'Cabinet Babies' or Playthings?

As others have said, I'd somewhere in the middle, probably a little closer to play. I carry one around the house with me and plop them down next to me. They are where I am. But they don't leave the house beyond the backyard, and I don't let anything bad happen to them (touch face-up, let people hold them without telling them how to do so, leave them in sunlight, let the cats get them). Since I live in a dorm most of the time, when I'm not around, I put them away in a box so nothing bad happens to them.

So, I play with them, but I'm a little paranoid about their safety! ^^;

 

I'm firmly into the "play" section. I take my boy out all the time. Unless I'm going to work, he goes where I go. I just took him to walmart twice today, and had him in the car for hours, at chinese when I went to eat...

I didn't pay all that money for him just to let him sit around. By god if I pay a couple hundred bucks for something, I'm going to make it worth it. I'm going to be sewing him more clothes, but for now his handy-dandy blue jeans and long-sleeved white shirt are good enough to run around town in.

Heck, my dog keeps wanting to lick him like she does her humans. XD I don't want her to CHEW him, but I don't want her to be afraid of him either, so sometimes I sit on the floor with him and let her come up too him, and she doesn't seem inclined to either, she just wants to love on him.

 

I collect all sorts of dolls, some more breakable then others...
I display them all on shelves ^_^ And then play with them as I see fit ^_^ So all my dolls are toys but when they are not being played with they are safly on display So both for me ^_^

 

I'm exactly the same way. I buy these dolls for the customizability and their beauty. I'm satisfied with just that, so "playing" isn't something I even want to do with my dolls. It's probably a really good thing too, considering how clumsy I can be sometimes.

 

I think that it's completely up to the owner if they keep their dolls in glass cabinets or play with them. After all, we all buy them for a different purpose, and we gain happiness from them in different ways - whether it's just looking at them and smiling because they're so beautiful, or if it's playing with them, posing them and taking them with you somewhere, etc.

I think I'm somewhere in between; mostly my boy sits in my bookshelf, in his chair, sort of protected from the sun, and sometimes he's sitting with me when I'm doing something, homework or whatever. At the moment I don't have much clothes for him, but when I do, "playing" will most likely involve changing his outfits more often. ^^

I would be scared to death bringing him with me somewhere, though - I would be terribly afraid of his face-up being damaged somehow, or me accidentally dropping him, or the inside of the bag I'm carrying him might damage his wig or face-up (yay, repeating myself! XD), the sun making him become yellow, or... well. Anything, basically. XD If I HAD to let him sit in a glass cabinet all day and night I would feel sorry for him, though... hm. So I guess I understand both sides.

Not a good debating entry, sorry. XD Just telling my thoughts. ^^'

 

I don't think I would ever buy a doll to be a 'cabinet baby'. Though Tae-Jun does spend a lot of time sitting in my room, I often carry him around the house with me, and have him sit with me when I watch movies or play video games. That doesn't mean that he's getting dirty or damaged though. I take very good care of him, even though he's well loved. I'll probably do the same thing with Asriel when I get a body for him. I'm hoping his body is a little looser than Tae-Jun's though so he's more cuddly. xDD

 

When I get my first BJD, I plan to 'play' with her a lot, lol. Mind you she wasn't terribly expensive so that is part of the reason why I feel free to do so. If I ever managed to save enough for one of those expensive limited beauties I'd probably leave it in a cabinet most of the time. I'd be afriad to damage it and would handle it seldomly.

 

I've never understood the idea of a doll that could not be played with, and play with my dolls when I can. I don't get to play with my dolls as much as I'd like to, and when I don't play with them they are essentially "cabinet babies," but at least I get to look at them.

 

I agree with nanlady. It's up to the owner to use/play as they will.

