I Attended My First Virtual Blythe Retreat!
I attend my a virtual Blythe Retreat, but was it worth it?
Last weekend, I attended my first virtual Blythe retreat hosted by Tammy Powell (Peace, Love, and Dolls) and Terry Jeanette (Tapping Flamingo). Since joining the Blythe doll community, I heard a lot about Blythe events to bring the Blythe community together irl but because I don’t live in an area where these Blythe events happen so live events1 like this aren’t accessible to me.
With that said, when I heard of a virtual Blythe retreat, my interest was piqued! I found out about the Virtual Blythe Retreat 2025 through Tammy’s of Peace, Love, and Dolls YouTube channel because I’m subscribed to her, and when she started teasing the 2025 Blythe retreat, I was somewhat interested. Then, when they announced their theme and grand prize, I got excited and decided to purchase my retreat pass and joined in on this 3-day event!
Down below, I recap the 2025 Virtual Blythe Retreat from my perspective and share my thoughts and opinions on the event. This is just my experience as a first-time Virtual Blythe Retreat attendee.
Kind of bummed they didn’t include my photos even though I gave them permission, oh well.
About the Event
The Virtual Blythe Retreat 2025 is a 3-day event that you participate in through a private Facebook group run by Tammy Powley and Terry Jeanette. You purchase a Virtual Blythe Retreat pass (the pass costs $15, not including tax) through the Kawaii doll Etsy shop. The pass is a digital download that came with a written skirt crochet pattern. This skirt pattern is one of the craft projects from the retreat. They also sell a Virtual Blythe Retreat kit that comes with most of the supplies you need for some of the workshops, plus some extra goodies for your Blythe doll.
They also host many giveaways throughout the 3-day event. This year, there was a total of 15 prizes! The grand prize for this year’s event was the Neo Blythe doll Fighting Milk2, they also had 14 smaller prizes which were donated by some small businesses and people from the doll community.
The theme for the 2025 Virtual Blythe Retreat this year was “spread kindness” and you were meant to turn your Blythe doll into an influencer to help spread kindness online.
The event started on Friday, June 20 at 8 am and ended Sunday, June 22 at 5 pm (EST). They started the events at 8 am and ended each day at 5-6 pm. The day started off with a video message from Tammy and Terry giving you an overview of the day. Throughout the day, they posted a workshop or prize post. The workshops they did this year included an influencer interview with Casey Cromwell, DIY beaded stitch maker, crochet doll skirt, photography tips with Mayra Galland, DIY doll bracelet, crochet crossbody bag, doll faceup demonstration by Beth Ramsden, how to sew a Blythe doll visor, DIY beaded pull cord charm, DIY button earrings, and a pipe cleaner dog.
The prize posts were video posts with a question that you had to answer before the end of the retreat. They ended each day with a closing mantra. On the final day of the retreat, you reveal your Blythe doll3 influencer! The winners from the giveaways are also announced on this day.
My Experience
I bought my retreat pass last minute, on the day before the event. Once I received the digital download, I printed out the coloring sheet (illustrated by Karyn Lewis) and crocheted a skirt because the written pattern was also provided in the download. I decided to bring May to the retreat with me because she’s a Leo, and if any of my dolls is going to be an influencer, it would be May! lol
Throughout the weekend, I answered all the prize posts but didn’t win anyhing in the end. I would watch the workshops in the evening and made whatever I could based on the supplies I had on hand. I made the skirt, bracelet (but by beads were too big so I turned it into a necklace!), the crossbody bag, and the doll visor. I didn’t make the stitch marker, earrings4, the beaded pull cord charm5 or the pipe cleaner dog because I didn’t have pipe cleaners.
I really enjoyed the workshops by Mayra Galland and Beth Ramsden. The DIY workshop videos were also informative. My favorite crafts from the events were the beaded accessories and the Blythe doll visor. I’ve always wanted to get into beading more, and Terry’s explanations were easy and made me want to make more beaded items for my dolls. Even though I struggled with the Blythe doll visor, it was fun to make, and I think May looks so cute with it on!
