costumes/materials/arts&crafts store?

Anybody knows where to get cheap costumes & props - for our play, or where to get cheap materials to make them?

Where are you located? How much per kid are you hoping to keep the cost to and what is the theme and age grou? When do you need them by? There are a multitude of solutions but will depend on the above.

I am in Tsing Yi, but willing to pick up anywhere. This is a group of primary school kids P4-6. And we want to do A Magic Paintbrush. So we need costumes for farmers, soldiers, Emperor. Cost? As cheap as possible, of course.

The markets in wanchai are great for cheap underwear - long tops and leggings that can have a tunic or cardboard cutout put on over them to make costumes for soldiers or as the basis for more surreal costumes like dressing kids up as water for the river etc. The Pottinger street lanes are great for hats, wigs and other dress up props. When we had a circus production I took pictures up to Shenzen to the Lowu fabric hall and one of the tailors made me 70+ costumes for monkeys, pony riders (with 3D horse heads coming out of lovely tunics) strong men, acrobats and the like. Each costume came out at around $70 plus material and since all the other mums didn't have to shlep around HK looking for bits and peices they were more than happy to pay it. I got costume ideas from the pattern books such as McCalls and Butterick which you can look at online or just google costumes and the type and you will get lots of pictures that you could show to the tailors in Shenzen. Also lots of cheap material there. What I do is get a blank card and write each child's name on it and do a quick measure of vital stats and the costume they need and ask the tailor to have these stapled/sewn on to each costume. Attach those to the drawing of the costume you want to save time. You could even leave the fabric choice up to them just specifying as cheap as possible.