u/MsNoGood

I was so happy when I found this group because it is the thing I needed to finally motivate me to get my mini envelope project going. I mean the sub banner is literally just mini envelopes!

I have had my mini envelope dies sitting in the closet for over 2 years! And my hand-crank die cutter even longer. I just didn't have good enough reasons to make them even though I really wanted a good excuse to make something out of our mail junk, and I love functional miniatures (got stuck at the "functional" part because I felt like I needed o know who to mail tiny mails to first before making them hahaha thanks irrelevant logic). But this is PERFECT as a display method for security envelope patterns!!

These 4 patterns are what I have cut out so far and I have a few more different ones to be cut. That confetti pattern is really the most common one it seems!

I will have to find a way to display them without glueing them. Hopefully my pattern collection will grow. I'm already notifying people around me to help me save their trash!

Models: Chloris Country Life Blythe with Lovely Katherine's Corner hair, blythe clone in translucent skin tone, Donna Doughnut Blythe in aftermarket black hair, and Pubert the Troll doll.

The sepia is not a filter but real life!! Our air is terrible today and everything is dowsed in yellow. Since it made everything look "retro" I thought it's a good time to show off Donna in her new hair.

When I keep changing a girl's hair it makes me wonder if I don't connect with them enough. That's not the case with Milk because I knew I like her lips and I already knew she would look perfect in black hair. I think Donna looks better in black hair too. Maybe black hair is the solution to everything?

Her dress is stolen from a vintage Play-Vogue brand I Love You Honey Amy doll.

Here is Chloris Country Life in Lovely Katherine's Corner's pink hair, enjoying the summer garden! I gave her fringe and hair just a little bit of curl (because I don't know hot to hold a big one yet haha).

I wasn't so sure about the overdrawn plump lip girls but they are slowly winning me over. I still haven't seen my other Chloris in my other home yet since it's still ways until my next family visit, but it will be very fun to compare their differences once they see each other (weird Chloris has some obvious lip color difference).

Some classic icons with noticibly overdrawn lips as real life examples are: Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, Audrey Hepburn, Pamela Anderson, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kylie Jenner.

Hope everyone's summer is going well! Feel free to show some summer photos of you have any!

I really wanted my darker skin girls and translucent jelly bean girls to have the translucent eye balls that many (maybe all?) SBLs have, mostly because I accumulated a good amount of translucent eyeballs from all the Yummon clones and they need to be used somehow, and I think they are good as a lower contrast eyeball on those skin tones!

It was not a straight forward swap. The Yummon eyeballs are not interchangeable with the official eye bars. So Jaylah now has Yummon eyeballs, Yummon eyeball bar, and some Yummon eye chips: Pink ones I modified with red pupil and the second light brown ones unmodified. I really like the red on pink!! I will definitely be doing more color-matching pupil eye chips in the future. I used some sanding and isopropyl alcohol to remove the existing black paint, and Uni enamel paint markers for the red paint.

I also had to swap the hook / latch connector to the eyebar because the official one also didn't fit. Source unknown, probably from a Basaak. A reminder to always label your parts!

The swapping also makes me appreciate the details CWC puts into improving the eye mechanism. The official eyeballs have some extra notches to keep them from slacking from the clicking shock, whereas the clones don't, and the clones iris placement are pretty wonky, which can be seen more obviously with her front facing eyes. The official eyes iris don't have this wonk.

Since I won't be sacrificing any SBL dolls for their translucent eyeballs, I am happy enough with the clone eyeballs despite the shortcomings, which almost always is excused for their low cost and the fact that they are more easily available. I may eventually swap the front facing eye chips with more low contrast eye chips like the pink ones to mask the wonk more!

I was asked how I secured her head on a Disney mini Frozen Anna doll body so I thought maybe some others might be interested in seeing the inside of her noggin as well. That little clear gummy disc is cut from an old phone case. I just cut it roughly the width for the neck hole chamber, and a hole roughly the size of the neck, and warmed up the TPU with just boiled water to stretch over that neck knob.

I really like this body on her because I like snap bend knees, and I like this proportion better than the articulated body it originally came with. I believe these bodies are slightly shorter than the vintage Dawn dolls. I'm also looking out for better alternatives but I haven't found any yet. The Pop Mart girls have such pale skin so it's not too easy.

