The other day I was just looking around on the internet, Twitter, etc. and came across this great tutorial for a sewn journal. I was intrigued by the idea of sewing paper and decided The Tot could use a sketch book. Maybe that would make waiting in line, waiting rooms, etc. a little easier. And, as I have a gazillion sheets of scrapbooking paper hanging around making me feel guilty that I haven’t scrapbooked The Tot’s life, I figured I might as well put them to good use.

I swear this thing took me all of 15 minutes from start to finish. Easy as pie. And The Tot loved it! Since I didn’t happen to have any printed paper that was of card stock heftiness, I took a plain dark pink piece of “card stock” type paper and sewed a thinner printed piece on it for decoration. And I used just copy paper for the inside. Super easy and fun to make!

These days The Tot is very into Angelina Ballerina and routinely wants to wear her leotard, tights, ballet shoes (thank you Cousin Amy!) and 5 tutus. Yes, five. One is attached to said leotard but the other 4 have been randomly picked up or acquired over the past year or two. Let’s just say they’re starting to look a bit, well, sad. So I looked around for a tutu tutorial (say that 5 times fast!) and found plenty! I went with a no-sew tutu which is ironic because all I want to do these days is sew. But it fit my purposes and I had the tulle so it was the project of the day. Well, okay, two days because I just couldn’t quite get it together enough yesterday. But today I finished one and ran out of material for the second but got 3/4 of the way done with it.

I went with this one because she had great tips about how to cut the tulle and it just looked so darned easy! I have to tell you, it was easy. I was able to finish one and most of another during the hour and a half that The Tot was napping. I would have finished the other if I hadn’t run out of light pink tulle. I could have substituted a few pieces of hot pink tulle but The Tot would have had NONE of that! She made it clear that she was only interested in light pink. And that was even with the Directv guy there installing stuff which distracted me a teensy bit.

Well enough chatter, on to the pics. I have to tell you, I am NOT a photographer and the pics do not do the tutu justice. Just try one yourself and you will see how great they look. I will be making more of these…

Next, I’m going to sew little lavender flowers on the tutu to make it more special…that means a trip to either the fabric store or the craft store. That can’t be bad, can it?

Hey there! Just popping in to let you know about a very cool diy sketch book/journal I found through a blog post at shivayanaturals that orginated at Susie Ghahremani’s blog It looks super-cool and very easy. I will be trying this tomorrow as The Tot always wants to scribble on my To Do Lists…

It’s my party and I’ll blog if I want to even if I don’t have pictures to post! I just feel like blogging today. Maybe it’s because I don’t have time to and we all want what we don’t have, right? Last night was just one of Those Nights. My Tot has Type 1 diabetes which means I test her blood sugar and give her insulin shots all day long. And sometimes into the night. At bed time last night her blood sugar was too low so I gave her a snack and knew I should test again in a couple of hours to make sure it came up and stayed up. Because diabetes in a toddler is tricky like that. So I tested at 10:30 and she was too high. We are relatively new to this so I wasn’t really confident treating a high, assuming it would just lower during the night. I set my alarm for 1:30 to test again just to make sure and because, call me crazy, I just didn’t want to wake up to a near-comatose child whose blood sugar was at a critical level in the morning. Still too high at 1:30 but a little lower than before.

THEN at 2:30 I hear an “I FORGOT! I FORGOT!” over the baby monitor (long story as to while I still have a baby monitor in my room). So I go in her room and she says she forgot to go get Mommy. In TotSpeak, that means I wanted to come get Mommy but I didn’t for some reason that I won’t share with you and you have to guess. I guessed that it was because I hadn’t put on the night light last night and she was scared because it was too dark. So I asked her what was wrong and the answer I got was “I’m not sleepy anymore.” Gak! So I laid with her in bed for a few minutes (her toddler bed…kinda funny) and then told her I was going to go back to Mommy’s bed and sleep. She wanted to come with me. Hm. If it were 4 am, maybe. 2:30, not so much. So I told her I would turn her bed time music on and she should try to get more sleep. She bought that and the rest of the night was uneventful, thank God. She has done this once before and I had hoped it wouldn’t happen again, especially in light of how “3″ she has been lately and with the middle of the night blood sugar checks I need to do from time to time. I’m not a fan of losing sleep.

Despite the “3-ness” and middle of the night shenanigans (or maybe because of them…sewing helps me relax), I have been finishing up a few projects for the Littlest Ones. Yesterday I finished a cute pair of baby booties that have a flannel lining and finally got around to taking pics of an adorable elephant-themed baby blanket and bib. And, I started work on another baby blanket/bib set. So, although I don’t have time to post pics right now, I will be back later. If I’m not napping…

The other day I was looking at the sad excuse for a used-to-be-decent Costco couch pillow that currently resides on my big comfy chair in the living room and thought “Good Lord! How have I let this thing reside in my living room for so long in this condition? It needs a cover!” because, of course, I don’t want to throw it out and get a new one. That would be wasteful. So I started to go through my stash looking for suitable material. All of my flannel was spoken for with other pending projects and fleece just didn’t seem like a good fit. None of the cotton I had seemed right either. Then I spotted the Robert Kaufman “Moana Lani” faux bark cloth that I had bought 7 or so yards of (no joke!) years ago and had not used yet. Perfect!

So I started the project while The Tot was napping and, between dishes and laundry, of course, had finished most of it before she woke up. I was able to finish the rest really quick after dinner while The Tot was playing with Daddy.

