Storage of Clothing and Dolls Boxes?

I've gotten rid of my doll boxes, so I'm no help there, but I keep my doll clothes in vintage suitcases. I have a luggage tag on them that designates the size. This way, I can collect the vintage suitcases I love, but also have a use for them.

 

Right now I have all of my doll stuff )clothing, eyes, putty, etc) in a doll box that's under my bed. However, the rest of my doll boxes are sitting in a corner of my room and I'm starting to be in your position haha! So far I've wanted to keep my doll boxes, but now I'm wondering if I'll just have to toss them due to spacial issues.

 

For my doll boxes, I broke down the ones that could be easily broken down and then easily reassembled (Soom, Volks, Luts, Dear Mine). I then flattened them and tied them together with twine. That way I could put them in my attic/crawl space. The pillows/cushions/zip cases are all in a clear tub for now. The boxes I couldn't break down (Asleep Eidolon, small animal doll ones) or had foam inserts, I just put on a shelf in my attic. So if you can break the boxes down, bind them together, and slide them somewhere, you can keep them! I kept them because I am a neurotic collector - yes I even kept the shipping boxes. If I or a family member is ever in the position of having to sell these dolls, I can't say I don't have the proper boxes to sell and ship them in. It also allows me to safely move them too if I ever move house.

As for my dolls clothes/eyes/accessories/ephemera, I have 2 Sterilite Chest of drawers. These are basically clear plastic drawers. That way, I can see what I have and wear (for the most part) and keep it organized.

It's just a matter of finding what works for your space.

 

Please note I have a resin army, and a full house, but this is how things are stored at this time.

The dolls them selves set around my bedroom (mostly) which I have blackout curtains up and keep sunlight out of. I have two tables that are for dolls only and have lots of doll chairs with dolls in them and props around them set up. I have shelves with dolls sitting on them and dressers, dolls are like cats if they fits they sits.

I tend to use plastic zip lock bags and note cards to label everything if I can.

Closing that isn't being actively worn by a doll, I keep in longer flatter clear plastic storage boxes. If it's smaller items or for smaller dolls, then that goes in smaller plastic storage boxes. I keep unused wigs in similar boxes sorted by size. Oh and some of my Fairyland full set outfits and such are in their nice card board boxes stacked on their own little set of shelves.

I have a set of draws that's like a small plastic dresser that I keep weird doll parts, and larger props and weapons in. It has two big deep draws and 4 smaller ones. I also keep all my eyes in one of the smaller draws sorted in tiny baggies with info on the eye either on a note or sticker or whatever. In another small draw I keep my extra doll elastics and restringing tools.
That doesn't actually hold every weird doll part I have one pair of SD wings in a draw of my an actual dresser as they are huge and I only take them out and put on the doll for rare photos.

As for their boxes omg storing them is tricky even when you have a big house. I have a number stacked in the back of closets. Also my S.O. rents a storage unit and as has some extra space there that I've been allowed to put some boxes in. The boxes in the storage unit are in big plastic contractor bags in groups of 3 to 5. Sorted by size/company, and taped up tight then stacked in a corner. I also make little cards of what doll goes to what box as I like to have info for everything.

I hope that helps even a little.

 

It's okay - I have quite a few foam insert boxes or "if you break it down, it's TRASH" boxes.

Well we had our roof and insulation redone in the last few years so I have no real fears of water damage or bugs. I've never found bugs in our attic. But if you were worried about that, I would say wrap them in plastic bags/plastic wrap? But honestly, I think the value is in my doll, not it's box hahaha! I just got tired of seeing Mount Dollbox in the corner of my room.

I did use a label maker and label each box. So I know which box goes with which doll. Same with the pillows. I keep all their paperwork in a binder.

 

I don't have any doll larger than 45cm, but for my boxes: Shipping boxes are marked for the doll they shipped, broken down and both them and the doll boxes are stored in a large heavy duty storage tub in my garage. I keep my shipping boxes because if I ever decide to sell it's a *pain* to find the correct sized boxes for doll boxes. If I'm keeping the doll box it's worth it to keep the shipping box as well (and echoing a previous comment, it makes moving easier too)

If you don't have a storage tub: I store all my soft sided luggage, when not in use, in a large trash bag sealed with packing tape and have never had an issue with water/mold/bugs/etc. My garage is unsealed/finished and just making sure all 'openings' in the trash bag are taped down has actually saved my luggage a time or two. My parents have always stored their soft sided luggage in this manner (it's where I learned it) and they've never had an issue with the aforementioned issues. I'd assume it would do ok with large doll boxes as well.

