Playing dress up is so much fun, and it is a good opportunity for children to use their imagination. Encourage your children to play dress up and help them create a special wardrobe.
Dress up is not just for girls either. Although I’m not suggesting giving little boys high heels and dresses, there are plenty of ways for boys to do their own dress up thing, even if they want to call it something else.
Check Thrift Stores
You can find some of the coolest stuff in thrift stores. Prom dresses, old tuxedos or suits, briefcases, sports jerseys, aprons, uniforms, and all sorts of other neat stuff. Just clean these items up and you’ll have an instant (and cheap!) wardrobe.
Keep Halloween Costumes
Your kids’ old Halloween costumes can also go into the dress up box. They make perfect disguises, which can be mixed and matched to create entirely new costumes so your kids can become different characters or assume secret identities. Also, look for other Halloween costumes at after holiday sales.
Create Your Own
Pillowcases make good, easy outfits. Just cut holes for head and arms and you have an instant hospital gown for your pretend patient. Using the same method then cutting off the bottom to make the smock shorter, you can create scrubs for your pretend surgeon, dentist, vet, or nurse. Use the excess to make aprons or a dental “bib” for the person being attended to by your little dentist.
Pillowcases make good superhero capes too. Cut open one of the long seams and the bottom seam and attach snap fittings to the top corners.
Bath towels are also handy for dress up costumes. Brown towels make fun caveman (or woman) outfits. Just lay two towels together, cut off the top corner (cutting through both), and sew the two pieces together at the top corner. You can sew the sides together (leaving an armhole on the long side) or attach strips of rawhide or string on both sides near the waist to tie the costume in place.