To make or buy? | Imamother

amother

Wed, Feb 05 2014, 4:16 pm

Assuming that your child wants to be something more than just from the "dress up box" or you don't have the materials handy, or your child has a specific idea in mind, or you are just not a super sewer, is it more worthwhile to buy components for a costume or to just buy the costume? Which is more cost effective? I can think on the one hand a costume is just for one day, but if you make it, it may not be durable enough to last the whole day or be comfortable or come out to your child's liking. I personally like to make costumes out of "Real clothes" if I can, but then it can be even more expensive?

What do you do?

zaq

Wed, Feb 05 2014, 5:56 pm

I have never bought a ready-made costume in my life and don't intend to, but have bought the occasional component if by that you mean a brown footie pajama for a kid who wants to be a horse or feathers to make an Indian headdress. I use and reuse components--the same length of fabric can be a sari, shawl, serape, sash, and more, depending on how it's folded and what other things are sewn, glued, or stapled to it. In fact I have a big box full of costume materials salvaged from here and there- feathers off old hats, interesting buttons from discarded shirts, beaded trim or fabric from ancient formal wear, old junk jewelry, ribbons from fancy wrapped gifts, the occasional old robe, you name it.

But then I love the challenge of coming up with something, and most of the time my kids didn't ask for anything specific. I came up with and implemented the ideas myself, said ideas usually suggested by the materials themselves. For example, an old beret screams "French Impressionist painter". It's simple enough to add one of dh shirts for a smock, cut a palette out of an old shirt cardboard or panel from a cereal box, throw in a couple of paintbrushes or ratty makeup brushes, draw on a skinny little mustache, et voila!

After Purim, put the brushes back in the watercolor box, take back your beret (or add it to the costume box to become the beret of some generic freedom fighter next year), add the palette to the box to be reincarnated some day as a makeup artist's palette, give dh back his shirt or return it to the rag bag if that's where it came from, and you're ready to plan for next year without having spent a dime. Oh, maybe a dollar if you have no paint brushes and aren't willing to sacrifice any makeup brushes.

ETA: And when you make your own, you know you and your dc won't meet yourselves coming and going.

allrgymama

Wed, Feb 05 2014, 8:39 pm

I'm actually very into quality costumes and my kids dress up stam when they're playing on Shabbos.

So, while the most I've bought costume-wise for Purim was a kid-sized apron (for last year, we gave out cupcakes and it was pink with a cupcake on it, so....) I do buy costumes on sale throughout the year and my kids use them regularly. In fact, I bought a princess costume on Zulily Chanakuh time for my four year and she decided that that's what she wants to dress up in this year.

yo'ma

Thu, Feb 06 2014, 7:45 am

amother wrote:

but if you make it, it may not be durable enough to last the whole day or be comfortable or come out to your child's liking.

I find this statement to be untrue, at least for me. The costumes I've seen in stores are made with garbage fabric. I use more normal, but cheap fabric and they last for years. As far as comfort goes, I only make costumes that are comfortable to be in all day.