 

It depends on the person, but in my case I have, ever since I was little, felt that both stuffed animals and dolls have a presence that make them.. alive. Therefore I treat them as living things. When I was little I felt bad for the stuffed animals that didn't get to sleep in my bed, so I had all my stuffed animals in my bed at night. As you can imagine it was quite crowded XD If I had my stuffed animal or doll in a bag I would never close it completely, because they need air to breath ^^,

My point is that when I get a doll it won't be just a "toy" it will be more like a pet ^^ I will play with my doll and take care of it, treat it like it is alive....

or maybe I'm just crasy... -.-,

 

I take my dollies around with me practically everywhere but I do take good care of them and they don't leave my site. When I take them for car rides I have the strapped in a seatbelt in the back haha :]

and I'm just like Izumi-zu I felt bad when I didn't have room for all my stuffies and I think of my dolls as "alive" and wouldn't want to just be doomed to sit around for all of eternity D;

 

I see Bjds much like my dad sees nice cars. You park them in the garage, wash them by hand, faun over them but you should go out and leave some rubber on the road to truly enjoy them.

 

I think, as many other people have said, it really depends on the person what they'd like to do with their doll; since they spent the money on it.
I'm somewhere in the middle, but definately leaning towards the 'play' side of the spectrum.
When I'm not playing with my boy, he lays under a blanket in my closet, or sitting on my bed.
I love taking him to meets, and just out with my friends to get pictures of him. We all love to take photos, so having a small portable model is always fun. I have no problem taking him out in public with me. Starbucks and the library being his main 'hang out spots' Surprisingly, people don't pay him much mind.
I've had a LE doll and was so scared to touch and play with it that I sold it. I can't just let a doll sit around while I do nothing with it; I almost feel like I'm neglecting it.
As SakuraRosalie said; he's similar to an expensive guitar or ipod; something of that nature. I like to take him everywhere with me, but I'm extremely careful when I do.

 

I'm more on the play side...I collected Beanie Babies when I was younger and most of them I wasn't allowed to play with...

My take on it is that I spent so much money on these things I should have fun with them...it's my DUTY...I certainly get my money's worth!

When they aren't being handled by me I keep them on my desk and often the Puki are in their house. I can understand dolls like SDs mainly being on display because they're HUGE and very hard to move (at least for me) but tinies...omg I'm never putting them down!

My MSD was in the middle...I'd have to say that at least for me, size plays the most matter as to whether they're "for play" or "for show" at least in my collection.

That very well could be why I only have tinies.

 

I am torn about this subject. I do feel that expensive and therefore precious objects should be handled carefully and kept safe. On the other hand the hobby for me personally is about customisng the doll. For me the doll is a medium - like clay or paint or I suppose more accurately precious metals. For me it is all about modifying and painting and the handling involved in that process.

However I havn't really gotten around to the dressing and photographing part yet. Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable taking the doll with me to places, even a doll meet because of the risks of damaging my work. The work put into the doll rather than it's cost has made it precious to me.

I hope that makes sense.

 

I'm rather firmly on the "play" side of the scales. Dolls (of any type) that are always behind glass and never get played with/touched/posed/whatever have always bothered me a bit. The way I see it, dolls were meant to be interacted with. That antique baby-doll in the little glass dome was created for a little girl to mother and love. Barbies are meant to be dressed, undressed, dragged all over the house, and left wondering where there shoes went (probably down the floor vent).

That said, I don't take Mina everywhere with me. In fact, she's yet to leave the house since she came home. But I play with her. I pose her, and sew clothes to dress her in, and keep her near me when i'm on the computer or watching a movie. When I'm not playing with her, she does go on the top of a high shelf with some display-type knick-knacks - mostly because that's the only shelf the cats cannot reach.

There's a famous quote from Robert Tonner that I think applies here, and sums up my opinion rather well. "If you never take your dolls out of the box, they never have a life."
I take my dolls out of the box, and would never be able to do otherwise.

I know people who refuse to smoke that expensive cigar, or keep antique books in climate controlled boxes. I, personally, don't see the point of having something just to be able to point to the glass cabinet and say, "I have it."

But hey, we all enjoy our hobbies our own way.

