Snug-A-Bug-Blog

I have decided to expand the items I am selling at Etsy by introducing Lunenburg Bags.

The bags are large handbags that can be worn as a messenger bag or you can shorten the strap and wear as a shoulder bag. They have a zippered (8.5 x 8.0 inch) pocket as well as 4 pouches great for iphones, ipod pens, and sunglasses.

The bag is roomy 11.5 inches at the top and 15inches at the widest point, it is also deep measuring 16 inches, so you can easily carry books, an ipad or a towel for the beach. I hope to have them available at the beginning of September. If you are looking for a new bag for the market, school, diaper bag or just everyday. Keep checking back and I will post when they are available.

Posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 5:50 pm

I have a few new blanket styles coming in the next couple of weeks.

The first is Sunny Side of the Street.  It has a a bright print with birds, trees, houses and bicycles. The background is a light blue and white cross hatch. I have backed it with a sage green minky.

Posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 7:58 pm

Last Christmas I decided to make my nieces and nephews dress up clothes for their gifts. For the girls I made Cinderella dresses and a Pirate and Woody (from Toy Story) for the boys. The gifts went over well, thank goodness since I was sewing day and night for two weeks to get them in the mail in time for Christmas. My sisters both live in another province and we don’t get to see them much. Because of the distance I am not up on what toys they have or want. By making the gifts I was certain to give them something that they wouldn’t have and hopeful they would remember past January.

My youngest niece’s birthday is coming up in a couple weeks so I decided that I would make her a rag doll for her birthday. A couple years ago Martha Stewart had a segment on making ragdolls from by Black Apple on the show, I used that design as a jumping off spot for making my niece’s doll. You can find the original pattern and instructions on Martha Stewart’s website.

I increased the size of the doll to 155% and here are PDF of the pattern at the increased size, Black Apple Doll enlarged Head and Black Apple Doll enlarged Body and Legs. This pattern is not mine and is for personal use only not for commercial use.

My niece is fond of monkeys so I decided to use some of my sock monkey fabric scraps for the dress. I made the hair brown and added an embroidered applique of her name on the dress.

The Black Apple tutorial has you draw the face on the doll, you could hand embroider the face, or do as I did embroider the face on with an embroidery machine. I recently purchased an embroidery/sewing machine and have looked for any chance to embroider something. I do have the embroidery file available at my Etsy store.

I adjusted the pattern to fit the face, the hair was made slightly larger to fit the face. I also needed to adjust the pattern for the dress to attach to the face and hair properly.

Once I had cut out the head, hair, dress, arms and legs I laid out the pieces to see how they fit together and to check to see if I needed to make any adjustments.

I then began to put the doll together starting with top stitching the hair to the face. You then attach the front head to the front body and repeat with the back pieces and sew the arms and legs together leaving the top open to stuff. With right sides together pin stuffed arms and legs between the front and back. Make sure a little bit of the ends of the legs and arms are sticking out so you are sure to enclose the ends with the stitches, and leave a space unstitched so you can flip the doll right side out. Stuff the head and body of the doll and stitch up the opening.

The dolls are easy to make and personalize and make a great gift that will hopefully be cherished for years. Check the Martha Stewart’s website out for more complete instructions with pictures.

Posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 11:04 am

Concern about the environment has made me look at ways to improve our family’s carbon foot print. One of the easiest changes is to stop buying bottled water.

We have a filter to improve the taste of our water and I bought a couple Sigg bottles for me, Jay and Georgia. They are made from aluminum and don’t leach into your beverage, which makes them a great alternative to plastic. I picked our bottles up at http://www.reusablebags.com/

They also carry Klean Kanteen. The Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Sippy Cup includes a 12 oz stainless steel bottle, a sippy adapter and two Avent sippy spouts. which means you don’t need to worry about your toddler and bisphenol-a, BPA.

Posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Lately, it seems, every time you turn on the television, open a newspaper or magazine, you hear about another pregnant celebrity.

