Guest Post: Aladdin's Cove of Dress Up

Any student will know that a large part of student life is fancy dress. Themed nights happen weekly and it gives the opportunity to have fun with friends and go all out. People also have the common misconception that it has to be expensive, but that is not the case, if you simply swap clothes with one another and search charity shops you can look brilliant on a budget of next to nothing.

Flora and Fauna - A Lion
For a friends 19th birthday she wanted a big bash, a proper celebration, and her theme for the night was your favourite flora and fauna. I chose to go as a lion. My first choice was a penguin but unless i wanted to spend a fortune it would not have happened.

• Hair - Backcombed to within an inch of its life - not fun to comb out the next day
• Face - Yellow face paint that lasts forever and is only £3 and a good friend (JS) who is very creative and will willingly do all my makeup :)
• T-shirt - Bought from a charity shop for £1.75. Is a size 16/18 but when tucked into a skirt it doesn't really matter
• Skirt - Bought as a present from my friend RK for my birthday
• Tights - Borrowed off FH. I later destroyed said tights and they are now in the bin

End of Exams - Pirate Night
As a celebration of the end of our exam period we all decided to go out in Pirate fancy dress. This is one of the simplest fancy dress ideas to do. It doesn't require too much effort and can be done on a very small budget.

The picture, regrettably, is a bit blurry, but what can be seen is that:

• Hair - Ruffled and moose used with plaits tied randomly throughout and left over pieces of material tied into it.
• Jewellery - Necklace that was bought from Primark about 2 years ago
• Shirt - Bought from a charity shop. It is a mens XL shirt that was only about £4. I had all intention to rip it up and thanks to JS it was done beautifully. 

Halloween - Cat

When looking back at the make up of this outfit, very little of it actually belongs to me. I guess this is the upside of living in a house of girls. I never used to go all out for Halloween, but this year i thought, why not? We were all going on a Halloween night out and i enjoyed the dressing up part of it.

• Ears - Borrowed off RK, i did have a mask given to me but wearing glasses gets in the way of masks
• Hair - Backcombed
• Make-up - The white face paint was borrowed and applied by friends, me not being very good at make up an' all. As was the black for the eyes and whiskers etc.
• Necklace - Bought as a present from my friend RL when she visited London one year
• T-shirt - Already mine. Bought from Topshop.
• Skirt - This was before i bought a body con skirt for myself so i borrowed this one off RK (as everything seems to be)
• Arm Warmers - In an attempt to look like a had paws i borrowed some arm warmers off RK because she own lots of them and leg warmers. Them being white did cause a problem when fake blood was flying round left, right and centre.

Fresher Week - School Girl
Every freshers week has to have a school uniform night. This is THE simplest and cheapest costume around as everyone already owns the majority of it from their days at school. I knew about the school night before arriving at university, so was able to do a bit of preparation shopping!

• Shirt - Used from when i was at school
• Tie - Old prefect tie from Secondary school
• Skirt - Bought for £1 from Primark before arriving at Uni.
• Socks - 2 pairs for £1 in Tesco, i went halves with CH.

Here are just some of the fancy dress costumes i have done and I'm sure more will be on the cards in the next 3 years i am here. Other ideas include doctors and nurses that is planned for my friend SB's birthday, Mexican night where we eat nachos and drink Tequila, Chav night where we are orange and Cowboy v Indian night (which i have already done, just have no pictures of it...). I shall also be dressing up when i return to Derby with my sister (who's lovely blog you are reading).

I hope this shows that dressing up for nights out and having theme nights are fun and that they don't need to be expensive, as long as you know where to look for your costumes.

Vicky :) Girl About Scarborough