With five little girls in our home, playing dress-up is a favorite activity. The dress-up clothes box is the first place little girls run to when they visit out home. It is always fun to watch them play and admire how fancy they look!
My tip this week is about how to store dress-up clothes. I found this wonderful Rubbermaid Hidged Storage Box about 4 years ago. It has been great! Plenty of room for the ever growing dress-up colection, without having to worry about whether things were put away "nicely" inside it. Personally, I don't care if the clothes are tossed in so long as they are IN and not all over the floor of the girls room.
A side note to this subject is how to choose and where to buy dress up clothes. (I knew you were going to ask! LOL!) Don't, I repeat, DON'T buy dress up clothes at a toy store like Toys R Us. Most of their "dress-up" clothes are terribly expensive, cheaply made and consist of mostly sequins and feathers. My girls prefer "real" clothes to dress up in. Where to shop? Goodwill and other thrift stores (garage sales work too!) have great items at a fraction of the cost of Toys R Us. I will look in the bargin bins first to see if there is anything suitable there. A few dirt spots don't bother my girls and I can usually get them clean anyway. I choose items several sizes larger than their normal size for my girls to wear. Women's clothing is just too big and I don't have the time right now to alter them to be shorter. 
The funniest thing I have discovered is that the more hideously gaudy the dress (ribbons, bows, poof, lace, layers, etc.) the more the girls love it! I found this one dress at Goodwill that is a satiny material, with a hideous floral print, with layers of poof, and gobs of lace and ribbon. I really didn't want to buy it, it was just that gaudy! I did decide to buy it and it is one of their absolute favorites! It is a smaller size so they don't wear it past about 5 years old. Hopefully by then their "taste" in such things will start to improve!
Please don't think that gaudy means slutty. We don't do slutty. No spaghetti straps, strapless, skimpy, form fitting, etc. Just pretty or fancy dresses that are slightly too big that they can wear just for playing.
We also have a bear and rabbit costume in our dress-up box and a cowboy outfit for my 6 y.o. son (he needed something to dress up in when his sister are playing dress up). Sometimes you can find scrubs and army gear at thrift stores, which also make great additions to the dress up box.
And, that is what works for me this week!! Check out lots of other Works For Me Wednesday tips at Shannon's Rocks in my Dryer blog!
August 1, 2006
Works For Me Wednesday : Dress-Up Clothes
at 11:00 PM
Labels: Children, Works For Me Wednesday
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7 comments:
I so know what you mean by "gaudy". My DD thinks the more ruffles, lace and sparkles, the better. Absolutely NO slutty things at our house either. She adds SO many layers. Just recently I went to an estate sale and bought sixteen silk scarfs for three dollars. They embelish even the most boring of outfits.
I like that hinged container idea.
We toss in all the old halloween costumes too! I always tell myself I'm going to e-bay those, but they have so much fun with them I just can't bring myself to do it! We also use the Rubbermaid for storage.
I will keep this in mind for when my kids get older! Thanks!
Great idea. We find a lot of dress-up clothes at yard sales!
So cute, great idea!
I love it! I need a bucket like that....my kids love to dress up. Another place to look for dress up items...we have a place called Party City here that sells party items and halloween costumes...well right now you can go and get last years halloween costumes for CHEAP..like Superman for $5.....even my daughter would love to dress up in that! She will wear the powerrangers all the time...lol.....
I've found great dress up clothes at the $1/bag sales (usually the last hours of a church rummage sale). My best find so far is a satin girls handmade dress--it was in perfect condition but I suspect it didn't sell because the size wasn't there ('d guess it was for an 8 year old). It's far too big for my 20-month old daughter, but she nabbed it before I put it away. She LOVES having it put on her and she even manages to walk in/on it without tripping. I also nabbed a stain woman's shell top that makes a perfect dress on her! And this one she can actually put on her self since it doesn't have long sleeves.
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