Tag: dress-up

What Can Be a Hat?

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What Can Be a Hat (5)

Veronika currently loves a little story from Hello magazine about babies wearing various hats, some that really are hats and some things that simply can be a hat (think baskets, buckets, or even old shoe boxes). That prompted this silly game as I was prepping dinner and needed to keep the kids briefly occupied.

What could they find in the kitchen that could be a hat? Pretty soon, the kids were modeling strainers…

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…and colanders!

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Travis loved that the colander was like a warrior’s helmet.

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Veronika loved looking stylish with the strainer at a jaunty angle! This led them to dig through the dress-up box for other favorite hats and head pieces. All of which meant, everyone was soon laughing and had stopped asking when dinner would be ready.

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What else in the kitchen could be a hat? Please share what your kids come up with in the comments!

Monster Headbands

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Here’s a fun costume craft from Travis’s latest Highlights magazine, perfect for spooky dress-up in October! We made two of the four suggested versions.

To start, wrap craft feather boas around plain headbands from the drugstore. You can simply wrap the boas, or use hot glue or adhesive dots to secure at the ends for more security.

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Our first monster had three big eyes on top. Glue black felt pupils onto white ping pong balls, and hot glue on top. If you want the eyes further above the head (which we did not do), attach them to the ends of boa-wrapped pipe cleaners instead.

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For the second monster, we made one big cyclops eye. I glued a large piece of felt onto a thin piece of cardboard, with two pipe cleaners glued in between. Add two more colors of felt, followed by a black felt pupil. Wrap the pipe cleaners around the top of the headband to secure.

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Note: You could also use this method of felt-glued-onto-thin-cardboard to make horn shapes, too, another version that we skipped.

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Travis loved making silly monster faces.

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And we even had an appearance from Baby Monster!

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Mini Mask

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Mini Mask (7)

This cute mask will make your toddler laugh and might lead to lots more dress-up play!

To make the mask, cut a rectangle from paper that is 6×4 inches. Veronika loved helping me draw lines along a ruler!

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Place a quarter in the center and trace around it for a nose, then repeat for the eyes.

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Now add lots of silly features with crayons! While I worked on the “real” version, I gave Veronika extra paper and crayons to draw too. Side-by-side art like this is a great way to involve toddlers in crafts that are beyond their skill level; it makes them feel like big helpers.

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Cut out the mask, as well as the eye and nose holes. I showed her how to hold it up to her face.

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And to my own!

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At the same time, I had dragged over our box of dress up supplies and she immediately latched on to the idea of combining the mask with a costume.

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We added hats, capes, accessories and more as she held up the mask to her face.

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I quickly realized we needed a handle of some sort, so I taped a craft stick to the mask that she could hold on to as she lifted it toward her face. She loved the silly expression I had drawn, and sometimes just wanted to look at it and giggle!

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I love crafts like this that might seem small and quick, but which easily lead to an extension of play. One small mask kept her busy with the dress-up box for nearly half an hour!

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