When I first started Blythe I thought for sure I only wanted one girl- a mini me for photography. But the minute Sam arrived I was smitten and knew she needed a sister. Then I wanted a rainbow of girls. Then I discovered amazing customizers like Lirije, Frankie, Kate, Tiina, Lynne, Morgan etc... And my family grew and grew and grew.  Ive owned a total of 54 Blythes. i think my most at any given time was 45.

Ive been slowly downsizing as it just got too overwhelming. I suffer from depression and my DH has chronic health issues and it leaves me with very little dolly time. Ive been feeling really guilty that the girls don't get the love they deserve as they are all super special. The more Ive sold the harder it gets to let my girls go. I think I want to wind up with 14. Maybe 10 if I get super brave.

Im tired of loosing fees on ebay so I am listing them for sale here. I have listed starting points and am taking offers on them until Monday July 9th. I will update this post with the current offer. All girls will come in an outfit of my choosing securely packed. Shipping is $15 in the US and $45 for EMS shipping overseas. I am open to layaways with $100 non refundable deposit with pretty flexible terms of up to 60 days. All payments via papal. I do take echecks but wont ship until payment clears.

I might just might be tempted into trading for a happibug, vanilladolly or maybe a hola gaminola. I am also looking for a Mimsy Bueno hat and an ET helmet in black, yellow, red or gray.

you can see more pics of all of them on my Flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/redmara/collections/72157624086831212/

To make an offer please email me at mara at studiolorange.com

So with that said here we go:


This is Bilbo a Tiina custom Simply Bubble Boom FBL. She has a couple of flaws: Her eye mech is broken and you have to roll her eyess by hand. Also her blush has some rubbed spots. Tiina told me she would be willing to fix her up in the fall when she gets back from holiday. Starting offer $500


Here is Nica. She is a citron rouge glass eye custom. She does not have a regular eye mech it has been removed and replaced with glass eyes. You can not change them. Because of the type of putty used it caused her face plate to crack. I think it gives her an adorable porcelain doll look. If you would like a close up of the cracks let me know and I can send them to you. She comes on a licca body. Starting offer $350





Next up is Elly my citron rouge clown custom. She is a Mrs Retro Mama with gorgeous clown face up done in primary blues and reds with the cutest little pout and 4 new sets of eyechips. She has sleep eyes as well. Really one of the cutest clowns ever! Starting offer $450


Milo is a Bud Loves Sissy custom Hollywood BL with a sleeping elf yellow mohair wig. The wig is not perfect as it is a size to small and has been slit up the back to make it fit her. This is totally undetectable when taking pictures of her from the front. She has 4 new sets of eyechips and of course is on her licca bl body. Starting offer $400


Rian is my Effluo custom dragon girl. She is a PD Amaryllis with dragon scale eyelids and eye makeup and 2 sets of custom glitter Zombuki eye chips. Rian has just a smattering of freckles to add to her cuteness. She is just stunning in person. So vibrant and completely unique! She is also on a licca body. Starting offer $475



Bindy is my tiina custom cloud girl. She has a mohair reroot done by Moofala in multip shades of light blue. She is a EBL on a licca body (my best guess is VCB). She has Kawaii cloud artwork on her lids and 4 sets of cool cat chips. she has sleep eyes. She has the cutest little lips. Starting offer $600




Cadi is a tiina custom with beautiful rainbow lids and matching rainbow eyes. She is a custom FBL Paris with adorable freckles and pout. Starting Offer $700

I always struggle with shaped papers but love them which is why I have a cropper hopper full of them! But this sketch allowed me to matte one on a 12x12 paper and suddenly it made my design aesthetic happy!


And that's a real giraffe sticking his head right in our van at the wild animal safari. It was the total highlight of that trip!




and Kristin's sketch

Ok so I am slowly catching up! Here is my take on Sketch #7 for Septembers Class.



And here is the sketch I started with-
As you can see I stuck pretty closely to the sketch and it was perfect for a little timeline layout of a mini trip we took to Chittenden Locks in Seattle.

Moving right along with this months AMAZING SKETCH CLASS...(and really this class is every bit as good as some of the classes I have PAID to take.)

