New Girl!!!!

Just bought her, haven't paid for her yet though. I'll  take care of that Thursday. Gotta love that three day ebay payment window.

So the main reason for purchasing this particular Blythe is that she already has the hair I might just keep on a  Black Blythe so there would be no need to go in search of other scalps, scalp re-rooting or dying  light colored hair on existing scalps as I attempted to do with Neige's "Simply Mango" scalp last night.

With Black Blythes, hair is always a huge issue for me. I mean Ideally, I would love for her to have a fabulous fluffy structured fro but I mean if you ever saw "Good Hair" (not a very good movie about hair by the way) you would know only a fraction of what it means when I say that little no value is placed on natural kinky hair as a marketable mainstream commodity. Long straight, wavy, loose curls are what sell. Therefore this is the kind of hair that is more easily accessible. Once in awhile I have seen just a few really nice custom afro'd Blythes on flickr but believe me, they are starting from scratch with these scalps. They are not made anywhere near as readily available as nice long straight haired scalps are. So that's the reality. I hope to get to point where I can start to do all that work myself as well but for now I kind of need to speed this along and focus on the customizing skills I'm good at.

By lilitix
For instance, I am loving how good I'm getting at lip carving. Before I mucked up Neige, I was really starting to bring out some expression and definition in her lips and I realized why Blythe collectors who customize love doing it so much. Of course there are some I'm seen that go way over board but the ones that get it right produce some really great results and the doll really comes alive.

Stay tuned!!!!

To weft or not to weft

A look I was considering for Reya from the Marshmallow Factory on Etsy.

So I just bought a new Takara Licca body for Reya, which I bid for to the death on ebay last night. I have to be really careful spraying this one because I will not be buying another.

But while I wait for that to arrive I'm now contemplating hair possibilities for Reya. I actually just bought a fine crotchet hook this week for re-rooting thinking I might just buy some human hair and re-root Reya's old scalp myself. That would take some time but it might look nicer if I do it myself. Also, since all the holes will already be there I would just follow that pattern. Another alternative would be to get someone else to do it for me. The Marshmallow Factory on etsy does full service mohair re-rooting for a price, but they only use Mohair and I worry that Mohair may not be very washable or might change in texture when wet. I inquired about it and I'm still waiting to hear back. So now I need to look at some DIY doll scalp re-root tutorials.

Introducing Emily Sapphire!

So as you can see, even though Emily is a little blue after the second dye job, she’s still full of spirit and cute as a button. I didn’t so much mind that the back of her head and even her forehead got a bit stained but when I noticed the blue marks on her arms and legs I really got upset at myself and felt like a terrible mom for not being more careful.

However, these transformations I’ve put Emily through has made me realize that my true reason for getting Blythe dolls in the first place is mainly informed by photography and since she is still photogenic as heck if not more so, I haven’t totally screwed up. She’s still fabulous as ever and I love even more now that she’s a true original. I guess to me, she's more like a real person, with scars and imperfections to show for it.

Also, to be honest, she had to be my experimental girl since I felt I couldn’t afford to do anything this risky with my Takara. Emily is the doll I've learned from my mistakes with and that makes her really important to me. If I dye her hair once more I swear I’m covered her with masking tape and then saran wrap because just saran wrap did not work at all. I’m leaning towards blue at Jewels Blueberry’s suggestion. But Emily will now henceforth be renamed-Emily Sapphire.

Lady Gray

Dying Blythe's hair
black RIT dye
wooden fork
salt
bowling water
saran wrap
plastic gloves

I was going for black but I may have to dunk her a second time to get closer to that. This was fun. I really feel Emily has tons more personality now. I think that alterations and styles are the sign of a loved doll. Not some mint condition never been touched, thing collecting dust in a box on a shelf behind glass. That's not for me.