Fashion Playtes: Design Your Own Girls’ Clothing (Review & Giveaway)

My oldest daughter has hit the picky stage. Little Miss Fashion Plate hates everything I choose for her. Her grandma has started taking her shopping for birthdays instead of buying her gifts. And, even then, she has trouble finding whatever it is she sees in that preteen head of hers.

“I really like this shirt, except for…”

“I would get these pants, but I don’t like…”

“I wish this outfit had…”

Enter Fashion Playtes.

They’re throwing a life raft to a mom at the end of her rope. Girls have the opportunity to design their own clothes, and have them custom made just for her! The hubby & I bought her a gift certificate for Christmas—it said “Since we obviously can’t pick out clothes you like, we thought you could design your own.”

Stacia used her certificate (along with a bonus Fashion Playtes sent a long for our review) last month, and she couldn’t be more thrilled with her selections! She had a lot of fun choosing outfits, tweaking colors & adding embellishments.

Each item on the site starts with a base style & price. You can change the color, add ribbons, sparkles, ruffles & more to finalize your design. Girls can even customize the clothing label—imagine how cool a tween would feel walking around with a Designed by Me label on her shirt.

We anxiously awaited her shipment, and it arrived about 3 weeks after she placed her order. This is stated clearly on the site, but it is still a bit of a bummer to wait so long after such an exciting ordering experience. Of course, as I reminded my daughter, custom orders will take time.

She just couldn’t wait to try on her new clothes. I only hoped the quality wouldn’t be too awful, but I didn’t have high hopes since the prices seemed a bit too low for custom designs. However, we were both pleasantly surprised! The order arrived a few days sooner than expected and the quality is fantastic! The material is thick & looks great, with tight stitching—I honestly expected thin shirts & shoddy work. I am thrilled to be wrong.

Stacia chose a matched lounge set, adding a bit of color to the hem. She is very much into basics, but we tend to find a lot of frills when we shop in stores. She also chose a black tank with a polka-dotted hem. That one surprised me, but she loves it! She got a little fancier with her bag. She chose a terry bag for our pool & water park trips, adding a crystal flower to the front. She loves it so much, she has decided to save it as her school bag.

In fact, all 3 girls want to design their very own first day of school outfits. I guess we better get started on that—they go back to school in 48 days (not that I’m counting or anything)! At least we’ll have a coupon to use to save us a bit of money. It can get a little pricey if they add too many embellishments. That’s probably my only complaint. Of course, it’s still better than buying perfectly good clothes that she hides in the bottom of her drawer.

Stacia’s only complaint is that she wants more! More styles, more colors, more embellishments. She’s having so much fun with it, she wants to play with even more. And, she’ll have the chance when we place our next order for school clothes with coupon code inexpensive10—go ahead! That’s good for $10 off your order at Fashion Playtes.

Plus, ou have the chance to win a $20 gift certificate! Simply leave a comment here, letting us know which style you would choose to design. You can earn additional entries by:

• Subscribing to our site by email or RSS
• Following Inexpensively and Fashion Playtes on Twitter
• Writing about this giveaway (blog, forum, public Facebook note)
• Tweeting about this giveaway: Win a @FashionPlaytes gift certificate from @Inexpensively! {link}

For your extra entries to be counted, be sure to leave an additional comment directing us to your entry. Only one additional entry per method (i.e. While multiple tweets are appreciated it, only one will count as a drawing entry.) The contest runs until July 13th at 11:59pm est. One winner will be notified by email on July 14th and receive a $20 gift certificate to Fashion Playtes. Winner will have 48 hours to complete the claim form or a new winner will be chosen.

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There are numerous products and tools designed to help you live your life. Some will work, while others won’t. Each Tuesday, we’ll share something we’ve tried so you won’t have to spend money until you know it’s worth it! Our selections usually include items that will also save your family money while others will save you time or just make your inexpensive life easier to manage. I was provided with a gift certficate from the company through Business 2 Blogger to try for this review, but the opinion is 100% real.