When you buy a Facconable shirt in New York City, EVEN if it was in the clearance section, you want it to fit right.

And when it doesn’t fit right, you don’t give up. You. Find. A. Way. To. Make. It. Work.

This shirt had been sitting in the back of my closet for years because it just, straight up, wasn’t flattering. Finally, when I was pregnant with our second child, I had an epiphany in the middle of the night (thanks, pregnancy insomnia): I’ll let out the side seam and wear it as a maternity shirt.

52 Cents to Convert a Collared Shirt to Maternity Wear SheJustGlows.com

I didn’t take any pictures as I was doing it, but all I did was put the shirt on and measure how much of a gap there was between the button and button-hole sides of the shirt (basically how many inches I needed before it would close properly). It was four inches. Then I doubled that number and cut out two long triangles (see dark blue fabric under my arm). So each triangle was eight inches at the bottom. (That seems like a lot but I wanted to allow for seam allowance and belly growth, as I’m only 7 months along.) Then I simply seam-ripped the side seam of the shirt, pinned the new inserts into it, and sewed them in!

And all it cost me was 52 cents in new fabric!

I LOVE changing old, wonderful things to make them WORK FOR ME in new ways. Now that’s a WIN!