Frugal Christmas Costumes

Things are gearing up for the children’s Christmas program at church with our performance Sunday night! 🙂

This year’s program takes place in Bible times – which means we needed period costumes for all the kids.

Dagmar decided it was time to retire the motley collection of plaid bathrobes that had served as costumes for several decades – and step things up a little.

But that wasn’t going to be cheap. Have you seen fabric prices lately?!

There was no way we were spending hundreds of dollars on costumes that would be used once a year for a couple of hours – especially when they are children in the world going to bed hungry tonight!

It was time to get creative!

We did find a great costume pattern with multiple looks and sizes on sale at Michael’s – then we started the hunt for material. Trust me – we left no stone unturned!

We raided Nana Shirley’s cupboards which yielded a few nice pieces and some great trims! Lorine, our resident seamstress at church, also found us some good stuff.

Then we started shopping garage sales, thrift stores and bargain bins.
Our best bargain? The plain white cotton sheet. They were cheap and pretty easy to find – and a little Rit dye turned them into whatever colored we needed!

A shiny plaid piece from a garage sale made a great costume for King Herod, especially when topped with a vest made from a fake red velvet bed spread we found for a dollar at the local thrift store!

The shepherds were really fun! A ratty old blanket turned into a great vest and an old bathroom rug with a hole in the middle became a sheepskin to throw over a shoulder.

We used sheets, blankets, table cloths, curtains, table runners and even bed skirts to find the material we needed.

When she ran out of trims, Dagmar started used contrasting threads and played with the fancy stitches on the sewing machine to finish off the edges.

Aunt Julie came for a weekend to help her sew and put the finishing touches on everything.

The final result?

Some great looking and versatile costumes for a little bit of money.

And that works for me!

I’ve linked this post with Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.