Here is sketch #6


And this layout came out really really well for me. I knew immediately what I wanted to do and for once it actually came out exactly the way i saw it in my head. Im super proud of the way this turned out!

As part of trying to catch up with the Sept Sketch class series I am only going to blog the ones I did layouts for. For all of the amazing sketches please check out our free class section!

Here is sketch 4


And my take on it.



i had a lot of fun changing this one up a bit and using the actual layout of the photos to help tell the story. (And a shout out to Theresa for her suggestion I do the Underground Tour. It was absolutely amazing).

ok so K has been doing this amazing class all month on the creative soup and I did a ton of layouts for it. I LOVE using sketches to jump start a layout. I am usually so pressed for time when I scrapbook in the evenings after work that I find these to be a HUGE help to get me started. K has done an amazing job with this class with full color downloads so I hope some of you pop over and take a look.

Unfortunately life has gotten in the way of me posting them here to my blog. So in the better late than never category Here is Sketch 1!



And here is my take on it. I stayed pretty close to the sketch (which i usually do. But i did use two photos with the same lighting and tone to give the illusion of a larger photo in the same spot.

I am always looking at various ephemera I can print off and came across these amazing alphabet cards. They are done by an amazing graphic artist - Paul Thurby

You can download the numbers and letters from his flickr page

I can't wait to print these off and add them to my layouts!

Todays Get Meaningful focuses on our school memories. As kids head back to school (or are already in school for those of us in the south!) I wanted to take this opportunity to go back to your school days and reminisce about a favorite subject or teacher. Something that you really really loved about school (and no recess! lol)

i took this opportunity to celebrate a wonderful substitute teacher I had throughout my junior and senior years in high school. Cammie Malloy was truly an inspiration and really taught me so much about life and myself. I wish I could find her and tell her thank you. I often thing about her and wonder if she knew as a substitute teacher just how much she could touch a students life.

The amazing Kristin has come up with yet another beyond amazing class for this quarter focusing on Sketches! I LOVE a good sketch to get my mojo flowing! I hope you stop over and check it out!


And just a couple of sneaks:

I actually got a ton done 2 weeks ago and wanted to take a moment to post. Totally inspired by all the amazing challenges that were part of the Fun in the Sun crop at Creative Soup.

It felt so good to get in my studio and really work. i haven't scrapped like this in a long time and I was actually really happy with the way they turned out. I'm getting better about layering and using stuff vs just hoarding it! And not stressing about journaling if I don't feel the layout needs it.





(ignore the missing R in Flower. i didn't notice it had fallen off till after I took the pic) Im going to journal about my relationship with my mom and how it has grown over the years but its sort of personal .

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Creative Soup is having a week long crop and a blog hop tomorrow that kicks off at noon! Tons of fun challenges to get those creative juices flowing! So I hope you all can stop by!

(I was a dork and totally forgot to take sneak peeks of my projects. doh!)

I realy have a love hate relationship with this blog. I get super excited about it then i get bored or resent feeling like I HAVE to post.

So here is a quick recap of the last :gulp: 3 months.

The big thing is I went on a tour of the Pacific North West and fell head over heels in love with the place. If I could I would move to Portland tomorrow. (I also loved Seattle, and the coasts too). Something about this place just totally resonated with me.


And I didn't just randomly go. I went specifically to attend BlytheCon 2011. I had an absolutely amazing time and spent most of the trip hanging out with Melissa and having an absolute blast getting to know people I had only talked to online. And the dolls. the dolls, dolls, dolls!!! It was overwhelming and fun and exhausting all at the same time. I scored my first ET helmet and met Ruth who was an absolute delight. I met Roz who did one of the classiest things Ive ever seen and stepped back from bidding against me so I could buy my first Sammy Doe. I got to hang out with so many fun people in line before BC and during the event!


And I loved it so much Im planning the next one! Yep Im nuts. Luckily I have tons of help from Erica and Morgan. We are doing it in Dallas at the fabulous Gaylor Texan. It was a HUGE amount of work to get it up and running but we are doing really well and have close to 90 registrants and are just under a year out! Not too shabby! Oh and Lirije did the most amazing logo for us! Maybe if I get skinny enough I can wear a matching outfit!



