Make your very own easy DIY “stick it up your jumper” Blythe stand.
I have a mix of Blythe and Blythe clone dolls. Not all of them came with stands. Therefore I looked into making my own. The simplest solution I came across was the “stick it up your jumper” approach. Literally. You use a wooden dowel and stick it up the back of the jumper or dress the doll is wearing. The bottom of the dowel needs to be stuck in something to keep it stable for this to work. I currently have 4 dolls. I spotted a packet of 4 wooden coasters in my local T.K. Maxx (aka T.J. Maxx to those in the US or Winners if your in Canada). Serendipity fueled inspiration. Instructions below for how to make your very own easy DIY Blythe stand.
Materials
- A wooden drinks coaster
- Length of pine 6mm dowel. A piece of pine dowel (L)900mm x (W)6mm should provide enough for 4 stands.
Equipment
- Drill
- Wooden drill bit (size 6 for 6mm with hole)
- Saw
- Sand paper
Instructions
Cut the dowel
Cut a piece of dowel to the appropriate length to suit your dolls body + the depth of the coaster. My ladies have Licca bodies (approx 19cm) + my coasters had a depth of 1cm. This meant that the optimum length for my piece of dowel was 20cm.
When you cut it the dowel will probably be a bit rough on the tips. Your going to want to sand those rough edges down to be as smooth as possible so that they don’t scratch your girls when you are using the stands. This is where the sandpaper comes in. OK, your half way done.
Drill a hole in the coaster
Attach the wooden drill bit to the drill. It does need to be a wood drill bit . I tried a masonry drill bit for my first attempt and it killed one of my coasters as shown below. Tragic. 🙁
If in doubt always start with a smaller drill bit than you think is necessary. You can always go up a size if the hole is to small.
Mark the point where you want to drill the hole. In my case I positioned it approximately 2cm in from back of the coaster in the center as shown. Yes one of them did end up a little lob sided – but hay – it gives it a OOAK feel.
Drill the hole straight down. Be careful not to drill the hole too big or the dowel will be loose, making your stand wobbly.
Insert the dowel into the hole in the coaster
If you have drilled the hole correctly you should find that the dowel will need a small amount of force to fit into the hole. The fit should be quite snug. It should be tight enough that when you pull up the dowel the coaster stays attached firmly. I didn’t use glue as I want to be able to disassemble the stand when necessary. If you want the stand to be permanent you could use wood glue to glue the dowel in place.