As for clothing: Just a sterilite storage container. But I'm moving over to using binders and page sleeves for my doll clothes. Not sure that would work for large doll clothes.

 

My dolls are all kept in a set of matching cabinets with glass doors (Hemnes cabinets from IKEA) in my sewing room. Their outfits are in a pair of small-ish, 3-drawer chests of drawers that I found a few years ago at World Market .. and I haven't saved most of the gang's boxes. It just isn't practical with a crew the size of mine.

 

I keep my dolls in my little office/fangirl room ♡ Space over there is also rather limited and I like to keep it cosy and aesthetically pleasing (and therefore not too cluttered). I also own mostly 65-75cm dolls (yay for big boys ^__^)

Doll boxes go into the basement. There's no way I could store them in my appartment, way too space hoggish even though they're pretty and stylish >.< I would never get rid of them though since they're the most secure way of moving a doll around (as in actually moving from A to B ^^)

My doll clothes and accessories I keep in a pretty white dresser from Ikea ^-^ The top drawer is home to all my 70-75cm stuff. The middle drawer is where I keep my 65-68cm clothing and shoes. And the bottom drawer houses all the wigs, additional doll parts, maintenance tools and CoAs ^.^

 

I have a small crew of 3 (soon to be 4) 57-65cm dolls, and I also live alone without pets in a somewhat spacious apartment. So I don't have a space issue, but I'm generally tidy and put things away. So...

Dolls -
They're free ranging, so they end up all over the place. But if I need to "tidy" them up, they all sit on my 1/3-sized doll bench in the living room, or on my bookshelves in my bedroom. Currently the doll bench can fit all of them, but I expect the crew will grow with time... XD

Boxes -
I only have one doll box (my two hybrids' bodies were bought secondhand and came without their doll boxes) and it goes on the top shelf of my closet, along with my carrier if I'm not using it. I'm not precious about boxes since I buy dolls slowly and expect to keep them forever (the current crew are not going anywhere if I can help it), but they're good for moving and such, so right now I'm keeping them around. But if I need to clear out boxes, I'll keep enough to store my crew - with pillows I think I can fit two to a box - and throw the rest.

Clothes, wigs and stuff -
This is my main storage problem. XD Currently everything fits within two plastic big tubs that slide under my bed, but they're at capacity and I'm still buying more clothes. Eventually I'll have to get bigger tubs or a chest of drawers. That's a problem for future-me to figure out, haha.

For easy retrieval of clothes etc from those tubs... I recently discovered these "PÄRKLA" storage bags from Ikea - they're shoe bags but the perfect length for storing 57-65cm sized clothing with minimal folding. So I can lay most clothes flat inside these bags, no more creases! The plastic material is also breathable which I hear is good for storing fake leather materials (IIRC, pleather degrades faster when stored in airtight plastic bags). The bags can also puff out which seems handy for storing wigs, although I haven't done this yet.

I've bought a whole lot of these bags and now I store all my doll clothes in them, labelled with contents. Outfit sets get their own dedicated bag. Much easier to pull what I want out of the tubs.

 

@aihre oooh I like this shoe bag idea...and they really lie flat even with clothes in them? I have a bunch of clothes to remove from the plastic bags!

 

I used to be kind of lax about how I stored my doll stuff, but my old house had a lot of spiders and I happen to be deeply grossed out by spiders. So I started keeping my dolls' clothes in a scrapbook cart like this. I like it because it's easy to access since they're like drawers, but they're actually containers that snap closed so they're safe from bugs. It also helps me organize the clothes a bit- I sort them by size and gender (at least, the gender intended for the clothes, since my dolls wear whatever they want lol), so that makes things easier to find. And the contains are large enough that most clothes can lay flat without being folded (I collect SD size).

Doll boxes have been a big problem for me. I broke down a lot of them, flattened them and stuffed em in a closet. Some of them got moldy, and most got spiderwebs on them. When I moved I ended up throwing them all away (approx 20 boxes) because I just couldn't deal with sorting through them all, cleaning them up, and reassembling them. But I have to admit that I regret it. If I could do it over, I would have kept the flattened boxes in an oversize plastic bag and used packing tape to seal it closed and keep the boxes clean. I do have some boxes left, ones that couldn't easily be flattened. They got all spider webby too of course. Cleaned them up at great cost to my sanity and used them for moving, which was a big help honestly. Once all my dolls are unpacked and the boxes are empty, I'm going to wrap them in plastic and store them. I got really big clear plastic bags at a local picture framing shop, I think they're about 40 x 60 inches. They were a couple dollars each and the plastic seems durable. I should be able to fit a few boxes per bag and then tape it up.

