Build a Pretend Play Clothes Trunk on a Budget

Most children love to pretend play in dress up clothes. Even most adults love a night out where they get to dress up. There’s something about putting on an fun outfit that makes us feel extra special. Learn the benefits of dress-up play and how to build a pretend play clothes trunk on a budget!

While dress-up is a ton of fun, there are tons of educational benefits from engaging in dress-up play.

1. Emotional Development – Children use play to process emotions, whether that be fear, anger, joy, or jealousy. When children  act in a role through dress-up, often times, they feel with costume on, they can display feelings that they may have not felt comfortable doing otherwise. Dress-up also helps to strengthen the ability to  empathize as children take on a role that may be different than what they have experience with and allows them to see things with a new perspective.

2. Brain Development – Dress up often engages the skill of recall as children remember how the person they are dressing as speaks or acts. Problem solving skills are also required to determine character roles, and what exactly will be acted out.

3. Creativity & Imagination – Dress-up is centered around imagination and creativity and allows for a child to take on a role that may be completely created in their mind. It makes room for a child to imagine and create a reality that may not be possible in real life. This simple act is helpful for them to see outside the box and expand what they see as possible.

So, now that we know the benefits of dress-up, let’s move on. It’s time to talk about how to build your pretend play clothes trunk. Most importantly, lets talk about how to do it on a budget. There was a time where I set on making the kids costumes, but that goal lasted one year.  After buying the fabric, the time sewing and measuring, I had nothing to brag about, but the pride of making it myself. Time is most of our biggest constraint, and with that, in comes Target!

This is my favorite time of the year for building up our pretend play clothes trunk on a budget. Halloween has ended and the Halloween sales are here! Target normally starts out with somewhere between 30%-50% off costumes and other Halloween related items. After a few days, the sale goes to 70% and then 90% off.  I’m a bargainer, so I always wait until they are 90% off. 

The thing with Target is, each store is different. Some stores have a great clearance section at 90% off and some stores never make it to 90%. If a store has sold the majority of their sale items at  70% off, the sale section closes.

The best thing to do is to call the store and ask them what percentage their seasonal sale is that day. This will save you an unnecessary trip and money. It also never hurts to pop in to the store and scan a few sale items yourself. On numerous occasions the sale sign and what the items were ringing up as, didn’t match.

If you’re looking for a specific size or costume, don’t wait until 90% because your pickings will be slim. I always wait for 90% off, but I’m not picky with the costume itself. I’m willing to buy costumes in whatever size as long as one of the kids could possibly fit it or could grow into it.

A side benefit of having a well-stocked pretend clothes trunk is that at Halloween time, you don’t have to go out in search of costumes at full-price. 

Where do you shop when looking for sales on costumes for dress-up?