Shag pillow? Yes please.

I saw this on pinterest the other day and had to try it. It's official. I'm. in. love.
The tutorial I used called for jersey material from the fabric store. But since the hubs has kind of put the kibosh on spending money on crafty projects (especially since I'm really good at almost finishing them) and I'm kind of on a reuse-old-t-shirts streak, I used some old t-shirts instead. It took me three t-shirts to get enough strips. And I had to get a little creative with my cutting....
To make this pillow, you'll need about 285 1.5"x4" rectangles. You'll also need two 11"x15" pieces of fabric that coordinate to your shag fabric. I used some gray flannel that I had on hand.

On one of the 11"x15" pieces, draw lines every 3/4". You should get 19 lines. If, scratch that, when I make this pillow again, I'll draw a line about 3/4" - 1" from the top and bottom so I know where to start my sewing.

Then comes the fun part! Sewing! This pillow is VERY forgiving, so dive right in. You'll use 14-15 rectangles for each line. Just grab a rectangle, scrunch it up in the middle and sew it on. Easy peesy. Just be careful not to get your shag caught in your next line, as illustrated below. I only did that so you'd know what not to do.....and I'm having a love affair with my seam ripper.

Continue sewing on the rectangles until all of your lines are filled.

Then put the shagged (haha) piece shag-side down on top of the right side of the plain piece of fabric and sew the edges, leaving a hole to stuff it. (How many innuendos are in that sentence?) This took a little bit of time and patience and checking to make sure the shag wasn't getting in the seam.

Then turn it right-side out, stuff with fiber fill and hand sew the hole closed. (I think I might use a pillow form next time for a smoother looking finished product.) Voila! You have successfully made a fantastic shag pillow!

I'm kind of sickly obsessed with this pillow. I'm trying to decide how many shag pillows a girl can have before people start to question her sanity....

And if you're wondering what the babe was doing while I was making bibs, here he is! Just chillin' with some toys in his high chair like the big almost-four-month-old that he is.

Recycled T-Shirt Bibs

Before we moved, I went through all of my clothes and got rid of the stuff that I don't wear anymore. I had a ton of old t-shirts that had holes, or those nasty yellow stains in the pits, or a few spots of paint. The realist in me knew I should get rid of them, but the thrifty crafter in me wanted to save them for some unknown (and, let's be honest, probably to never come to fruition) project. I am happy to announce, I just used three of said t-shirts!

I've recently become addicted to Pinterest. (If you haven't checked it out, you definitely should. Just be warned, you'll likely become addicted.) Anyway, as I was snoopin' around on there the other day, I found this fantastic post for making baby bibs out of old t-shirts and thought I'd give it a whirl. Verdict? Super easy and pretty cute!

Here's how I made them:

1. Take a bib and trace it onto a piece of paper. Then cut it out, leaving about a half-inch margin.

2. Cut the arms and bottoms off of a t-shirt and then position the pattern so it's over the part of the shirt you want on the bib and cut it out. Repeat with flannel, terry cloth, that super soft fleecey stuff, whatever you have on hand. (Note: If I were a smarty pants, I would have put the flannel under the t-shirt, pinned the pattern to both and cut them out at the same time.)

3. Put the right sides together and sew around the edges, leaving an opening to flip the bib right-side-out.

4. Flip the bib right-side-out and iron. (Another note: DO NOT iron on the images on the t-shirt! Learned that one the hard way...)

5. Sew around the edges and sew the hole that you used to flip it right-side-out closed.

6. Sew velcro or snaps onto the ends.

7. Voila! A homemade and eco-friendly drool catcher!