On the last day of the retreat, I posted my influencer reveal and was quite proud of how May turned out! I paired her new skirt with this bralette top I made a while ago. She looks like an influencer girlie about to enjoy summer!
My Issues
My biggest issue with this event is that it’s on Facebook. You have to have a Facebook account in order to access the group, which I think hurts this event from bringing in new Blythe dolls fans, especially the younger audience who aren’t into Facebook. There are other ways to host an online event like this. I’ve seen people use Discord or Instagram channels6 as a way to connect via a private group. However, I know that the Virtual Blythe Retreat has always been on Facebook so I doubt they’ll ever consider changing to a different social media app.
Even though I’m not a fan of Facebook, I still went ahead and created a new account instead of reactivating to my old account7. This was such a process! Within a few hours of creating my new account, I had to provide all this information to make sure that I wasn’t a bot, including taking a “selfie", yes, I really had to do that! Anyways, I eventually did get access to my account and was able to proceed with this event. I deactivated my account as soon as the event was over. lol
The Facebook group setup was also messy. The way the Facebook group works (at least this one) is that anyone in the group can post whatever they want. The problem with this is that some of the posts from the Virtual Blythe Retreat admin would get lost if many people posted. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to see everyone’s projects, but it just clogged up all the official Virtual Blythe Retreat posts. Even though there is a search bar, not all the posts were available when I tried to search for the workshops or prize posts. I wish the group were organized better.
I felt like the theme of the virtual Blythe retreat, “spread kindness” and to turn your Blythe doll into a “kindness influencer” got lost. I would’ve loved to see more workshops or prize posts related to the theme. They did interviewed an influencer as part of one of the workshops, but it had nothing to do with the theme of the event! The influencer they interviewed seemed really nice but I would’ve loved to see an interview from an actual doll influencer, I mean, they had access to Beth Ramsden!
Another issue I had was that on the last day of the retreat, you asked to answer a survey about the event, but it wasn’t anonymous. If they wanted honest opinions from their participants, maybe they could’ve made a Google doc survey or something. I get nobody wants to be mean (and I doubt anybody would be mean), but you also don’t want people seeing your thoughts on a certain topic, and everyone in the group seeing your comment. They did say you could’ve emailed your response to them, but I forgot to do this.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a fun experience! I didn’t expect to make as many of the projects as I did. At first, I thought I would just be making the crochet projects but I had the beading and visor supplies, so I went ahead and made those, which I really enjoyed making! I did hear Tammy and Terry plan on uploading their workshops from the retreat on their YouTube channels, so go and subscribe to them if you’re interested in any of the craft projects mentioned in this post.
I was also surprised by how many real Blythe dolls attended the retreat. I don’t know why, but I expected many more fake dolls for some reason.
I’m not sure if I’ll join the 2026 Virtual Blythe Retreat. I’ll have to wait and see what the theme next year is.
Thank you, Tammy and Terry, and everyone who participated in making the 2025 Virtual Blythe Retreat happen this year! If they happened to read this, I had a great time! These are just my thoughts and opinions as a first-time Virtual Blythe Retreat participant.
Have you attended a Virtual Blythe Retreat before?
There are probably doll shows where I live but I’m only interested in Blythe dolls, which are a very niche interest, and I doubt they would have any at these events, but who knows! lol
If you read my Blythe doll birthday post, you know she’s one of the dolls on my wishlist!
You didn’t have to own a Blythe doll to participate in this retreat, but it makes sense to have a Blythe doll in a virtual Blythe retreat.
Because none of my dolls have pierced earrings
May already has two pull strings
I’m part of a stationery group that’s run through Instagram channels and it works out perfectly!
I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t want people from your past, present, work, school, etc, who you don’t want looking for you via Facebook. Even though the group itself is private, you still have to create a Facebook account whose database tries to connect/reconnect with people based on your email, phone number, history, and location. I had to go and make my account as private as I could! lol