Seeing everything as what it can be for dolls :)

Ha ha! Yep!

I pretty much wander round shops looking for things that may be of use to mini-people.

 

I've spent a good few hours in hobby lobby looking for things that'd work for my crew. One of the best finds were actually some plastic ornaments that I plan on making into a bubble helmet for an MH custom. She's getting a space/diver's suit.

 

Totally, it's a bit of a problem, and I find myself buying a lot more at dollar and thrift stores than I normally would because it might come in handy someday. I have a whole stash of things that "might work" for a project at some point, it's a bit of a pack-rat situation.

 

oh heck yeah. We have some trees outside that drop twigs and I harvest em up to make staffs and stuff for dolls. I made a bow out of one that I soaked and bent.
I go into charity shops and look at the clothing, the scarfs, the nicknacks in case there's something I think would work lol.

i've become fairly good at eyeballing scale, but it doesn't always work heh.

 

This is a problem of mine, haha. When I go clothes shopping for myself I catch myself looking at fabrics to use for my dolls instead, or when I go to the dollar store I look for props instead of for the things I actually needed there. It's kind of a fun way to look at the world, though.

 

oooy yes! Just yesterday I wandered through the 100yen-shop and saw a lot of things that would be great for doll use! unfourtnatly, most work for 1/6 or 1/3. It is hard to find 1/4 stuff sometimes.
But, yeah, I know your feeling XD

 

I do. I have a room full of doll dioramas, and most of the props and furniture in there wasn't meant to be for dolls, it was just easier and cheaper to re-purpose things than to buy doll stuff!

 

I do too. I can't even shop for underwear without thinking, "Oh, that would be a nice print fabric for the dolls!"

 

I do this with everything I look at. Wooden silverware holders make cool looking shelves for dolls!!

 

Lol YES!!! I'm in this mode where whenever I'm shopping for myself I'm also secretly shopping for my dear bjd haha so glad to know this isn't just me obsessing and going crazy xD

 

I refer to the phenomena as " my diminutive perspective" , I like to go shopping with a friend who is also in the hobby, and we laugh at ourselves for picking up tiny little things and measuring them to see if they are the right height for a doll to sit on, or use as a table or a sword, or cut up for doll clothes....or whatever strange use occurs to us ! I have bought salt cellars to use as salad bowls, a round slab of marble meant to be a cutting board for cheese to use as a table top, artificial flowers to use as fairy costumes, a fold out couch style dog bed to use for a doll's bed, birthday candles to use in a miniature candelabra, and many other small strange things!

 

YES! I do this for all my crafts and hobbies. I always look in other sections to find tools and items that will work for different things. And the photo you posted in this thread is so inspiring. I have been really keeping my options limited compared to this.

 

I do this as well. I've gotten really good at picking up search terms to get what I need.

My strangest purchases were a plastic bell jar for a 1/3rd scale space helmet, pulley gears for wheelchair wheels, votive candle lanterns for a hat, filigree beads for headphones, a moth brooch for a headpiece, crochet hooks for a bar in a faceplate mechanism, and grosgrain ribbon for button plackets.

 

Yes! I totally do this all the time!
It's gotten to the point that my friends who don't even like dolls also see things and randomly say "look, you could give that to your dolls"

 

This is why I patiently sort through bins of novelty erasers, looking for potential props.

 

Yes. Heh though I do that for all my hobbies and interests.
Though, for BJDs I will go to places like Ross (discount store that's usually a hot mess) and Goodwill especially for doll items even if I don't need anything else from those places.

 

Sometimes I do think this as I go shopping but I don't buy them, I like to make my own props.

 

^^ Yeah keep an eye out for lots of doll accessories (Eg barbie bratz) that can be used for all my dolls

 

I just posted this info on another forum but you guys will appreciate it. AC Moore is selling soft handled scissors that display in racks that look like a modern tv stand or stacked a shelving unit. They could also be "hung" on the walls as shelving. The best part-THEY THROW THEM AWAY after the scissors are sold! If you ask nicely they will give them to you!!!! I know they thought I was crazy and one worker couldn't stop laughing but I got 3 of them! Dollar stores always have cool stuff once you learn to look through your "doll eyes" and Just a Buck has finial looking things that make awesome gothish tables or shelves with tiny pieces of glass on them. They still have some of the tiny Adirondack chairs perfect for my little pukis and constantly get in little coaster sets is fabrics that make for great throw rugs. I have other people cursing my name because they keep looking at things at what they could be not what they are after we shop together a couple times! Good luck everyone!!!