I was recently amazed by one of Caps dioramas where he used cookie trays to make windows for a tudor cottage. I often hold onto household items with the intent to turn them into something for my Joeverse - like weapon stations - but my imagination isn't good enough.

I do have a bird house that I use as a Drednoks base.

When I was a kid there was an end table at my grandmas that we would always flip over to use as a base. When she moved into an old folks home, I took the end table for nostalgia sake. Its in my garage now, but one day when I have a bigger house it 'll be re-incorporated into my Joe verse.

So what around the house items have you found as essential additions to your toy world?

-CJack

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I keep random crap from around the houe and everywhere to use as diorama filler. I use the little plastic things that come on pizza(to keep the cheese from touching the lid) to use as tables. I use these brass hose fittings we have at my work as random containers. I was at a meeting for my work at a nice resort and they had these wooven wicker coasters. I took all of them from the table and I have them in my Ewok diorama as rugs. It's amazing what you can use.

STYROFOAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, the styrofoam you get from packaging of TVs, lamps, and computers are goldmines! Ive actually Built A Star Trek bridge from a styrofoam package of a Halogen lamp, with an engine room from two TV foam inserts, and docking bay/ Crew rooms from,... well, I Have no idea where that piece came from....

Enhances with Foam Board, some elmer's glue, and artistic skills with some markers, you can pretty much make anything.

more coolness can be found with styrofoam dixie cups, Styrofoam Egg cartons, even styrofoan take out containers can be used and decorated to be escape pods.


other than that, I've pretty much used anything I can get my hands on:

Old beads and Hershey's Kiss wrappers make great treasure and Gold. and old jewelry or ring boxes for treasure chests.

socks with holes in them can be cut for cloth

CD-Rom Spindle lids could be used for Isolation chambers, or clear sci-fi cells.

Spray some spray adhesive on old nylons, then roll them in crumbled up dry leaves makes great Camoflague Netting.

need terrain for a diorama? Kitty Litter (unused of course) makes great Salt flats terrain

Toothpicks makes great spears/ arrows. and the ones already shaped like swords are perfect!

wet toilet papar wrapped aroud figures, then allowed to dry, can be used to "Carbon Freeze" figures (or mumify them)

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Living room carpet--which was a horrid shade of green--made for an excellent "open field". My Thunderclap occupied this spot a lot.

Empty towel/toilet paper tubes made a good hiding place for snipers; stacked up like construction pipes, they looked innocuous enough until Joes/Cobras would roll by, then, surprise!

In the woods behind my house we had a dumping ground for household junk, and when I'd go out in the woods to play with Joes, I'd salvage items from there--an old race car track became a perimeter fence, a rusting out cabinet would double as The PIT, for example. There was never any shortage of possibilities there (just had to be careful.) Man, do I miss those days...

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Note, get a tetanus shot before going over to Robo's house to play joes.

I second the styrofoam, just don't use spray paint until you've handpainted a base on it.

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I think KoP wins in the home crafts department! Another trick for the toilet paper - mix it with 1/2 glue and 1/2 water and "brush" it onto your model kits car seats - after it dries and is dry brushed it gives a great broken-leather effect.

Doc, Junk in the woods is like a day dream to me. We had the green shag in my grandma's playroom - that was the drednoks swamp room! She also had a gold and orange shag that was "extra long" - which seemed ideal to march troops through but to the best of my imagination I couldn't identify it as any particular environment - it looked like the lions mane on stuffed animals.

Cool stuff guys, keep them coming.

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KoP is a bloody genius!
Those ideas are great.

I'd like to add the obvious red marker soaked tissue papers make great bloody bandages.

Colored toothpicks make good light sabers. Just wrap a small piece of foil at the tip for the handle.

A Q-tips makes a good bo staff once you remove the cotton tips.

Bobby pins make cool grappling hooks once twisted in a M shape.

A travel soap container filled with water is great to freeze a figure in a cube of ice

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I used to take a giant blanket and roll it up to make a mountain with tunnels on my bed.
I made a rebel base out of the styrofoam that came with my space invaders hand held game.
Used batteries make good power stations.

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-Using those little green plastic baskets that the small tomatoes come in for shark cages (or prisoner cages). Take the twist ties from rolls of bread and tie the two baskets together. carefully cut one side to make a door.

-Taping two used CO2 bottles together to make an impromptu (ie-cheap) JUMP.

-Taking small pieces of rope and making JOE-sized climbing rope accessories.

-I found a supply of a standard size rubber band. I use these to go around the backpacks of my JOEs so at least the look like they have shoulder straps to keep the packs on (instead of this plug that fits in their backs).

-Toothpicks make great swords.

-
...

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Stand up 4X6 picture frames for big wall screens. A floss container as a podium with mike...

- R

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Thanks, comes from 11 years of being an afterschool program art teacher! (and getting tons of kids hooked on G.I.joes and comic books!)

a few more:


Old cardboard boxes can be painted to make quick, disposible city buildings, or Air strips.

need a Quick Aircraft carrier? Look no further than your Ironing Board! (I bet all you kids did this)

Im sure paper Arplanes became your target practice for your Liquidators or septic tanks....

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if they weren't used, they could have been a cheap functional JUMP...assuming you didn't mind maybe never finding your joe again.

When I was a kid, after an especially impressive joe battle with one of my friends, where we each got to start out by planting "spy troops" in different parts of the living room for surprise attacks, I thought I had forever lost Snow Job or that he had been swiped. 2 months later, I found him still clutching for life hanging from the white yarn fringe dangling from a hanging plant holder. That one earned him a medal of honor.

For those same battles I used to arrange books on a large bookshelf to serve as hidden rooms and compartments.

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I forgot a couple.

I use the same rubber bands as weapons slings or equipment tie-downs.

Turning a staple into a caribiner and hooking it into Hit&Run's waist piece. His rope simply slips into it now.

Used an old boom box as a main computer/communications wall for my JOEs. The cassette cover functioned as the viewscreen, the speaker cover were heat vents, and the manual tuner was used as a ticker for scrolling info.

I mentioned this before, but I used to have one of those Hot Wheels tracks with the plastic rubber band car launcher. This was just after the Falcon w/Tan Grunt came out. I didn't get either the Falcon or the Cobra one, so I carefully designed a hang glider from decent thickness cardboard. I found the right balance for Airborne and pierced a hole through it. His backpack went through the top and he went on the bottom, nicely secured.

Then I spread his legs and position him and the glider in the slot. Push the release button and Airborne flew 20-30 feet away. By bending the wing tips I could get him to curve around a lamp and into the other room (which was so frickin' cool to see with my 12yo eyes).

Amazingly enough, I never broke any waist pieces in the process. I miss that launcher.


BTW-the CO2 bottles for a JUMP? I knew better than to risk losing my JOEs. Since I never actually got a JUMP, I had to make do. Something about the color of the CO2 tanks made it look like fuel tanks. Of course, they were bulletproof so nobody turned into a shooting star...

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Now THATS cool!

i used to do the same thing at Christmas, making a secret "bace" within the christmas tree, much to the chagrin of my mother!

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I second the ironing board/aircraft carrier, blankets turned into mountains and batteries as energy stations (and Energon Cubes)!


Something I often used was using Jenga Blocks as fencing, barricades, ammo crates and desks.

Good times....

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