I can fix that....

Leah will be 2 in July and I've decided that we're going to do an Elmo birthday party. Since I'm a bit of a planner, I found a custom Elmo shirt on Etsy and ordered it. Unfortunately, when it came, I was sorely disappointed in the size. I ordered a 3T because that's what size Leah is wearing right now. She even has a couple regular t-shirts that are 3T, so I was expecting the size to work. But it was like a night shirt:

I mean, it was practically down to her knees and past her elbows. Ridiculous! (Plus, when I paired it with the skirt I had made, it covered most of it and just looked dumb). So I emailed the woman who made it, told her it was HUGE, and asked if she had any sort of return or exchange policy on custom orders. She doesn't. (I then encouraged her to disclose in her listings that the sizes run big--as I perused her feedback, the common thread among neutral and negative comments was sizing).

So I decided I had a couple of options. First, I washed it on warm and dried it to see if it would shrink a little. It didn't. Then, after some encouragement from a couple of friends, I decided to try to take it in. I figured if it TOTALLY flopped, I could cut out the design and sew it on a shirt that fit. So I turned the shirt inside out and grabbed another t-shirt that fits her well and laid it on the Elmo shirt so that the tops lined up. I traced along the sides and under the arms and sewed a seam. Perfect! I could tell this was going to work. Then I turned the shirt back right side out, folded the bottom under, ironed the hem, and sewed it. Excellent. Did the same with each sleeve and VOILA!It fit! I was quite pleased with myself. And here is her whole birthday outfit:

Of course she'll wear some cute white sandals instead of socks. But it was like 48 degrees outside yesterday when I took this picture. We were definitely all wearing socks. :)