Shirt Re-Design

I bought this shirt a month or two ago on clearance, and I've been planning on shortening the sleeves ever since.  I finally got around to it.  The shirt was cute with long sleeves, but I want to wear it now and it's just too dang hot here in SC.  

What it looked like with one long sleeve S,orry, forgot to take the pic before :)

 Both sleeves off!

 I wanted to add ruffles to the sleeves as a hem to match the ruffles down the front of the shirt.  Here's how I did it.

 Iron the long rectangle flat.

 And then I forgot to take pics of the rest.  Ha ha. Sorry.  Basically, I hemmed one side of the rectangle then sewed a basting stitch along the other long side, pulling the thread to ruffle it.  I attached it to either sleeve, and wallah! (how do you spell that?)

 The ruffled sleeve.  Doesn't look perfect, but I like it much better.  I will definitely wear this shirt now.  I'll even let you in on a little secret about myself and my sewing skills (or lack thereof).  Since I'm still pretty new at this, most projects still take me twice as long (or longer) as they should.  For instance, I unpicked my ruffle and re-cut the sleeves after sewing the first one on because I didn't like the way they were shaped.  I re-sewed that ruffle on and proceeded to the next.  Upon finishing, I finally looked at it and realized that I had sewn it on inside-out, with the seam on the outside.  Ugh!  I had to unpick the whole dang thing again.  I make these silly kinds of mistakes all the time in sewing.  But hey, someday I'll understand and get things done right the first time, won't I?  At least that is my hope.

 My wonderful modeling skills.  I apologize that half of my head is cut off.  The first two attempts cut off my entire head, and I was tired of re-positioning the camera.  So this is as good as it gets.

 What do you think?  Much better with the shorter sleeves?  I think so.

Also, don't mind the mismatched plaid shorts. :) That's just what I was wearing the day I finished the shirt.