I decided to make an “envelope” pillow case because it’s easy to make and easy to take off and throw in the wash. I measured my pillow side to side and up to down, added 1/2 inch (for 1/4 inch seam allowance) and cut a front square. Then I took 2/3 of the side to side measurement, added 1.5 inches for a heft rolled over seam because it makes the hem look more solid and cut two of these. I assembled everything right sides together and sewed around the edges. I sewed around the edges one more time and zig-zagged as well for durability and because, well, I’m compulsive like that. Turned it right side out, stuck the pillow in and viola! No more sad-sack, near-death Costco pillow!

Here’s some pics for you:

The pic on the top is of the front and the other two are of the “envelope”. It’s a super-easy way to add a little color to the living room or bed room and/or just change things up!

I have been wanting to make this blanket for a couple of months now and just never got one of those “round-to-its”. A while back someone convo’d me about a larger version of the hot pink and black Jr. Diva Blanket to which I replied that I would be happy to do that. They didn’t return my message so I assume they either decided against the idea or went with someone else to make it. Oh well. In that couple of days during which I was waiting for a response, before it was clear that one was not going to be received, I bought the material that I would need because I liked the idea of a larger Diva Blanket. Something so eye-catching and so, well, PINK really appealed to me. I washed the material. I dried the material. I put the material away and got busy with other projects.

But recently the Junior Diva sold offline and it prompted me to pull out the hot pink fleece and get to work! And I have to say, I LOVE this blanket! I started to sew it and, while my eyes went a little wonky whilst sewing due to the eensy weensy polka dots, the more I sewed, the more I loved it! There is something about the color combination that is just so indulgent and diva-licious! The edges are top-stitched and there is a stitched border 6.5″ from the edge, both for durability and to anchor the material to prevent shifting. Well, let me quit talking about it and show you some pictures!

So there you have it in all it’s hot-pink-ness. If I find another “round-to-it” I’m gonna make one for myself! But, for now, this one is going to www.SnugglebugDesigns.etsy.com

Well, I never got around to taking pics of the kimono shirt. I think it’s in the wash. I’ll try and do that soon. But I did take pics yesterday of the newest baby blanket AND a cute little outfit that I made for The Tot.

The blanket is a starry purple flannel affair with quilting around the stars and a soft, warm fleece backing. I used a dark purple fleece for the binding. Soooo soft and cuddly!

I’ve got to work on the pics a bit before I post it to my Etsy Shop . The blanket would be good for a boy or a girl but my backgrounds reflect my current bias toward all things girly. I happened to pick the pink Memory Board behind the blanket up at Ross yesterday to put sketches, notes, and pictures of all the ideas for things I just can’t get to right now and thought, “Hey, maybe I could use that as a backdrop”. Good idea, wrong product.

This cute outfit was just finished yesterday. I had sewn the pants a while ago. I knew I wanted to do something coordinating and yesterday I finally did it. Imagine that.

I appliqued the flower in matching material to a plain white tee that The Tot had in her drawer already and viola! Newness in the wardrobe. Gotta love it! Soon I’m going to make her a matching purse from this tutorial .

The best part is seeing The Tot’s face when she sees the things I make for her. Her little eyes light up and she smiles real big. I’m lucky she’s into the girly ruffles and foo-foo things right now…It’s so much fun!

The time? Where did it go? Do you have it? I don’t. I have NO idea how it got to be April 20th so dang quickly! Before you know it, it will be May and then June and the last year of our Mommy and Me will end. Then we will start our summer schedule. Which isn’t much different than our during-the-year schedule except that The Daddy will get home later which means I’ll have less time to sew. Unless I can get The Tot interested in something that is of a play-by-yourself nature. Not likely. But the upside to the summer schedule is that we go to the beach. A lot. And I love the beach. So does the Tot. So it’s all good. And summer means getting The Tot ready for preschool in the Fall. Preschool means I will then have 5 whole hours to myself each week! I have grand plans for how I will spend this time creating amazing amounts of lovely stitched things. Or maybe I will just do the grocery shopping without having to say “No. Put that down. Please don’t touch that. Will you help Mommy pick a pasta sauce? Come back here, please. Sorry, ma’am.”

So I realized the other day that my generously sized bibs drown our littlest family members. Although the upside is that they protect just about the entire baby, I thought they might like some pint-sized ones just for them. And maybe Momma would appreciate them, too. So I set to work on a smaller version of bib and here is what I came up with:

This little number is made from a cute baby jungle animal print flannel with a blue terry cloth backing. I’ll be repeating this with a more neutral cream terry backing as soon as I can get a minute. This one is available in my Etsy shop at www.SnugglebugDesigns.etsy.com

Next up, as soon as I get one of them “round to its”, I’ll be posting pics of a cute kimono shirt I made for The Tot from this pattern.

My mom liked the quilty-thingy I made for my brother so much in “Masculine Yet Snug-Buggly” that she wants two of her own for her couches. Turns out they DO go really, really well with her decor like I thought they would and she didn’t really wanna give it to my brother but, darn me, I had already told him about it so she couldn’t keep it for herself. So there’s my next project. My next two projects, to be exact. And my brother wants a larger version of the lap quilt I made for him for his bed. And there’s a possible custom order in the works…

Since I’ve done this one once before and I’m making two more of the same, it should go quick and easy (famous last words?) and shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for the larger version. It helps also that they’re pretty laid back customers…no real time frame so I can work on other stuff without feeling guilty if I need to. Gotta love it!