CraftyGirl*

Interview with Blythe doll customiser - Sam! (china-lilly)

Hello everyone!

Today I am very excited to introduce to you an AMAZING customiser and awesome dolly friend of mine Sam! But you may know her as China-lilly.

If you have not heard of her, she was the AMAZING customiser who customised my AMAZING Christmas blythe doll Milly!...

I had a little interview with Sam and wanted to tell you all about her and her amazing customising, so here goes!

(She is holding a Blythe merchandise bag in the above photo)

1. How did you discover blythe dolls?

I started buying Blythe merchandise on an overseas trip to Hong Kong and Japan in 2003, although I had heard of Blythe before then. It was mostly bags and t-shirts. I did pick up a doll but I remember thinking I was too old for dolls (how wrong I was)! At the time, I was far more interested in makeup - I came back from the trip with 37 eyeshadows!

(Sams first blythe doll, a Nicky Lad)

2. When did you start collecting blythe dolls?

I browsed This Is Blythe from time to time and many a time nearly put a Blythe in my cart, but I didn't actually buy my first girl until November 2010, just after my son Harry was born, and she arrived in December. She was a Nicky Lad. It was supposed to be just one, but it did not take long before that number was 2, 3, 4 ... and the rest is history. My husband called them "tribbles" because they kept multiplying!

(Sams first custom, Kitten)

3. When did you start customising blythe dolls?

When my Nicky Lad arrived, I was actually really surprised by how shiny she was. Once I found out about spray-matting, I immediately did so. I did want her to be customised but was just too scared to do it myself and ended up sending her to Maria of Chuthings. But I eventually couldn't resist trying it - my first custom, Kitten was completed in February 2011 (although she since had her makeup redone and an alpaca reroot).

4. What is your dream blythe doll?

I would love a Hola Gominola custom! As for stock dolls, definitely PAM (Princess a la Mode)! I would also love a girl with a Shershe reroot.

(All of Sams 2011 customs!)

5. How many blythe dolls have you customised so far?

I completed 30 customs in 2011! That seems like an amazing number to me considering it was only my first year of customising. I have to thank Belinda for this as she was the one that urged me to do my first commission, otherwise I think that number might have ended up closer to 10.

(Narcissa Rose WIP)

6. What is your favourite thing about customising?

I love bringing stock girls to 'life'! Stock girls can be beautiful, but to me they don't have unique personalities like customs do. I love that customs are one of a kind!

(Narcissa Rose finished)

If I has started collecting in 2003, I don't think this hobby would have developed in the same way for me as my lifestyle was so different then. I worked during the week as a graphic designer and then weekends as a makeup artist, whereas now I have 2 small children as home. My work was all in artistic fields, so Blythe has become an artistic outlet for me now. I love that I can still be creative while being at home with my kids.

(Sams daughter with her 2 blythe dollies)

And I have met so many wonderful people through this hobby! It's lovely seeing my customs loved by others and I look forward to seeing them on flickr everyday.

Thank-you SO much Sam for letting me interview you! It was so fun!

You can see more of Sam's customs and other stuff on her FLICKR and her BLOG.

I hope you all loved hearing more about Sam!

Isabella's Eye Surgery!

Hello everyone!

Recently my mum, brother and I ordered a pair each of Olive Drab eye chips from Coolcat! They looked a lot lighter in the photo than they did in real life but they are still awesome! It took me a while to decide who the eye chips should go in. I was going to put them in Zali, but I thought they would suit Isabella better because she has dark hair!

So, a few days ago my blythe Isabella, my mum's blythe Raven and my brothers blythe Ruby all had some eye surgery! Here are some photo's of Isabella's eye surgery...

This is her when the glue sticks were in the eye's drying!

Isabella with her eye's just taken out - AAHHH!! teehee!!

Isabella with her new chippies! YAY! (Note: They look lighter in real life! They aren't really that dark)

Do you like them? I sure do! Isabella can see the world through a new pair of eyes now! teehee!

You can see a tutorial on changing blythe doll eye chips HERE, and a movie tutorial HERE. And remember not to change the blythe dolls eye's until 24 hours after you have glued the new ones in, or they will fall out in the head!

PS: Come back soon for a GIVEAWAY!! YAY!

Meet Zali!

Hello everyone!

You may be thinking 'Meet Zali?' did Emily meet Zali again?? Well, no, I didn't! But something exciting did happen though!! Here is what happened...

