Xiomara Glindmeyer's blog

Yuki no Namidahime Blythe

Yuki no Namidahime Blythe, originally uploaded by Vixie Vaporous is catching up!.

My last post here was the acquisition of my Princess a la Mode Blythe. She was my ultimate dream girl. I have subsequent dream girls that I had managed to snag after sojourn with PAM.

My second dream girl was a Yuki no Namidahime Blythe. I didn't have a blond yet so I thought she was the perfect blond to add to my family.

Her stock is awesome...that fur (hopefully fake) coat is doll luxury. The Yuki doll looks more milky to me than "snowy". I think Miss Sally Rice would've been a perfect "snow maiden" type because she is of the translucent type of plastic.

I hope I'll be able to make some wonderful dresses for her because laziness is a monster to behold.

I Dream in Plastic

       I've never pined for a doll as much as I pined for a Princess A la Mode Blythe. She was the 6th Anniversary Blythe Girl who came out in 2007, a year before I started the Blythe frenzy. I totally missed out on her at $400+  Now she is going for about $2000.  Blythe value go up higher faster than real jewelry!  That's the most ridiculous thing ever! But hey, law of supply and demand. Maybe because she is now so very hard to find and when you do, she will cost you a kidney, that's enough to drive one to a state of utter dolly despair. I've been saving up to get her even though I couldn't find her anywhere. So when I finally chanced upon her NFRB, I prayed so hard that she was going to come live with me. I was prepared to pay however much she was going for but thankfully, I paid for her for the same price someone was selling for a nude one. My naming system revolves around my girls' style/stock initials. So PaM is named Pristine Aix-Melusine. Pristine because she is in pristine condition, I know, lame. Aix is derived from Latin meaning  "waters". She is supposed to live in a deep forest, but her coloring to me is more maritime. That aqua hair...it's like deep ocean blue. She also seemed mermaid-like to me hence, Melusine, the mermaid in the medieval legends who also graces the Starbucks logo.
       Everything about her is glorious including her round hatbox packaging. Takara has never packaged a girl like her before. The subsequent anniversary girl was packaged in the regular Blythe windowed box but let's see what CWC/Takara comes up with this year.

Loveliest hatbox in the whole world!

The de-boxing process wasn't a mad rush for me. I carefully took my time and  took photos of each process. I tell you, I was savoring every second.

Sorry for the grainy quality, hands shaking with excitement...

Laid out for posterity, these are all the accessories she came with: cowboy hat, jacket, shorts,tie,socks,vest,white blouse, boots, satchel,stand, birdcage crinoline, crinoline bottom, lace stockings, black maryjanes, stud earrings and heart dangles, necklace with key pendant, birdcage pearl rope,velvet crown, velvet overskrit and black petticoat. She did come with black panties too but I didn't include it in the photo.

Her Majesty's Thingies

I think she has the most accessories of any Blythe release. She comes with two costume changes. Her school uniform and...

I don't get expelled from school for wild hair color

Her ballroom gown...I am still bowled over by the imaginative idea of the birdcage crinoline.

Her Royal Shortness, Pristine Aix-Melusine, (PAM)

 
She is currently still dressed in her stock outfit. Her trousseau hadn't arrived yet. I had to buy her clothes this time because I really have no time to make any clothes for any of my girls. All the clothes I will be sewing will be for charity auctions. I almost had her for $400 but the girl I met on flickr who promised me her PaM, changed her mind because someone talked her out of it. Bastards... but who can blame her? PaMs are going for an arm and a leg. but then there's that whole line in her email "Don't worry, Princess La will be your daughter. I have not changed my mind." just drills me. I also missed out on PaM adoptions twice...but all of them were all used PaMs. I know now that I was meant to have a something even better. I am so very happy I got mine the way I did. So here ends my PaM sojourn. It was a very nerve racking journey riddled with disappointments but in the end that's what makes her all the more special.  She was my dream girl...but she didn't just end there. I got her because I did my darnest. Most of life is striving for something no matter how trivial or awe-inspiring. Most of living is doing something about it.

Christmas Belle Pre-order!

