What's your FAVORITE thing to buy/make for your doll?

I think doll eyes are the most exiting to shop for, they have so much variety and don’t usually break the bank.

 

I love doll shoes. If I had endless funds, I would love to have a collection of just shoes. It amazes me how well crafted and realistic a lot of shoes are. I do have two pair that I bought just because I fell in love with the shoes, but have no doll to put them on. Someday I want to make a shadow box to display a collection of doll shoes.

 

I love buying cute dresses and wigs. Basically all clothing except for shoes. I know they are necessary but spending money on them somehow hurts more than on a wig etc.

 

I've made like 5 different doll yukata of varying accuracy, so probably those! They're so easy! Just a bunch of boxes and straight lines! Skirts are next in line since they're hard to mess up if you have the waist measurement right.

For buying, probably wigs. A wig can change the whole look of the doll so fast.

 

Clothes and wigs and shoes - on sale. I just love a doll accessories sale.

I am also a huge fan of Target/dollar store/thrift store doll-sized props. Right now, I have a dollar store doll-sized dollhouse that I want to repaint, and the spouse also 3D printed another one that's the perfect size for 1/6 scale dolls.

Next up - making dioramas. Should be fun with 1/3 scale dolls. (Huge. They're going to be HUGE.)

 

In doubts between buying eyes and clothes.
Eyes is one of the key elements of the whole doll. Without perfect life-like eyes I will not accept doll, that's why I prefer eyes, made in the base of my drawings.
But on the other hand my love for 18-19th century costumes makes it hard to find perfect one. So I'm learning how to sew)

 

In my case, waiting for my first doll, I would say I prefer searching for wigs and shoes. I love the idea to give my doll different hairstyles to make her more versatile and I do not have a lot of shoes in her size so it's always fun to find new models. I hesitated to mention clothes as well, but since I make most of it myself at the moment, I don't really look after that, although there are plenty of creators who do an amazing job on their creations, it's so inspiring

 

I love collecting props and accessories and now I have a new thing to coo over - Mouse Ears.

As in Mickey Mouse Ears. Because GUESS WHAT? The Mouse-ear ornaments (the headband style, not the solid ones) fit my 1 / 3 boys PERFECTLY. A little snip here and snip there to get the front bow off, and I am just tickled pink that my Assassin and Serial Killer took a vacation to DisneyWorld together and bought Mouse Ear souvenirs.

 

Years ago I would have said "eyes" without hesitation, but back then you used to buy eyes and they'd look exactly like the photo or better, even though they cost $$$. Nowadays I've been burned too much by eyes that looked lovely in photos and while technically did resemble the photo upon arrival, they just looked off. So... unless it's buying doll from the one eye maker who's still around from back then, buying eyes just makes me tired.

I do enjoy buying/hunting for clothes, especially now that I have a girl who can wear things you can actually find in the doll clothing market (ever tried to dress a futuristic space nomad inspired by Nepalese culture? Yeah, them's slim pickins). And on the flip side, while the eye market got way worse, the shoe market has gotten absolutely incredible since I last shopped for doll attire. I just had a pair of sneakers delivered that had tiny, to-scale stitching to join the pieces of fabric together in an intricate pattern... all in a shoe that's 4.5 cm long. Blew my mind.

 

Clothes and shoes are definitely my favorite .
I have a ton of clothes and shoes picked out and saved in different tabs on my phone and on aliexpress/etsy wishlists for dolls that I don't even own yet !

I love wigs too, but I almost never change my dolls wigs after I have achieved the look I had envisioned.