Julia Roberts began the the trend when she became pregnant with twins in 2004. Since then, stars like Jennifer Garner, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Minnie Driver, and Jessica Alba, have all started their families. The celebrities who have taken family life to the extreme are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Their ever expanding family includes 2 boys and 2 girls, and if you believe current celebrity gossip, twins are on the way.

I have wondered if this current celebrity boom has caused a baby boom in society as a whole. We are constantly bombarded with stories about the the lives of celebrities. We emulate their lives by following their trends—clothes, cars, and lifestyles—I think that may include children.

Have you been influenced to have a baby because of the celebrity baby boom?

Posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Once again I have to tell you how glad I am that we decided to teach Georgia sign language. She is beginning to use more and more verbal words but I am not always sure what she is saying. Since she does know some signs, she uses them while she is talking—making it much easier to understand what she wants.

I had originally thought that the signing would be primarily for when she was younger and couldn’t talk, but I find that she is using a lot more signs now and using them a lot more consistently than before.

We recently bought Baby Einstein – My First Signs as a supplement to our other Baby Signs DVD. it is a really good starter DVD with lots of basic signs that are easy to follow and remember. She enjoys watching it and the signs are repetitive which is great since it helps me remember them. That is one of the big challenges when you are teaching your baby signs, you are trying to learn them at the same time and remember what they mean.

My favourite sign is for “cereal.”

Read my previous experiences with signing:

• Georgia’s First Sign Revisted
• Georgia’s First Sign: How I Gave My Baby a Communication Headstart

Tags: baby, sign language, Baby Einstein, communication

Posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

Cafe press is now offering the Mothersucker Baby Wear in colours other than white.

The onsies are now available in pink and blue and the infant/toddler t-shirts are in blue, pink, and yellow.

The t-shirts are sized from 6 months to 4 years, and the onsies are 6-24 months.

They are a fun shower gift for the Mom who plans to breastfeed.

Tags: breastfeeding, shower gift, mom, baby, clothes, hip, new

Posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 4:18 pm

Friday’s Martha Stewart show featured a crafter who made the cutest sweaters for children.

They are made from adult sweaters that are shrunken and then turned into children’s sized sweaters. The instructions and the templates can be found on the Martha Stewart site. The woman who was doing the felting (the applying of the appliqué) also sells her sweaters on Etsy. They are very cute and you should check out her shop, Sweetest Thing Design.

I might try and make a cardigan for Georgia but the felting looked like a lot of work and may take a lot of patience to complete.

Posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Georgia was almost 1 year old when we started to teach her sign language to communicate early. She was quick to pick up the sign for “more”.

Since that time, she has learned a number of new signs including “milk”, “eat”, “change” and “dog”. She seems to go through spells where she uses her signs frequently then other times she rarely uses signs. I have found the real key to her signing is Jay and I—the more consistently we use the signs the more she uses them. Georgia is now beginning to verbally communicate—her favourite two words are “hi” and “cookie”—but is still using some of her signs.

Most studies of children who learn sign language show that they are quicker to communicate verbally and get less frustrated. I would definitely agree that Georgia doesn’t get easily frustrated and we have not had the complete meltdowns that I have seen with other babies her age. Can I say without a doubt that it is because of the early signing? No, but I am glad that we started using the sign language with her.

Read my previous post on our start with sign language, Georgia’s First Sign: How I Gave My Baby a Communication Headstart.

The two resources we used to get started with signing are:

• SIGN with your BABY Complete Learning Kit: US DVD Version, Book, Training Video (DVD), Quick Reference Guide
• Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, New Edition

Posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 11:00 am

Both Chocolate Blocks and Mosaic blankets are back for sale in the Snug-A-Bug Blankets Shop. I am all out of the Mosaic fabric, so this is the last blanket in that style.

Share some chocolate with your special Snug-A-Bug!

Posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 12:53 am