I am also watching out for the upcoming Zuru mini blind box dolls and wonder if they might be a good body sacrifice for my Pop Mart Blythe! I have a feeling their skin tones will not be light enough though.

Got an Urban Fairy Ellie scalp second hand, currently on Donna Doughnut, who is smelling some yarrow flowers, which smells a bit like kaka.

It looks like the previous owner gave it a snip. After washing the scalp, the fringe seems to want to stay parted like this so I kept it. The side swept makes it look even more like a micro bang!

It's going to be hot today. Stay cool and hydrated my fellow northern hemispherians!

I have been curious about the Susi dolls that has been exclusively sold in Brazil because she looks like a Tammy with inset eyes, and I love inset eyes. Her face sculpt is so intricate. Her slightly opened plumped lips are so ✨demure✨. Her hair is a very soft saran I believe.

It makes me just a wee bit jealous that this is supposed to a Barbie equivalent hahaha I have been searching for a Barbie with inset eyes and I don't think there is one, so I got a 90's Jakks Pacific clone and love her.

From my research this Susi is likely from sometime in the 90's Y2K. Her neck joint isn't the same as the vintage ones or the reproduction ones I see more often on the market for some reason. I'm hoping to catch the releases with a slightly taller body more like Barbie's and a slightly different face mold but I've yet to see that version pop up.

She is supposed to have snap bend knees but hers don't want to stay. I fixed her neck that was terribly glued on (took me so long to undo it as carefully as I could), and gave her slightly glued and matted hair a spa.

I have another brunette that needs some fixing up as well. Hers came with eyes that stained her face, so that is something to be cautious when shopping for an older Susi perhaps. Their eyes are entirely colored acrylic plastic, and eye whites are painted on. As time passes the white paint may degrade and allow the vinyl plasticizers to melt it and be stained.

The lighter color eyes might have prevented that from happening to this girl. Her eyes didn't get melty like the other ones so it might just be luck. Anyway, she is gorgeous!

Reporting from the studio backstage, we are in chaos!

A fuzzy monster attack has derailed our usual Wednesday update from our lead reporter! She is currently out of frame fighting and keeping the studio from collapsing. Our assistant manager may have taken some hits.

We still want to hear from you! This week's Wednesday WE WANT TO KNOW question (from the intern):

WHAT SURPRISED YOU (ABOUT YOURSELF OR BLYTHE IN GENERAL) FROM YOUR DOLL COLLECTING JOURNEY SO FAR?

Feel free to ramble as well!

My bug girl is letting her beetles out into their natural habitat, and a couple of off topic bonus photos!

Happy summer everyone!

Out of all my dolls, these guys are the least fuzzy (I meant fussy but that's also true because their hair is not an issue compare to other dolls) to bring out. He has some lint face because he was in my pocket, but he was a good buddy.

Look at my weird anthro dog boy! I found him and his twin on Amazon. They're also on AliExpress but the prices there were worse. I can't get over the large inset eyes and those faces and upright bodies!

They're supposed to be marketed towards Reborn collectors and came with baby clothes, but I think it may have been better if they put it towards the 18" doll market and make them more rigid instead. They are much more minimalist and slightly cartoony in their faces compared to the hyper-realistic Reborn fantasy dolls. The squishiness in the vinyl doesn't add much to the doll in my opinion. It mostly just made them hard to stand upright with that bounce, and I don't think it adds any more realism to the already cartoony faces (which is what captivated me!) I hesitate to recommend them for kids because there isn't any way to know what type of plasticizers in buckets are used in these unbranded rubbery soft vinyl.

I think I like them? I think I must given how surreal they look. Every time I walk past them I just quote the smoking caterpillar from Alice whispering to myself: Who R U? I think I'm more fascinated than infatuated. I've been collecting dolls with more of a 90's Y2K sensibility and don't collect baby dolls (mostly Blythe at this point). These dog boys feel much more modern with the soft fine blushing. I thought they're interesting so I just wanted to share!

Had some disembodied Yummiland heads and L.O.L Surprises bodies and seeing another post with the rebody I thought I'd try it as well.

