As my son would say, this is “EASY PEASY!”

The boys are always wanting to play dress-up, and the paper bag vest is a simple way to make a “costume” for many of the roles they dream up!

Big J is obsessed with being a tiger right now, so that was our goal with this project on this particular day.

What do you need for the basic vest?

Yep. Just a paper bag and scissors! The Trader Joe’s bags are a little smaller than most grocery store bags and fit my 3yo and 5yo just perfect. Pick your bag accordingly!

Now let’s get to work…

Cut straight up the middle of one broad side of the bag.

Next, cut an opening for the head and neck at the bottom of the bag.

The size of this opening will depend on the size of your child and it doesn’t have to be perfectly round, but remember to center the hole so it sits nicely on your child!

Arm holes are next. Cut one on each side of the bag {obviously!} and make them big enough for your child to move his/her arms easily!

All of the folds in the paper bag are great for finding the center of panels and such!

The top of these arm openings should be 1/2″ to 1″ from the bottom of the bag. {The bottom of the bag which will be the top of the vest – do I have you confused yet?!}

A front opening, a head opening, two arm openings and…

That’s it! The basic vest is done! Wasn’t that easy peasy?

Now comes the fun – decorating it!

We attempted to paint Big J’s vest orange…

but our paint just wasn’t cutting it on the paper bag…

so we went with gluing on orange construction paper.

Stripes were added and…

We have ourselves a tiger! {He was very proud that he helped make it, if you couldn’t tell!}

**This basic vest would be great to make into a cowboy vest, a spaceman suit {with foil and buttons and the like}, a bird {with lots of feathers glued on} or anything else your creative little ones can dream up!**

They’re not fancy, but these paper bag vests are easy and inexpensive enough to keep up with the ever-changing imaginations of our boys!

Hope you’re doing something fun this Friday! Have a wonderful weekend as well!