Children’s love affair with dressing up games and costumes results in a mountain of clothes, accessories and jewellery. This can become a problem for anybody who keeps an organised house. More importantly, if everything is thrown into a jumbled heap, kids are less likely to use the outfits and important role play games will seem less attractive. So what’s the answer? Create some good storage solutions using fun crafts.
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Making a Treasure Chest
Kids will find this storage idea particularly appealing. It’s really easy to make and allows plenty of scope for creative crafts.
Start by finding a large lidded cardboard box. Paint or cover the box in a single colour. Next get the kids to glue long bands of paper in a contrasting colour around the box for an authentic treasure chest look.
Using a template, make a lock from gold coloured card and lots of gold studs with small circles from the same card. Next, stick these to the box.
To finish the chest off beautifully, glue some attractive fabric to the inside of the chest to line it. Children may like to add the cut out letters of their initials to personalise their treasure chest.
Jewellery Box
Costume jewellery gets into some infuriating tangles. This can be sorted out with some clever storage too. Children enjoy making pretty jewellery boxes.
All you need is a small shoebox. Cover the box with some attractive wrapping paper, foil paper is very effective. The children will enjoy sticking lots of pretty decorations to their new jewellery box.
You could arrange the jewellery by using matching boxes within the larger box.
Jewellery Stand
Don’t get in a twist with all the necklaces kids seem to collect. Create some ingenious storage for these with a jewellery stand.
Pick a wide circular container for the base. It needs to be wide enough to allow the stand to balance properly when loaded, without toppling.
The stand itself is free of charge, thanks to Mother Nature. All you need is a small, strong branch from the garden with plenty of suitable twigs for hanging things.
Make sure the twig is as clean and dry as possible. Paint the twig an attractive gold or silver colour and finish with a protective coating of clear varnish.
Decorate the container base with paint, stickers or pom-poms. Fill the container with a large, heavy ball of play dough. This weighs the container down and keeps it steady. Warn the kids they need to be sensible about how much they can hang from the new jewellery tree.
Storage Bags
If your child is learning to sew, storage bags are a really easy project for them to try. Take a large pillowcase and stitch two long lengths of ribbon to make handles.
Use each pillowcase bag as storage for individual sets of costumes. So kids can easily identify the storage bags with the correct costumes, they could cut out some felt letters or shapes and glue them to the outside of each bag. For example, for a princess costume, try a crown shape or for a pirate costume you could add a skull and crossbones.
Effective and attractive storage is more likely to entice kids to continue with their dressing up games. Of course, there’s the added bonus that they can have lots of fun coming up with some good storage designs.
