Not Bad!

She seems to be wondering if she feels more like a "Harriet"or a "Lilly" today!

These hand-embroidered Blythe panties were a recent custom order, and I'm showing them off here because I am especially pleased with how the lettering came out. It can be tricky to get the same slant on all those little letters, and to get them to line up evenly on the bottom. I always re-do some of the stitches as I go along, and sometimes I have to take out and re-do entire letters...these names were no exception.  I am so happy that the extra effort paid off! (I think Harriet and Lilly's "mom" will be, too!)

After writing this post, this customer asked me to add one more to the order. So here's Delphine!

Translation, Please!

A few days ago, a customer in Japan bought two of the Blythe Christmas dress sets that I had for sale in my Etsy shop. Yay! The only thing is, she sent me a message...in Japanese! And her name and address were in Japanese characters too! Thank goodness for Google Translate; even though the translation sounds a bit weird, I can kind of figure out what she's saying.

Message from Buyer: 支払いました。ご連絡まちます。 あとで、住所メールします。

Google Translate:   i paid. Wait contact . Later , it will address e-mail .

So, I sent a an quick message (in English), thanking her for her purchase and asking her to confirm her address. She replied in fluent English, which makes me wonder why we started out in Japanese, when all the verbiage in my shop is in English! I guess it's just an Etsy thing.

I packed up her order and printed her address in English AND Japanese on the package, just to be sure.

Thanks for your purchase, Junko. I hope you and your dollies love the dresses!

Custom White Dresses

I had a large custom order from an Etsy customer this week: nine white dresses with hand-embroidered names.

I used several different white-on-white cottons for the dresses, as well as several different lace trims for the hems, to give them some subtle variety.

I was surprised to discover that I had a favorite among these dresses--it's this one, "Olivia". The light blue paired with the white really speaks to me, and I think the embroidery came out especially well.

Easy Iron-On Labels

I had a shock one day last week, when I saw some items I had swapped with another Blythe fan included with a doll that was for sale on eBay! Usually, when someone re-sells handmade doll-related items, they give credit to the maker; but the seller wasn't the person I had given the items to, so she wouldn't have known who made them. It got me to thinking, and I decided that I should start putting labels on the things I make.  I looked at Etsy, where there are tons of options for all your labeling needs, but there were so many options that it became confusing, so I decided to just make my own simple labels. Here's how I did it.

Materials:
--Bleached cotton muslin fabric 9 x 11.5"
--NON-sewable Heat n Bond (the picture below shows the sewable kind because I couldn't find the wrapper for my non-sewable roll!) I want to iron these on without sewing, therefore the non-sewable option is the way to go.
--Standard computer paper
--Computer with ink-jet printer

1.  Cut the Heat n Bond to the size of the computer paper (8.5 x 11").  Iron it onto the cotton fabric according to package directions. Trim the bonded fabric to approximately 8.25 x 10.75", then center it and tape it to a sheet of computer paper (it will go through the printer better if the leading edge is paper, not fabric.)

2.  In your word-processing program, write out what you want your labels to say, and fill up one whole page with the words. Print a test sheet on plain paper and make any necessary adjustments.

3.  Put the bonded fabric into the printer and print in the normal way.

To use a label, simply cut it out with scissors, peel off the backing, and iron it inside the garment. The Heat n Bond is basically a strong heat-activated glue, so the label will stay where you put it.

There--that's better! At some point I may sell my Blythe creations on Etsy, using the name of this blog as my store there. With everything labeled like this, everyone will be able to find me. I feel much happier now!