In between karate class, grocery shopping, auto maintenance appointments and general business planning, this fun 4th of July celebration banner nagged me into getting it finished. It sat on my cutting table calling to me while I cooked dinner, begging me to sew a seam, demanding that I go to another fabric store to find the white extra-wide double fold bias tape that was sold out at the first store to finish it. And I listened! (It’s hiding out in my shop now)

I listed this eco-friendly reusable baseball-themed birthday banner in my Etsy shop earlier this week and have tried since then to think up a clever or interesting post about it to no avail. Well, it sold today (yay!) but I thought I’d show you the finished product anyway since I previewed it in a previous post:

Instead of wax poetic about the banner, I will talk about how lucky I feel. As I was zipping down the road after dinner, headed to the post office to ship this little birthday treat, I realized that I love where I am. The panoramic view of the ocean that hits me when I drive out of our little street and onto the main intersection, the fact that the weather is such that I can wear a skirt, tank top and flips right now, and that I get to stay at home with my Petunia and be creative lightened my spirit this evening. There are things in my life that are almost unbearably difficult sometimes but they aren’t right now. Right now I feel lucky. I AM lucky. And I will remember that the roller-coaster always goes back up after it goes down when I “forget” how lucky I am.

I hope that you feel lucky today, too.

Sometimes over here at Snugglebug Designs it is pretty slow-going. Momma can be severely sleep-deprived from middle of the night blood sugar checks some days or there are a gazillion errands to run or my new-found zeal about getting back into shape (via P90X) takes up most of my time that used to be used for creativity. Since I posted last, I have made a teensy bit of progress on a new, sports-themed banner (a couple of them, actually) and I thought I’d give you a little sneak-peek! I love the contrast of the red stitching on this baseball themed one! It will hang by a red binding and have red letters.

I’m not quite as far on this one. I’ve only got the pennant pieces cut out but give me a couple of uninterrupted hours and I could make some real progress! Of course, I’m not holding my breath for that uninterrupted time. It will be finished like every other project is: one seam at a time, sneaking away while I am in the middle of making dinner while Petunia and The Daddy play outside. This one will have orange binding and letters, I think, although black or white could also work.

FUN!

I posted a while back about Petunia’s Birthday Banner and loved it so much that I made one for her preschool . And yesterday I finished the first one for the shop . I made this one out of mostly flannel because I had so many cute flannels to use in my stash! I also used a geometric patterned cotton that coordinated nicely. It all came together so well…it was such fun! I know I say that in all my posts but, really, isn’t that why I sew?

These are a great, eco-friendly way to celebrate! I’m also going to make some without lettering for room decor. There are so many cute prints to choose from…that will be the hardest part.

Just finished this cute little Happy Birthday banner for Petunia’s classroom today!

I’m starting on the first one that I’ll offer in my shop tonight! These are so cute I want to make 10 of them!

In Petunia’s room there is a chair. A chair of the rocker-glider variety. It has been in there in all of it’s clashing-with-the-room-decor glory for 4 years. I have been meaning to slip-cover it for 4 years. It was something that we already had before Petunia was born and decided it would work for a rocker when she was an infant, even though it didn’t match. Of course, in my mind, it was going to match before too long because I was going to slip-cover it. Yeah, not so fast Super-Mommy. Let’s just say it slipped farther and farther down the priority list as time went by. For some reason about a month ago I got a bug to get this project done. I’m not sure why. But that will happen to me. All of the sudden I am possessed with the desire to just get a project done and am super-focused (obsessed?) until that happens. The silly thing is that I think that I put it off so long because I thought it would take a long time to do. It didn’t. Typical.

I started by wrapping the fabric around the seat cushion and pinning it. I traced a line about 1 inch outside of the pins to give myself a seam allowance and a little wiggle room since this is the first slip cover I have made. I cut along the line, sewed the seams and created an envelope-style closure at the back. One tricky part is that the seat cushion has two little strips with Velcro at the back that wrap around the spindles on the chair back to hold the seat cushion on. I found a way around this with the envelope enclosure. I angled the fabric so that the fabric would leave room for the strips. Sewed lengths of Velcro on the enclosure so it would stay closed.

The back cushion was a little more tricky but still do-able. It has those same type of strips on the upper part of the cushion that wrap around the spindles to hold it in place so, I measured where they were, made button holes big enough for them to fit through, and there you have it! I used the same type of Velcro’d envelope enclosure for the back cushion. Easy to take off and wash!

As a bonus, I created a zippered pillow cover for a lumbar pillow that I had been using that now clashed with the new “throne”. The great thing about this project is that I used all materials that I already had! I love it when I can do that.

Okay, so Petunia’s birthday was two months ago but I’m just now getting around to posting about the reusable birthday banner I made for it. Typical. I’m thinking that celebrating Earth Day with Petunia put the thought in my head about what I do that’s “green” and led me to “Oh yeah, I forgot to blog about the birthday banner!” Better late than never, right?

I love how it turned out! I used all kinds of fabrics, mostly girly since, obviously, Petunia is a girl. But the possibilities are really endless in terms of what color combinations and themes you could use. Let me share with you how I did it. I cut triangles from all different kinds of material, ironed interfacing on the wrong side of all triangles, sewed the two long sides together with right sides together, turned them, ironed them, top-stitched them, appliqued the letters on the triangles, and then sewed a plain white binding onto the top with a functional but cute-looking zig-zag stitch. The most tedious part was printing the letters, and cutting them out of both paper and fabric. I looked for stencils but couldn’t find what I wanted so I just printed the letters out in a font I liked and, voila! Birthday banner. I’m thinking about adding these to the shop …

Last month I did a custom order for a friend of a friend who needed “wedding tutus” for her girls. They were headed to Hawaii for a wedding in which their girls would be flower girls. It was such a fun project! Layers upon layers of white sparkly tulle, satin ribbon and flower embellishments. Alas, only the eldest made it through the ceremony, the little one (2 years old) decided that she wasn’t that into it (2 year olds will do that, won’t they?) but they looked adorable! Here are a few pics of the eldest doing her flower girl duties:

I’ve listed it as a custom item in the shop and I’d love to do one for you! Check them out

Because of the successful sweater refashion, Petunia and I stopped by our local thrift establishment after karate class yesterday, specifically to find “stripey sweaters”. Petunia requested more “sweater clothes” and wanted them to be striped. Of course, when I enter with one thing in mind, of course other things jump right out at me, fighting for my attention much like Petunia does any time I’m on the phone (Mommy’s on the Phone Syndrome). So, as Petunia and I both got sidetracked from the stripey sweaters, we found an adorable straw purse for her and a glittery green, light-up-when-you-walk pair of Tinkerbell wedge-heeled sandals. I barely fought off the urge to go through their extensive section of patterns, only able to because we were short on time. We did also, however, find three fantastic options for “sweater clothes”! Two of them aren’t technically sweaters but they are still great candidates for leggings and skirts for the Little One.

Just finished this custom order for a baby blanket. The parents-to-be are Dallas Cowboys fans so this is an interpretation of such fan-hood! The blocks are star print cotton material and white flannel. The appliqued stars are made from blue fleece, terry cloth, and up-cycled white tee shirt jersey (husband’s tee shirt…he didn’t want it anymore, I promise!). It is backed with blue fleece and bound with star print cotton. The binding is machine sewn to the front and hand sewn in the back.

It was fun to see this one come together…