 

See... for me it's kind of the opposite. It's less like "I spent so much money on them, I need to keep them nice", and more like "I spent so much money, I want to get my money's worth out of them." For some, admiring the dolls as art is enough enjoyment to make the cost worth it. But I generally don't like buying expensive things that aren't actually used or played with in some way. I don't have expensive art on my walls for that same reason... I have some interesting framed prints of paintings that I picked up for a bargain at the local flea market.

I'm very hands-on with my dolls' customization... I own the dolls because I like working on the dolls and playing with them. If a faceup gets scuffed I can just repaint it, so I don't worry about things like never touching my doll's face. My dolls do have a few nice, expensive outfits, and I treat those with more care... but their normal "everyday" clothes? No biggie. One of my girls wears almost entirely F2BM clothes, which average a few dollars apiece. I'd rather have fun with them and enjoy them. If I'm outdoors taking photos and my doll topples over into the dirt, I'll just try washing the clothes and giving the doll a quick wipe with a Magic Eraser. If the stain doesn't come out of the clothes, I figure I still got a few dollars' worth of enjoyment out of it.

Not every doll is a "Ferrari"... Maybe certain limited fullsets, yeah. But my dolls are a lot more like my car, a vintage Mustang I built from the ground up with my dad. It started off as a bit of a clunker, but through our efforts it turned out to be a pretty nice car. It still gets driven daily to work and back, and out on errands. She may have a little wear and tear from being driven every day, but she's still my baby and I get a lot of joy out of driving her around... Enough to make that wear and tear worth it. When problems arise, we can rebuild or replace the broken/worn-out part. I get a much greater sense of fulfilment from that than I would by keeping it in a garage and only bringing it out for car shows. Plus, I get a great sense of joy in knowing that we designed the paint job, picked the colors, and painted the car ourselves... that a lot of the parts were handled by my own two hands, pulled out of a scrap yard, sandblasted and cleaned, and installed by us.

All but one of my dolls started off as a blank canvas, and their beauty is in the work I put into the doll and the enjoyment I get out of them... just like my car. They are ongoing personal projects, and a lot of my own effort and creativity goes into them. Likewise, if something gets a bit worn or damaged, I enjoy the process of rebuilding or repairing a doll as much as I do working on my car.

Now, with that being said, there's still a good amount of care that should be taken... with cars and dolls. But that level of care will vary from owner to owner, depending on their expectations for use. Someone with a "show-only" Ferrari won't check the oil as often as someone with a daily-driver. A doll collector with a display doll won't replace the elastic as often as someone who plays with their dolls on a regular basis. It's all relative.

For me, the dolls are more about the process of creation and creativity than a finished art display piece. To each their own... but to someone like me, the wear and tear that comes from play can lead to just as much enjoyment as admiring the dolls would for someone else.

 

I have two cabinet-babies and twenty adventurers. Some certain dolls I don't want to mess with their special faceups, body-blushing, special body parts, etc.... I just get a thrill by looking at them, a thrill from my eyeballs all the way down to my bones, because they are so gobsmackingly amazingly gorgeous. Other dolls get to come to meetups, and pose for pictures on the edge of my roof, and travel on cross-country flights, and visit strip-clubs, and sit on rocks at the beach, and what-have-you.

Call it "division of labor" if you will. They all have their different lifestyles. I wouldn't ask a tough little SD10 to do a delicate Soom merman's job, nor vice-versa.

 

I think it's inbetween for me. I protect them like prized posessions, and I enjoy displaying them properly so they don't get damaged, but I don't keep them locked up. I like to pose them differently every day, take pictures of them... use them as models to get better at photography and drawing... show them off to other people...

So it's 50/50 for me. 50 protect them / 50 play with them. maybe more 70/30 because I don't do any play that would put them at risk for major damage. lol

 

My girl will be another weird 50/50 blend. She'll 'live' on a shelf (I'm thinking of maybe setting up a roombox for her...), but she'll also come out with me for photoshoots and occasionally just to brighten my day.

My Pullips currently all live on a shelf, but that's because I'm currently moving back and forth between my boyfriend's house and mine - and I don't want to inundate his place with all my girls and boys XD