Oh and I have been scrapping some. Not very much as things have been sort of weird and hectic. Here a re the last couple of layouts I have done:




Next on the horizon: A Blog hop this weekend, more crocheting, more dolling, and soon oh so very soon a trip to see my growing family!! (and maybe some more blogging)

Here is this weeks Mojo Monday at Creative Soup!

I am loving that there are so many bright colors that are in right now. I love the look of pairing bright colors with neutrals to get a fun spring look. This month your Get Crafty challenge is to use yellow, turquoise and gray on your project. These colors are all over and really in for spring.

I can't wait to see what you do with this color palette!


I did this for our grand reopening gala and I absolutely LOVE this color combo!

I love my mom so much. Our relationship has totally grown and evolved over the years and I just wanted to celebrate where we are now!






Happy Mother's Day mom. I love you with all my heart!

To kick off our new enhanced site we thought it would be fun to have all of our creative team members complete one of the fun Mojo Monday challenges from the first quarter. Here is my take on the layout as well as a showcase of a Creative Team member’s original project!

Ok to be honest I cheated a little! I couldn't decide between Mojo Monday challenges as there were so many awesome ideas to chose from so I combined two! I used this sketch from Nuts about Sketches. They were our featured partner for the 2.14 Mojo Monday Get Sketchy. I so seldom do 2 page layouts that this was a real challenge to me! And I of course needed a topic and looked no further than the very next weeks Mojo Monday Get Inspired - Television!


So here is the original sketch:

And My take on the challenge:

It was so great to be able to get such inspiration from the Creative Team
members!

Check out Laura's take on the same sketch! I love how she turned it into a one page layout and I love the twine stitching!




To participate in the blog hop leave a comment for me and follow the link to Kristin's amazing blog to see what she came up with! Go through and leave comments on all 9 blogs and be entered into a drawing for an amazing prize pack. (If you found my blog in the middle and want to make sure you get them all please head on over to The Creative Soup Blog and start there!

The blog hop runs from tonight Friday April 8th at 8pm EST through Monday April 11th at 11:59pm EST. Winner will be drawn on Tuesday! Don’t forget to register at http://www.thecreativesoup.com/ to join in all the fun!

Come Join Us as we relaunch Creative Soup at It’s new home!

Friday April 8 we will be hosting a Blog Hop to celebrate the relaunch of The Creative Soup’s new forum!!! http://www.thecreativesoup.com/

The blog hop will run from Friday night - Monday night!

Who We Are:
The Creative Soup is a new scrapbook challenge forum that started in January 2011. The idea of The Creative Soup is to create a site where scrapbookers can come to be challenged and inspired all in one place. We have a fun vibrant and growing community of really supportive people who are there to encourage one another in our craft!
Creative Soup has several challenges and events to help people get their mojo going!
1. Mojo Mondays: Weekly challenges that rotate between four different kinds of challenges (AAM, Sketch, Inspiration, and Random). We find that challenges are a great way to jump start a layout and to encourage people to scrap more! There are monthly badges and a drawing for prizes for people who complete three out of four challenges.

2. Quarterly Classes: Every quarter our amazing Design Team will present an in-depth month long FREE class to really get your creative juices going. Each class comes with fantastic tutorials, clear and concise directions, and multiple completed samples to help inspire you.

3. Fun inspirational threads that post each week including: Talk Tuesday (journaling prompts), Web Wednesday (cool DIY projects), Thrifty Thursdays (Getting the most out of your scrap supplies), Font Friday (featured online free font), and Snapshot Sunday (photography challenges/ideas)

So come and register at http://www.thecreativesoup.com/ to join in all the fun!

And be sure to stop back Friday April 8th to participate in the blog hop and earn a chance to win a cool prize pack!

This weeks Mojo Monday Challenge at Creative Soup is to use an Irish Proverb as part of your layout. As soon as I came across this proverb "Two Shorten the Road" I knew just what i wanted to do- My race with T of course!!!

Im also trying very very hard to use older product on my pages instead of only using my new stuff. I have SOOO much stuff that I just feel super guilty about it just sitting there. Several of the papers I used on this project are from 2005. (I know I know! Bad paper hoarder!!!)

So here is my project (And don't forget to check out the other amazing Creative Team projects HERE)