Christmas Belle Dress

Christmas pre-order! I am only going to make 5 of this dress because my glass hands might break. It will ship on the first week of December if orders are made within this week. Constructon and fabric are called out on the illus below. Message me, comment on this, telepathy, bend sppons...do  whatever you can to acquire this yuletide yummy dress!  Only $25 plus s&h...but wait if you call the next 5 minutes...your receipt will be printed on nice paper and will be mailed by an elf. Falalalala lalalala...

Christmas Belle Dress

Stitched Story

       I'm an illustrator by profession. What I set out to do when I was 4 is still what I am doing, except it has become a livelihood instead of a hobby. I love illustrating. I've been a graphic designer for years but the job only requires layouts and digital image wizardry. That was the only job I could find that somehow tied me to art. When I moved to the US, I found myself a job illustrating/designing infant goods for a huge corporation. It took a while for the style to grow on me but I can overlook that aspect because what really spurs me is the process of creating...of getting an abstract idea and refining it into something visual. It still takes my breath away that I have the ability to do that and I'm ever thankful.

       I have never been paid to do anything that is "my' art. Most of the stuffs I have done for myself are horded away, shut off from anybody's gaze till the advent of flickr. I get too spent when I get home from work that I cannot do anything creative till I started the Blythe fascination. A little less than a month ago, I have thought to foray into sewing doll dresses. Nevermind the fact that I can't work a sewing machine and I have no clue how to work with patterns.It did not impede the desire, instead it propelled it. I learned how to work the sewing machine, did horrible practice pieces and by the next week, I got better and better and was making 7 dress sets to sell on my non-existent etsy shop. Unlike most peeps  I know, I had the goods before I had the shop so the last thing I had to do was open a shop and finally post them for sale. Before the end of the week I had sold two dress sets, finished and sold two made to order dresses and I'm about to start my Christmas dress pre-orders.

Just Desserts Dress and Sunny Sunday Dress

       For the months I've been into Blythes, I have marvelled at how wonderful the hand-made creations other Blythe collectors have made for their dollies. I have wished for the skill, the sense of style and the patience. In a month of learning this dressmaking business I had gotten comments about my work and one as geneours as being the next dress sensation! I am proud of myself and my small accomplishments. In most things in life, failure is not when you failed at doing something, it is when you tell yourself you can never do it. You owe it to yourself to at least try.

Running Erins

Running Erins

http://www.runningerins.blogspot.com/

This is my friend Erin's blog. She writes mostly about stuff she meant to do. Hah. She's a nice girl, very crafty and creative..if only she will make time to do all those awesome ideas! She actually inspired me to start sewing and selling Blythe frox. She inspired me to create an etsy shop. I am actually doing all the things she wanted to do herself and now she tells me I'm inspiring her. I guess this is cyclical. She is my cuteness gauge. I share my ideas with her and if she squeals with "aaaaaaw cute" then I'm definitely doing it.  I don't really know why we're following each other's blog when everything I write on my blog, she already knows about them yesterday.

This sucks but in a good way.

You know you've reached a certain level of maturity when the prospect of getting a new cleaning appliance makes you feel giddy. Or maybe it is just plain eccentricity. Today we bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner. 

Little sucker

I hope it proves worthy of its hype. There's a higher percentage of owners who love them than those who just want to beat the crap out of James Dyson. We got the red and grey model. Subconciously, we have populated our house with red appliances. We have a red mcirowave, a red coffee maker  and I have been drooling over those candy red washing machines...

I can't wait to go home and try this baby out. I hope it sucks like the black hole. I am also kind of scared what it will pull out from our carpets. I'm pretty sure I'll be aghast at the amount of dirt, hair, screws, vegetation, alien life forms microscopingly thriving there.
   Aside from that, I also bought two potted christmas trees to put right outside our front door. I can't wait for Thanksgiving to be over so that I can be all Christmassy! Oh and this vac is supposed to be an early christmas pressie to us both. We're early birds :D

Kidults of the World Unite And Take Over

  Regularly updating a blog is like one of those hopeless New Year's resolutions. It's one of the top 5 which follows after the about losing weight and exercising. I keep telling myself that I don't have time when the reality of it is I don't make time. One thing I certainly had time for  was to open up an etsy shop and sell Blythe clothes I started making all 7 Thanksgiving themed dresses last week's Monday and had them all done and in my etsy shop by Sunday. I was quite proud of that feat and astounded that I was able to do the thing I set out to do and finished it. I guess things are easier said than done that when you actually get it done, it can still prove surprising.

