a little water based gloss into a tiny container (I use a bottle cap), add the tiniest drop of paint - like on the end of a toothpick - and mix. Then I build up layers of colour until it's the intensity I want and finish with a layer of clear gloss. The advantage of using the water based gloss as opposed to the lacquer is that if I'm not happy with it it's pretty easy to get it off and start again. Which is good because if I was having to sand off my mistakes poor Blythe in bits would have no lips left by now!

Bohemian Peace

I saw this girl's promo pics a when they were first released a month or so ago and wasn't the slightest bit excited by her. She was OK looking, and I thought her little ukelele was cute, but otherwise she was nothing really remarkable.

I eat my words.

Now that I have seen some owner pics (here is the pic that had me hooked!)of this Blythe I am itching to add her to my collection and I'm not afraid to say that it's all because of her hair. As you can see, it's the most amazing colour - an absolutely gorgeous mahogany that is very different to any of the girls I currently have in my collection.

This is a bit of a problem really, because I was kind of fixated on getting Very Vicky because I don't have an SBL in my collection yet.

The final photos of her have been released and apart from the dorky hat, I really like her (although I am a little aprehensive about dealing with all that hair - looks like it could be high maintenance). I don't know that I would get both her and BoPea...at least not without letting one of my other Blythes go, which will be hard.

If one of them has to go, it will probably be Ash who has not been getting a great deal of attention lately.

Bad Dolly Deals

It's crazy how many people end up the victim of a "Bad Dolly Deal". I've been very lucky in my dealings in the Blythe world so far and all of my purchases have been good ones. On occasion I've taken a punt - like on the factory girls - and I've known that the doll that I recieve might not be perfect, and to be honest, I kind of get a kick out of that. Sometimes you get an amazing doll at a great price, and others you get more or less what you expected and no more and that's fine too. Today I'm talking about those dishonest people who set out to swindle you, and how to avoid being scammed when buying through forums.

While I still believe that the forums are safer than ebay as far as scammers are concerned, it's still possible that you might fall victim to a scam. The forum Plastic Paradise has drastically changed a few of their policies following a scammer scare that happened recently. You can read about it here. As a result of this, PP have (for the time being at least) closed the forum to new members. New members must now be referred by a current member of PP and can only join bi-annually and the sales thread is closed to any members with fewer than 30 posts.

While I do applaud the efforts of PP to stop scammers (at this time I think they might be the only forum to take action on this - I know that on TIB it's strictly "buyer beware"), ultimately you need to use some common sense.

Before entering into any arrangment to buy, you should check:

1. Number of posts.

These are usually prominently displayed on the left hand side of the post along with the avatar. A seller with a low number of posts might not be out to take your money, but it is the first thing you should take into consideration before you decide to deal with them. Someone with only one or two posts has obviously joined for the purpose of using the sales thread, or someone who has been caught out before and named in BDD who can no longer use that username without arousing suspicion.

2. Avatar

Sounds silly, but do they even have one? A seller with few posts and no avatar suggests to me that they are just there to make a quick buck and can just as easily vanish when it all goes pear shaped.

3. Flickr

Do they have a link to their flickr account? Most Blythe fans tend to have one. When was it created? Does it just have a few pics of the items that they are selling and nothing else? That's a red flag for me. If they have a larger collection of pics, try and track down the doll you are interested in and find out as much info as possible.

4. Sales thread pics

Are they using the stock pics of the boxed doll? No pics at all? A list of several dolls with not even one pic of each doll posted is a red flag. The seller may have stolen someone else's images to post on flickr and doesn't want to draw attention to themselves by having them obviously displayed. Poorly taken photos or even ones that have had a lot of digital editing can be very misleading. If you have any reservations about the seller or the doll, ask for an unedited photo of the doll with a piece of paper in the shot with the sellers name on it. If they won't do this for you, move on. In many BDD the seller does not even own the dolls they are trying to "sell".

5. Third parties

Never buy anything from a seller that mentions that they are selling the doll for a friend/relative or has any third party involved in the transaction (ie. the doll is at my sister's house in Singapore and she'll post it when the money has been received). Just read through the Bad Dolly Deals site - it is full of entries that have had problems that stem from this situation.

6. Trades

Trades are a huge act of trust. Unlike a straight forward sale where you send the money and the seller sends the doll when it's been received, you have to post your doll in good faith, assuming the other party has done the same. Again, there are lots of posts on BDD where this has gone sour. There is a lot of potential for a shonky operator to get their hands on your valuable doll to onsell and for you to end up with either flat out nothing or a damaged or inferior doll to the one you traded. Unlike a sale, you have no protection via Paypal at all, so if things go wrong there's not a thing you can do. The best policy to adopt with trades is to simply don't do this with anyone that you don't "know" reasonably well. Always, always insist that both of you use insurance and tracking numbers on both packages.

7. Payment as "gift"

No, it isn't. Payment is "payment for goods" - unless this person is your best friend or your mother. Lots of people think it fair and reasonable to ask you to do this in order to avoid paying paypal fees but the reality is that it is neither. Don't be afraid to walk away from the deal if they insist on this payment method and will not budge. Paypal is your only recourse if things go wrong - don't throw that protection away. You'd be crazy!

A few sellers will also ask you to pay the paypal fees on top of the price of the doll. I personally disagree with this practice - especially if they disclose this after you have agreed to buy the doll.

8. Check the price
Always do a quick look on ebay and on other sales threads/forums on the doll they are offering for sale. If the price is ridiculously cheap and they've raised a few other red flags, you might be looking at a scammer.

9. Who are you dealing with?
Not all forums require members to be over 18. I feel safer dealing with adults when large sums of money are involved and I'm not above checking profiles, previous posts and flickr accounts to get an insight as to who I'm going to be dealing with.

How is the sales post written? If english is the seller's first language (usually the country of origin is listed in the profile) and the post is very badly written or uses leet speak it's possible that you might be dealing with a minor. Are you comfortable with this?

10. Search Bad Dolly Deals

Don't assume that just because they haven't been listed yet, that everything's fine. Don't even assume that they aren't listed there under another username. A seller with just a few posts may well be one that has been named and shamed under BDD.


Ultimately, you need to go with your gut feeling and try not to allow your heart to rule your head when making the decision to buy. While it might appear like the deal of the century at first, if you have reason to suspect that the seller is not entirely honest you are far better off walking away. Legitimately great deals pop up all the time on the forums, and if you are cautious you can add to your collection without suffering the frustration and stress of a deal gone bad.