Dress Up Pics and a Plea for Help

Alexia loves to hear about what I was like as a little girl. This morning before school we had ten minutes to kill so she hopped under a blanket on my lap and asked what I liked to play as a little girl. Talking to her brought back memories and got me thinking...

As a little girl I was way into all things girlie. I loved dresses and dolls, barbies and tea parties. I learned to paint my nails and hide the red nail polish spill on my bedspread at an early age. I would have stayed inside helping my mom cook, clean, and create over doing outside chores any day. One of my favorite things to do for fun as a little girl , second only to building playhouses out of old pallets my dad brought home, was playing dress up. I longed to be older and loved to dress the part. My foot size acquired the ability to wear real high heels long before my age supported it. My mother encouraged my habit. She scoured garage sales and came home with the most fabulous things for Alena and I to add to our dress up suitcase - real patent leather purses, sling back high heeled sandals, hats, wigs, and silky robes - which I am sure were nighties in their former days. I actually remember the day she brought home the suitcase. It too was a garage sale bargain. Sturdy as all get out we could both jump on it and it wouldn't budge. It was big and heavy and perfect with compartments for the gray and blonde wigs we had. There was a pocket for jewelry and one for shoes too. I wonder if my mom still has it - it would make a great stair stepper exercise thingy. Anyway... it was lovely and we put that suitcase full of fun things to good use. My mother brought out her huge costume jewelry and Grandma Teuscher donated used makeup containers to the cause. I was in hog heaven.

Alena and I probably at the ages of either four and five or five and six taken in Kirtland, NM.

This picture is of me during March of 1980 taken with boxes in the background showing the packing going on to move from Idaho.
In Georgia I turned three and loved playing house. I got dishes for my birthday to use with my mother's kitchen cupboard (in the background) and put them to good use. That dress I called my "spin around dress." I would spin and it would lift straight up and twirl with me. I loved it and my mom said I would ask to wear it a few times a week.
Dressing up for Pioneer day in Georgia - July 24th, 1980 (2 1/2 years old) My mom (you just have to love that woman!)- look at that wagon - pity the girl would had to drag me through all of that sand.
The blue elf costume became a dress up staple after the Kindergarten Christmas program. - Taken one month before my 6th birthday - Dec 1983. Man those eyebrows are hot! *snort*

People who know me know I am not a "toy mama." Toys these days don't just leave any room for imagination with all of their electronic movements and sounds - and good gravy, don't get me started on video games! So now on to my plea for help. This is for my sisters and sister in laws, mother and mother in law and any aunts too. So for everyone else, unless you have something fabulous (like a wig) no worries. Alexia's birthday is coming up. I'd like to create for her her own dress up suitcase. I have one to use - it's flowery and not suitable for public display anymore, but it will work just fine. Do any of you have any "real" dress up items you could donate to the cause? Something that you could affix a note to telling her who it was from and what you used it for. I'm thinking of things that were not expensive or too sentimental and would be fun for dress up. Things that would hold up to little girls using but nothing plastic or fake marketed to little girls. You know like real heels that are out of style instead of the plastic princess ones you buy in the toy department. Or costume jewelry you will never wear again instead of the mardi gra beads that break so easily. An old purse, used makeup containers and brushes - that kind of thing. I think it would be fun if each thing came from someone different so it had a history rather than all new stuff anyone can buy at the store. Thanks girls!