The Day I Made My First Kids T-Shirt

I did not start The Wishing Elephant because I had a grand entrepreneurial vision. I started it because I had a three month old baby, I had just been laid off from my pre-K teaching job during the recession, and I was trying to figure out how on earth people managed to pay their bills when life changed overnight.

I spent a lot of afternoons sitting on the living room floor with my baby, scrolling through Etsy and watching this strange new world of handmade businesses unfold. Back then Etsy felt like a giant online craft fair. People were selling knitted hats, hand poured candles, little handmade toys. Everything felt personal and scrappy and hopeful.

I had always loved making things, so one afternoon I went to the craft store and bought a pack of plain white Gerber onesies and some eco-felt. I cut out a little design, stitched it onto the onesie with my sewing machine, and photographed it on my son. The photo was nothing fancy. Just a baby on a blanket with a camera I barely knew how to use.

Then I listed it on Etsy and waited.

Nothing happened for a few days. I refreshed my email constantly like a lunatic. But one morning I woke up and there it was. My very first sale.

I still remember the feeling of packing that order. It felt enormous. I wrapped it up carefully and mailed it out like it was the most important package in the world. I took the money from that order and bought more supplies and made more designs. Then someone else bought one.

Looking back now, that tiny beginning eventually turned into The Wishing Elephant. A real brand. A studio. Employees. Thousands of shirts that ended up in family photos and memory boxes.

But the truth is it all started with one felt applique onesie, a sewing machine, and a baby who had no idea he was modeling the first product.