The only problem was leaving the boxes at Grandpa’s house – we were visiting from 1200 miles away !!

One of our children’s favourite imaginative play things was the dress-up box that I made one year for our middle daughter’s birthday. We didn’t have a lot of money that year, so I bought one of those large plastic totes on sale. That was the only out of pocket expense. I decorated the outside of it with stickers and pictures I’d cut out of magazines then decoupaged on. (If you weren’t giving it as a gift, this would be a great project to work on with the kids) Then I gathered up some old dresses, bead necklaces and shoes.

At that time in Canada, there was a children’s morning TV program called Mr. Dressup and he had a trunk with costumes in that he would dress up in. His trunk was called the Tickle Truck because sometime it wouldn’t open unless you tickled it. So I glue the letters Tickle Trunk to the lid of the tote.

It was a huge hit at the birthday party.

We added to the box as time went by with halloween costumes as well as cowboy hats and old army hats that our son loved wear when he was old enough to join in the play.

They would play with the things in that box for hours.

Another great imagine toy that ours played with a lot were puppets. Making the puppets and then creating plays for them is another activity that will keep children happily occupied for hours.