Page 57 - Coffee County

poured in. Theirs is only one of a few businesses that will monogram items that are purchased and bought from other locations as well as from the items they sell. They will monogram on anything they can ft in their machines, from motorcycle and automobile seat covers to guitar straps, to horse blankets. Moreover, all of this business is generated from simple word-of-mouth. No formal advertising has been done. They have even labeled themselves as a personal shopper for some. Clients from out of town will call and give them a price range, ask them to select an item, monogram it, and then ship it to the recipient. One would think that full-time jobs and a successful monogramming business would keep them so busy that they would not have time for anything else. But not these two. Not only did they continue their already successful endeavors, but they added designing and creating dresses for little girls to the mix.

While many of their undertakings began because of the love they had for sewing, the next major endeavor

grew from what means the most to both of them – family. Cindy came from a family flled with boys. She had brothers. Her brothers had boys. She had boys. Her frst grandchild was Case Snipes, another little boy. After almost ffty years of no girls in the family, her granddaughter Raegan Snipes, was born in 2008. Even though Cindy had sewn for relatives in her family, she had not had a little girl of her own. When Raegan came into her life, Cindy began thinking about the type of clothing she wanted to make for her little granddaughter. She knew from the training that she received from Baboo, simple traditional styles would be the way to go. With that in mind, Rae Rae’s and BFF, two clothing lines, were created. The two ladies once again collaborated to bring the styles to Douglas and surrounding areas. They agreed to use the traditional designs and add a little of their own ideas for a variation in the style. The two most popular styles are pillowcase dresses and A-line dresses. Pillowcase dresses do not have to actually be made from

pillowcases. They can be cut from a pattern and pieced together. They are reminiscent of the old time feed sack dresses that many of the grandmothers in the area remember wearing when they were young. A-line dresses are a time-honored style that can be kept very simple or adorned with ribbons or trim. When they frst started, they would have fve or six dresses on hand to sell, now they keep around 1,000 ready to sell. With a business growing by leaps and bounds, they called in help from the people they depend on the most – the family. Creating the clothes is done as an assembly line. It is not an assembly line like one might see in a factory setting with people toiling away over heavy machinery. This assembly line is done like clockwork by family members and many times it has been done in the living room of one of their homes. One person will cut out the patterns on the cloth, one will sew the pieces together, and as an important step to creating a high quality product, each seam will be pressed by Baboo. Other members of the family participate in the process as

Not only do they sew clothes, they make a wide variety of items that are for sell at the Mall of Douglas. Their artistic endeavors are only limited by their imaginations. The pair has been approached several times about taking their products to the Atlanta Mart.