Cheap fancy dress for 4 yr old girls

garret1

Hi There

My 4 yr old twins are in a fancy dress parade this saturday. i need cheap costumes, preferably easy to make with stuff I already have... They don't care what they are as long as they are beautiful:D
Any ideas greatly appreciated.

B

black-saturn

Look at Gingham Ribbons avatar to find out who my kids always go as:



Heres how you could do it with an old school dress:

mamaoba

what do they want to be?

Give us a place to start and we'll come up with something.

Pirates is easy - cut down too small trousers to make jagged edges. Red material for a bandana, make a wasitcoat out of fleece (fleece doesn't need hemming), black paper patch. Draw on a moustache with kohl pencil.
Tie a parrot on the shoulder (http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/pirates/mpirate.html has a wonderful bog roll parrot the could spend a rainy afternoon making before they have to dress up).
and give em a treasure map to carry, (same site will show you how to do the treasure map).

This site has some great cheap ideas for other costumes.
http://www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/frugalfun/homemadecostumes.htm

nuttywoman

Or if your a member of your local free cycle thing on yahoo you could put a wanted on for them.
Love the dorothy costume above.
val

garret1

Dorothy costume is fab! Will run that one past them. I think they want to be anything feminine and pretty, princess, fairy, butterfly etc...They're really into mermaids but I'm guessing this would be quite tricky...

sunnth

To make them into fairys/butterflies use a rectangle of fairly sheer flimsy material about their arms width. Put them in a pretty dress and then use a couple of safety pins to pin the fabric centrally to their backs. Make a couple of loops of elastic and sew to the top corners of the fabric to hook over their wrists and you have instant floaty wings. Add a tiara, headress or pretty bobbles/ribbons or slides and a quick and easy outfit that also converts back to dress and fabric for the dressing up box. My daughter wore an outfit like this at 4 and the floaty fabric is still in her dressing up box and is used as a multitude of scarfs, tablecloth, overskirt etc. at 7.

suziewuzie

Love the Dorothy costume .. cuuuuuute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wilburpig

My girls always liked to be dogs/cats/tigers. Paint their faces appropriately and choose clothes of a suitable colour - e.g. brown for a dog. Buy half a yard of fur fabric from a market stall and make simple wrist and foot cuffs with velcro fastening. Make 2 ears and attach to a plastic hairband and a tail which you can pin on with a safety pin.

Pooky

If you want to do a mermaid - draw a bikini style top on a plain white t-shirt....string of beads/shells around their neck....and for the tail - use bubble wrap......bubbles on the outside, wrap it round and cut a tail shape at the bottom - sticks with sellotape so no sewing.....looks effective.

JailhouseBabe

Wish I could get my scanner to work! I've just been showing off a photo of my DD when aged 5 dressed as a flower. Costume came from a Jane Asher book I think.
You need enough green felt to cover length of body, trim bottom edge into petal shapes, simply wrap around body under arms (like a bath towel) and secure with safety pins.
Cut 2 pieces of green felt large enough to go from top of shoulder to past tips of fingers, drape over arms and again trim with a scalloped petal-like edge. Secure with saftey pins.
The 'hat' takes a bit more effort. Use green felt to make a balaclava, then cut large 'petals' (think roses) and sew on to balaclava so they overlap to give a flower-head appearance.

Wish I could show you the photo - it sounds more complicated than is and probably not easy for you to picture it. Worth the effort though - DD was very disappointed not to win the fancy dress party (I was a bit surprised also, thought she had by far the best costume), it turned out the judges wanted to award the prize to someone who'd gone to the effort of making it themselves - they assumed mine was a professional costume!!

Try the library for a costumes book - esp. the Jane Asher 1 if they still stock it (my costume was 12 years ago).

garret1

Thanks for all the suggestions. Am off to the library tomorrow...