The neck knobs of the LOL Surprise bodies can be occasionally just a hair or two too loose so I put some scrap fabric around the neck knob as a shim and it works very well!

Another reminder that Gabi Gummybear's head is not a good candidate for hair swapping because she only has half the headspace compare to other girls to make space for her Gummybears!

I think the paler skin tones are a little harder to find good matches for because there aren't as many LOL Surprises dolls with skin tones that are as fair as Yummiland's.

I got a little hung up on what to submit that would be "approved" by Sid Phillips for the monthly challenge and got really stuck, since I feel like my other dolls aren't gnarly enough, and Sid wouldn't care for them, but would tell me this looks cool.

It's an organizer with some novelty doll feet cut to fit. It is not stable hahaha because I keep forgetting to glue the feet down. They are pretty much the world's least/most FUNctional gripping pads.

I hope I got the flair correct! I wasn't sure if I should use this or the one that says "monthly challenge".

Post-bath pic! She is so pretty!!! Her hair is surprisingly nice! Just some Dawn soap was enough. No pesky knots or anything. On the other hand my 20 Years of Love scalp's hair is quite dry and frizzy.

She might get that hair once I tame it a bit more. But I love her as is.

Another regular reminder that Jaylah, if NIB, will come with stained legs! I knew it ahead of time so it's not a surprise. Against dark skin tone it's not terrible. Her torso is already ever so slightly darker than her limbs and that's how I rationalize it anyway.

Old shoes, new red bottoms! Featuring a tiny jumping friend (we weren't trying to stomp them).

I sprayed them red with vinyl paint. I'm already showing the good sides but they are a bit smudgy. Only because I did a poor job masking the edges, and I was impatient, but it was tricky with small curves!

I will be cleaning them up with more rubbing alcohol or acetone later. I don't prefer acetone even though they work the best on vinyl because sometimes they make the molding lines worse by melting the plasticizers away and make the gaps bigger.

BUT I love the saturation of the red and was surprised by it. I have no idea how long this paint will last but I'm mostly confident it should stay longer than acrylic paint. Vinyl fabric paint cans (not vinyl "wrap" paint which is different and I'm not sure how that works) can be found at automotive stores. They are meant to rejuvenate vinyl faux leather seats so the paint is a flexible film.

These shoes are supposedly dupes of Girlz by Simba Toys, which are clones of My Scene. They're from Ali!

Modeled by Angelica Nurse, but she came with some very fancy underwear herself already so someone else might end up wearing it. The peachy pink goes very well with her complexion and blueish dark hair I thought.

New ribbon and lace. Ribbon is 2mm (and so much better quality than the 3mm ones always for whatever reason). Lace is cut to be more proportional. Fabric and threads are sourced from an old semi-sheer dress's shoulder pad. The pattern and colors keep reminding me of Mortadella cold cuts.

It's basically a circle tube dress. I cut a rounded slit and it just slips on. The end of the rounded slit goes on the chest and back. The circle edge seam felt like it was neverending, but I'm glad this patternless nightie worked out!

I love this clone's face. She is so sassy! She reminds me a lot of model Lindsey Wixson.

I spray painted her eyelids glossy black. It was supposed to be a quick job but it ended up being 5 spray paint sessions with multiple sanding and then polishing ( •̀ - •́ ) I kept getting tiny bubbles because the can was not stored right, but it's good enough for now unless I feel like polishing further. It matches her existing little eyeliner and I love it!

She's on a factory GSC body that I swapped her into. She is wearing a Takara branded nightie. I assume it's Licca's but I'm unsure. It stained my other clone doll's bum though so she won't be sleeping in this for sure.

I was given these novelty potato and fries socks that I didn't feel like wearing so I turned them into a sweater for my dolls!

The first half was smooth sailing and the last half with attaching the sleeves and getting the shoulders at the right angle took a lot of fiddling and a few readjusting. But mainly due to the lettuce hems I was trying to incorperate into the sweater being kind of a butt to deal with.

Outfit source: Upcycled sock sweater, Sailing Dominique hat, Tangkou shorts, Shibajuku Girls socks, Ali dupe of Girlz by Simba Toys boots.