Gobble up these dresses

  Flickr has proven to be a really great refuge for me. I don't have any friends in real life who are into what I am into but in flickr...they're all there. A collective whom I've never met but have so much in common. I have established friendships with people over there. I regularly email them and I sorta know the little nuances of their lives and vice versa. One of my first flickr friends and fellow Blythite, SherriD, who is 1/5th of the band Eisley took a little moment from her busy schedule to write to me about how her fiance proposed to her in New York in between gushings of new Blythe acquisitions.  My friend Lisa who emails me about the joys of motherhood  allowing me to live vicariously though her... A common love for certain things binds us all. There is a familiar camaraderie that I don't even have with people I know in real life. I used to not have anbody to share my collections with. I would just sit in my home office, gaze at my little treasures in quiet contentment. Thad, bless his soul goes about his way and tries to appear interested about a latest find or purchase as I also try to appear interested when he speaks in binary. Heh. Ever since flickr, I have taken them off my shelf to create dioramas and take photos. It's something else to get some feedback about your little treasures as I marvel at other people's wondrous treasures as well. Some friendships have extended well beyond the flickr site. I have gotten mail and artwork from different people there like Chris Wurth whose pop artwork puts him in the same circles as Yanok who he happens to be really good friends with. It really warms my heart that there are people out there whom I have never met who actually gets me.
I had a wish-want for a red Kenmore-like kitchen set for 11.5 fashion dolls that was only sold in France and in other Europ ean countries and surprisingly, in the Philippines, too.

Granted by my fairygodmother, Maria

  A year ago this set was everywhere on ebay but since I am always late for everything, I missed it. They're hard to find now. I had lost a bid on it with only 13 seconds left. I posted a photo of it and several people offered to help me find it..people like Dorothyalice who even contacted someone who had the set named Farkletush who is steadily becoming a regular emailee. I asked a flickr friend Maria if she could find it for me since she lives in France. I wasn't really betting a whole lot on her finding it. The same set went up on ebay and sold for $177...I mean damn! That is already a REAL kitchen in the Philippines! I vainly hoped to one day chance upon it and not have to borrow against my retirement for it. Lo and behold! Maria found it after searching long and hard for it! I almost couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't believe I will be owning one at such a bargain! I am still reeling from the sheer joy of this acquisition and relishing in quiet gratitude for people who go do things for people who are really quasi-strangers. To date, Maria has sent my package and I'll be praying to God every day that it gets here in pristine condition.

Very Vintage and Very Rare Koedachan Animal Hospital

  Another Holy Grail has been stricken off my list and it is the vintage Koedachan Animal Hospital. I couldn't complete the newer Koedachan sets because I am always seduced by the vintage ones. The Koedachan Animal Hospital is a rare play set. The only picture I've seen of it is on the Koedachan catalogue that I have. I have never seen it as someone else's possession in any of the Japanese websites I have uselessly tried to understand. I have pretty much gotten all my Koedachan holy grails (photos) but there is still one more play set that I will have to track down and snag. My friend Maria has it. It's the Planet Surprise or in broken Japanese...Country of Capsule. I'll just stare and drool at hers till I get my own.  It came up on yahoo japan auctions and went for $277.00. So uhmm...yeah, no deal.

Blythes of Frankenstein

  I had talked myself into just getting on 3 Blythes but it looks like I am going to endup with 4. I am getting a Save the Animals and CanCan Cat Blythe. Both will undergo customization. It is a "skill" like to delve into. I like to challenge myself creatively so let's see what I can do.

  So many artsy things to do! I still have 8 Re-ment sets to set up.  I wish my days are longer. My job as a corporate designer takes up most of my hours week that I have very little time to do the things that I love. Still, I can't be ungrateful. I'm able to do and buy the stuffs I love because of that job.  Thad and I have a joint account but we still have our own money to afford ourselves little whimsies. But at the rate I'm going, I'm probably gonna have to start charging him to do his laundry. Hah!

  I am still planning and buying materials and furniture for my massive Blythe dollhouse. I have acquired a Barbie garden wedding set for my Blythe garden. The lavender and pink has got to go. 