On We Play With Dolls, someone was selling their bait Simply Mango blythe doll. Bait blythe dolls are blythe's that once were customised, but they took all the make-up and eyelashes and everything of. Also they are a bit broken and some parts don't work, but it's all fixable! (And the bait blythe was cheaper than other dolls!) Even though it is a bait Simply Mango we think she may have other parts of different dolls in her because her faceplate looks FBL-ish.

Anyway, I asked my mum is I could buy the bait Simply Mango with my money and she said I could, YAY! And she arrived two days ago, DOUBLE YAY!! teehee! And I named her after a VERY awesome and a VERY special person to me, who is one of my best friends in the whole entire universe...

Zali Rae Bartholomew!

And, so, my bait Simply Mango's name is...

Zali!!! YAY!!

While Zali was on her way I was thinking of all the customisations I could do to her, and how I would be able to fix her up! I am going to customise her to look just like Zali (the real human Zali that is)! Here is a list of what customisations I am going to do to her:

1. Sand matted already done
2. New eyelashes already done
3. 4 new eyechip's (one set already changed)
4. Freckles already done (my mum painted them)
5. New Scalp already done (It's Prima Dolly Heather Sky with a fringe)
6. Hair washed and curled already done
7. Carving and new lips painted
8. MSC sealed
9. Sleepy eyes (she has no pull cords at the moment)
10. Alpaca re-root
11. Licca body

I won't be able to do all these things straight away because I have to save up myself to get all the tools!

And I also have to buy new inside parts because her eye mechanism isn't working.

Anyway, you are probably DYING to see some photo's!! teehee! Here are the de-boxing photo's...

With the postage bag once I got back from school

The brown blythe box

Cutting her out!

Me and the box she is in! (It's a Simply Chocolate Box)

Meeting her! (Bait bythe's are supposed to look like that, it's all fixable teehee!!) And also the lady I bought her of sent me the Simply Mango scalp, Prima Dolly Heather Sky with a fringe scalp and a mohair wig! (My brother took the mohair wig....) Thank-you Jacqui, the wigs are awesome!! Zali was together when she was in the box but once I took her out her hair fell of! teehee! Oh well, it went back on!

I felt so sorry for her that as soon as I took her out her hair fell of! It looked like she had had a rough trip here! But I knew it would go back on!

A close up of Zali!

After we took these photo's we decided we would do a little bit of customising and fixing her up! We couldn't do very much to her because we don't have all the right tools, we just did simple things!

Here I am taking her eye mechanism out! (In the end my mum did, it is very tough and hard and I am weak! teehee!)

Here she is all in pieces! It looks so funny!

Here is a before photo, before we did anything to her face, so that once we finish her customising we can see how much she has changed!

Here I am putting on some blush and eye shadow!

Next we decided to change her orange eye chips to some brown/dark red/sparkly eye chips! We had to leave the glue sticks on for a few minutes and then I was actually strong enough to pull the eye chips out, teehee! I surprised myself, I didn't think I would be able too!

Here are the new eye chips! (They look better in real life, it showed up weird on the camera)

Here is my mum painting on some freckles! I did actually do freckles first, but they looked really awful so I asked my mum if she could do some and they looked a lot better!

Here is her half completed face and her new eyechips!

Here I am putting in some eyelashes! They look easy but these ones were quite hard to get in!

Then we put her back together and put the Prima Dolly Heather Sky scalp on her! Here are some photo's of Zali!! (she isn't finished yet...)

Zali and Elsie!

Zali at sunset...

Zali at the fence...

Zali and Elsie on the grass...

My whole blythe family now!! (from left to right) Zali, Poppy, Elsie, Daisy, Grace, Gyspy and Isabella!!

A close up of Zali's pretty face...

Zali's hair was a bit split-endish so we washed her hair and then we put it in curlers while it dried!

I hope you liked meeting Zali!

This afternoon we are taking her to the hair dressers to get a tiny weeny trim! Because she has dead ends.... so I will share pics of that soon!

PS: Come back later on tonight to see my Emily Fashion Friday!

Daisy Get's Sleepy Eyes!

Hello everyone!

As you may or may not know, when we went to Mandy's house, we gave Daisy sleepy eyes!

If you do not know what sleepy eyes is, it is when the blythe dolls have 2 pull cords instead of one! You pull the longest, biggest cord first, and their eyes close and change colour, but the eyelids stay down. Then you can put her to sleep. And then you pull the small cord to open her eyes and her eyes will of changed colour!

Here is Daisy's 2 pull rings...

And here is Daisy sleeping!!...

Thanks for reading!