Dressing up box

[florencerusty]

Not sure where else to put this so apologies if its misplaced

Am just starting to put together a dressing up box for my DD (almost 2).
We have a couple of bought costumes but hoping to do it for a bargain price. So just looking for any suggestions on what you have in yours please.

Thanks

I've bought things from charity shops as and when I see them - any glittery dresses/tops, pretty scarves, hats. When they're small, they can use big t-shirts as dresses, for example. Making your own outfit much more fun than a ready-made one, imo (though nothing wrong with the ready made stuff - we've ended up with a mix of both).

huge high heeled shoes for her to shufffle around in

Same as Jackie really. We have a dressing up box, but most of it is old clothes from me - she particularly likes the couple of old handbags and purses I put in!

Charity shops also good.

Dressing up costumes also good to ask for for birthday pressies/Christmas gifts from family and friends if they ask what to buy her.

ours has one of these mirrors in so they can see the finished article

ours mostly has baragin stuff from car boots - doctor/nurse set with plastic instruments, variety of hats, handbags, bracelets, old watch, shoes - sparkly ones and pumps, and we have a couple of dolls in there too with spare clothes and 'kit' - anything that adds to the role playing really!

Old scarves (square not woolly) are the preferred items here. Plus shoes, like cyb said.

Dressing up stuff is always a good thing to suggest to relative looking for gift ideas.

We get at least 3 costumes a week fom the local boot sale.
This week I got
Nurse (hand made) - £1.00
Little Red Riding Hood (hand made)- £1.00
Cowboy (M & S) - £1.50
Snow White (disney) - £1.00

sunglasses
hats
hairbands/clips (that you wouldnt normally wear)
net curtains (for weddings)
high heels/sparkly shoes
scarves
necklaces
handbags
gloves
leg warmers
old pices of material (sheets etc) for ghosts/mummifying
face paints (if old enough to be trusted)

just realised you said she's almost 2
most of the above (except face paints) are in mydd's dressing up box (almost 3)

Old curtains make great royal robes.

My NCT nearly new sale includes a dressing-up rail and we always get great bargains. I agree with other posters that it's often the accessories that make it, so lots of big jewellery, handbags and props

thank you all.

yesterday she spent all day in a shopbought ladybird costume but am inspired and shall be visiting boot sales and charity shops as well as raiding family cupboards very soon!

I'm remembering back to my childhood and do you know what my sis and I remember vividly? It was dressing up in my DGrannie's evening cast offs. Particularly a pair of green rouched evening gloves which I turned into a pair of frogs' feet and bounced round in!

So I don't think children need particular costumes. Actually they need a range of old t-shirts and adult cast offs which they can let their imagination run with. For instance, we have a brown mohair cardigan which my Ma must have knitted in about 1977 and it's been Joseph's / Shepherd's outfits at Nativities, a Lion and other animals and a miriad of other things.

Dd has 3 or 4 pieces of fabric - some glittery, some see through, one printed with butterflies. She turns them into all sorts of cloaks, skirts, dresses etc.

Our dressing up box has grown over the years, mostly things that have caught my eye in the charity shop or stuff that I have made/tweeked for school plays / nativity / world book day.
I think the less specific the better: it is a spur to imagination and it's amazing how staples can mutate into a variety of costumes eg we have a cloak (used to be a skirt) which has been Little Red Riding Hood, a devil, a king, SuperTed etc.

The worst bits of the dressing up box are my eighties fashion nightmares.

x-posts with PigeonPie and Littlefish.

Just remembered how much fun my friends and I would have with my Mum's slips. We could be brides, princesses or nuns once we'd stuck them on our heads

Great minds Senua