Pink Fright

  I bought over 100 filigree Barbie hangers because I intend to make 100 dresses for my girls and have them all in a walk-in closet in the dollhouse.

Hanger on

   I can't do all of them in one full sweep or else the elves in my shop will stage a revolt. Thad just looked at me in disbelieving nonchalance. I know that look. It's that kind of look that makes me want to prove him wrong..or maybe he was just hungry.
   It will be a very short November with so many things to occupy me. Gotham is starting to feel left out. He demands my attention by nibbling my hand, maneuvering his head in a way to which myhand eventually rests on his head. The dog thinks he's smart. So that's it in a nutshell...a very huge nutshell. The fun never ends when you're a kidult.

   
 
 

Sew Far Sew Good

I'm an illustrator. I draw stuff. Drawing is as natural as breathing for me. I approach everything as art.  Anything as mundane as folding laundry is approached as art or maybe it is just thinly disguised anal retention about folding them the right and pretty way. Regardless, whatever looks nice and pretty is art to me. I surround myself with art or anything that will spark an inspiration to help me create. I am always grateful for this gift. To takesomething  abstract as an idea and form it into something visually appealing is a talent that doesn't really make me unique but it defines who I am. There are people far more skilled but my art is my own.

When it comes to creating,  I don't shun challenges. I learned how to embroider really well after I was taught by my beloved grandma, Paz. The only reason I never learned to knit or crochet is that the tedious repetitive process is boring. I have always wanted to learn how to use a sewing a machine and sew my own dresses. I've made Blythe dresses before but they were all hand sewn. I wanted to take this craft to the next level. Again, it took two diminutive plastic girlies to light a fire up my butt.

Strawberry Chocolate & Midnight Ditsy Blooms

My sewing machine was a gift from Thad 4 years back. It never saw the light of day till my friend Jami took it out and we realized they were some parts missing, most importantly the fargin' spool pin. Too late to bring it back to the store, so Thad fashioned a makeshift spool pin that worked for a few minutes till it decides to do the salsa ending up with my stitches and threads all Gordian knotted. There was also the thing about foot pressure. I've used a sewing machine before, the antique metal ones where you have to push the pedal with all your might to make it go. With my electric one, one soft tap and you're in business...but for a novice, it means stitches going where they're not supposed to.  I had to re-learn to apply  pedal pressure.  There were some nifty tips that a wonderful lady at work, Miss  Annette gave me on attaching sleeves.

My Blythe sewing patterns came in so handy. I never really copied everything to the letter, I wanted to personalize my own patterns. With a couple of tries on my trusty sketch book, I came up with a design and re-engineered the patterns on my Blythe book. The Chocolate Strawberry dress took me a week to finish because I only had time to do it after work and I was still trying to figure things out.   
This dress will be sent to my Blythe pal, Sherri. She is actually the only pal I talk effusively about Blythes and vice versa.  This dress will look so perfect on her Dainty Biscuit. I hope they both won't mind how this dress was actually a guinea pig for my madcap adventures in sewing machine experiment.

My good friend at work Squeezy Peters gave me fabric scraps from dresses she

She's a keeper. She gets to keep this dress.

had as a child. She found them in her mom's house when she went up north over the weekend and set them aside for me. Thank heaven for super sweet friends! I love the fact that it's got history and it is genuine vintage fabric! The Midnight Ditsy Blooms dress only took me less than 2 hours to sew last night! I had already figured stuffs out by then so I was on a roll! I'm keeping that for Vixie, my Mod Molly. The colors look great on her.

Thad is going to be gone for the most part of the weekend for gigs so I'll be home with my giant puppy Gotham and my new best friend, my sewing machine. I'm starting to treat inanimate object as people, I think I'm supposed to go out and socialize more. Baah. This weekend will be spent on Blythe dressmaking! IfI can convince myself hard enough, this will keep me away from ebay.

There are still a lot of things I need to learn about doll dressmaking and a lot of knotty thread encounters but that's how one learns. You don't learn if you don't make mistakes because that means you're too chicken sit scared to try. I also know enough to quit when it's not working but by the looks of it, I did a pretty good job. I am extremely proud of myself...and I want to keep feeling this way!