I also had some cushions stored, which I did have the sense to keep in a sealed container. Some of them fell apart all on their own, clearly not made to last. I tossed most of those too, and just kept the ones that had a zipper since they seemed extra useful.

I really hate to throw away any of the packaging from my dolls, not only because it helps prove their legitimacy, but also I just like having them. But there came a point when I couldn't deal with it anymore. Even though I regret throwing away most of my boxes, I was going through a lot at the time so I did what needed to be done. My advice is if you want to keep the boxes and you have the space for them, protect them somehow before you store them. Like, spiderwebs didn't ruin my doll boxes, but having a spider phobia and dealing with that was really awful It's totally possible something unexpected will happen to your boxes, like bugs that actually damage them, a water leak, or they could absorb funky smells. I think it's worth making the extra effort to keep them pristine and wrap them up.

 

Yes - both horizontally and upright, if you can stack enough together so the clothes don't slump down. The bag has that fold-out base so you can fold it into a box shape if needed, but otherwise it flattens down nicely around the clothes. I love these bags, they were a real serendipitous find.

 

Hi there, awesome topic and it is great to see everyone's unique methods and even similar ones.

I got the extra large thick plastic storage bins that go under beds. So they are tall and wide, but not that "deep". I can put my foot in one and the edge just goes over my ankle. Perfect depth to lay a doll in without too much wasted space above them.

My 60cm dolls can lay flat in their doll pillows (that I sewed) and my one 65cm boy has to be in a slight fetal position to fit. My 1/4 scale and smaller dalls all lay in their pillow wraps in a Tetres fit. So my collection only filled 3 extra large bins. And I'm fairly sure I'm done adding anything big since my characters have been shelled. And any fantasy ones are generally palm sized or YoSD. (still have half a bin empty)

My floating heads I got a coffee mug storage box that has padded dividers and I made more pillows to line those, too. Each head it put in a face mask, wrapped with a pillow and stuffed into a mug compartment. easy storage and no more loosy-goosy heads knocking around in a shoe box XD

My doll clothes are all in a single slightly smaller under-bed container in stacks based on doll size, SD, MSD and YoSD. The wigs are with them stuffed with a cheap foam ball and wrapped in a hair net. Shoes kinda loosy-goosy there, but I'm going to find a sorting box for them eventually.

My doll eyes are all just in this little plastic tupperware lined with a tissue :/ not elegant, but I won't be losing them, at least.

I only kept The Dream Valley boxes because there's a chance I might sell one of them if I'm hurting for funds. And one SD box because it's really pretty and surprisingly compact when compared to other boxes. My entire collection fits nicely in my closet. My tinies are on display in my bookshelf on a diorama I built. And that's about it

 

I keep my doll boxes stacked ontop of my tall dresser cabinet it keeps them out of my way for the most part, and I really don't notice them unless I... well, look up haha. I used to have lifts for my old bed, however, and stored the boxes underneath my bed. Out of sight, out of mind!

My dolls are kept in their own ikea pax cabinet. I have one shelf for dolls +60cm, and one for dolls smaller than 45cm. Under that I have two shelves for my doll travel bag (for doll meets), and baskets of my customization goods (like sealents, pastels, paints, brushes).

I personally keep my doll clothes in their own little dresser (it's an ikea 9 drawer alex) but that doesn't sound feasable for your situation.

What my one friend does, however, is keep her doll clothes in binders! She uses the pocket sleeves to hold the clothes, folded, piece by piece on each page.

 

I’ve been in this hobby for a long time now, and although I collected slowly (at a rate of about 3 dolls per year) it’s really added up. Today my collection stands at 50-ish dolls. Needless to say, my doll box collecting days are far behind me! Fortunately I learned my personal bjd aesthetic long ago and haven’t needed to sell a doll in years. I dearly love every single doll in my collection and none of them will be going anywhere. All are out on display in artistic vignettes I’ve set up throughout my home…it’s a little like living in a beautifully decorated fantasy world where I can interact with them on a daily basis. My housing situation is extremely stable, so relocating is not a future issue. Their vast wardrobes (I love to sew for them) are stored in specially dedicated dressers purchased cheaply at charity shops or in decorative boxes on shelves. I really like “living” with my collection.

This I love!

 

@TheBlueWazaga I love the coffee mug storage box idea! Where did you get/find the box?

 

Hi! I ordered one off Amazon. Literally look up Mug Storage Box.