Happily Forever Never

I had a wee bit of a revelation today well, actually it wasn't wee because writing this blog is making it look like a big deal. Long long time ago, I was in love with this boy named Zairex. That's really his name although it sounds like a Star Trek character. He had a girlfriend but he paid real good attention to me. I was a freshman in college and he was a sophomore. He was a very talented artist. I always felt that he and I were always on the same wavelength. He was one of the few people who just got me. Not a whole lot of people did even those who have been my friends for years. He broke up with his girlfriend and kind of started hanging around. He'd sometimes go to my house and we'd just sit and talk about other things that didn't involve divulging harbored feelings. We went to the movies a couple of times and all he really did was hold my hand and kiss them. It was really sweet and chaste. Then all of a sudden he just  disappeared. I never heard from him for months and around  that time my ex Blair had been trying to get me to date him. I never had a thing for Blair. I waited for Zairex but he never came back and when he finally called me, it was too late. I was already in a relationship with Blair, got fond of him and then Zai went on to date another girl. We even worked together for a while. 

So after so many years we met again on chat. We forayed into past relationships and talking about the peeps we knew. Something just overtook my reserve because I boldly told him that I had a wild crush on him all those years ago and if he had gotten around to telling me what he felt about me and not just by furtive glances and tentative kisses, we would've ended up together. I did say all of these with a ton of emoticons to let him know that I am being bold now because it is all in the past and I can comfortably say what I want because I don't feel that way anymore. So he finally said what I would've wanted to hear all those years, that he liked  me too but he was too chicken shit scared and intimidated by me. It was a revelation I had never expected to hear but vainly hoped. A little too late though. I am happily married. Still, I can't help but shed a tear for a love that could have been...for a younger me that pined all those nights and never got my answer. Maybe things would have been different. Maybe I would have been a different person. Who knows really... A definite world of maybes. Some part of me will always hold him dear. Nobody ever forgets their first. He was the first spark in my heart. He made me open my heart to the possibility of how love can get so great even when it is not reciprocated...and how it still can hold a weak semblance of it when you finally realize it was reciprocated after all.

It was really good to let it all out. I am really immensely happy with Thad and I will not do anything to jeopardize what we have. I am just crying for a lost love, lost time, lost possibility because I never got to do that when it was the right time to do it. Now I can finally say goodbye, I have exorcised my demon and can now say with temerity that I loved you once upon a time, Zairex and thank you for telling me for even if we never had that chance, at least I know that we could have. 

The Brave Little Tailor

My very serious attempt at sewing garnered favorable results...at least to me. I try not to buy Blythe clothes because I wanted to challenge myself to learn how to make patterns and sew. The only things I will be buying for my Blythes will have to be things I cannot make myself like Re-ments and shoes.

Bird Song Dress

I know how to embroider and mend holes but I've never done  a full dress. I started by discerning the pieces sewn together in a finished dress and just kind of made sense of the puzzle. I don't know how to technically create patterns based on measurement so I go by eye...and going by eye makes rooms for errors but that's how one learns. This appliqued bird dress was my very first attempt. It is  based on Gentle River's pinafore. It looks pretty decent but since I do everything by hand, the stitches look like they've been disco dancin' if you turn the dress inside out. I also bought a pattern book for Blythe that came in very handy inspite of all the instructions being in Chinese. The maroon corduroy jumper, ditsy print blouse and the lacy shirt are all based on actual outifts that I own. I had to mentally reverse engineer them. The next succeeding days were spent  beaming at myself so

Red heads not War Heads

proudly and daydreaming about making more dresses and eventually selling them. I got brought back to earth when I realized I have forgotten how to work a sewing machine. I can't hand sew all the dresses that I'll be selling. My fingers will melt! I'm still without the drive to actually use a sewing machine, I am currently handsewing dresses for my flickr pal Sherri who is getting an Enchanted Petal from her boyfriend! I think my hubby needs to get Blythe buying lessons from him...or just plain "How To Make Your Child-Bride Happy"...ok that didn't sound right. I am a year older than my husband but I look younger because I am a hobbit. I digress,dressmaking, yes...it's a feat I'm going to conquer and by god, I will be that little seamstress that could. If I can't, I have Sugar Mag bookmarked.