Ok, so here's part 2 of the tutorial on my recently made quiet book:
For Numbers I cut out number shapes in felt and strips of grosgrain ribbon. I strung the matching number of shaped beads on each ribbon strip and stitched the ends so the beads will slide.
For Sandwich Snackin', I cut out a fridge shape in gray felt & stitched on the "hinge" side and cut out a circle for the opposite page's plate.
To add some pizazz to the plate (and to each page), I used multi-colored thread. It's kind of hard to see, but it's an easy to do embellishment and it also serves as a seam to attach 2 pages together. I sewed on the fuzzy half of velcro to both so the sandwich "ingredients" would stick to the pages.
I sewed 2 bits of velcro - one side rough, the other fuzzy to all sandwich items, except the top piece of bread (just one side fuzzy on that), so they would stack properly and all store within the fridge.
Doesn't that faux sandwich look tasty!
For Dress-up I freehand drew two people shapes and stitched them to the background felt. I used embroidery floss for the faces (french knots & backstitches for the eyes/noses and mouths respectively). The girl's hair is ric-rac, the boy's is felt.
I used more of the grosgrain to stitch on the shapes of hangers in the closet.
Also, as promised, here are some pages of the quiet book my mom made for me ages ago. It still looks freshly made and hasn't aged a day since 1979. Me on the other hand....well it's 30yrs later and now I'm the one making a quiet book. Yes, that makes me feel O-L-D, but check out these cool page designs:
My kids and I still love this book!
Thanks to all you wonderful people who have left such sweet compliments on my juggling new baby + 3 kids + crafting + homeschooling. You remind me when I'm feeling overwhelmed & like life is a mess, that I am actually doing pretty well! My "me" time is non-existent and I have severely dropped my standards of what is a clean house, but I know I'm giving my all to the kids, which is the whole point, right?
One thing that has made that easier was to compile a bunch of fun activity stuff in the weeks before baby - that has been a lifesaver with the demands on my time & helping my kids not feel "baby attention resentment" as much. I found some cool stuff like Wikki Stix, Brain Noodles & invisible ink activity books, but I also wanted to make something special for them.
So, I did a Quiet Book. I still have the one my mom made for me back when I was a toddler and it's still awesome. I saw a few fab ones online and decided to make mine in the days before baby arrived. A few pages are ideas from How To Make A Quiet Book like the mail box & dress-up and the rest are ones I designed myself. Everything is made from stuff I made on-hand, so while it took a bit of time, it was really cheap to do and it has been a big hit with my kids, so worth the work. Since there are a lot of pages, I'm breaking this up into several entries with some how-to tips so you can make your own & please send links if you do!
Just A Note: Obviously I'm sharing these designs for personal use (not to be sold) and please credit me if using my page designs/pics. Thanks!!
You'll Need:
Materials - 8.5 x 11 felt - assorted colors
fabric scraps, ribbons, ric rac, misc beads, pipe cleaners
velcro, thread, embroidery floss, snaps, glue, etc.
eyelets & hammer
For Feed The Fish I sewed on a freehand fish bowl applique and then used elastic thread to thread on the fish beads. The fish food is velcro-ed on, so it can be removed to "feed the fish" and then little hands can make the fish swim to the top.
For Flower Garden I cut out some flower shapes in felt and then sewed them on to pipe cleaners. I fringe cut some felt for grass and stitched on some 1 inch pieces of elastic in loop shapes to attach the flowers to the page. On the opposite page I cut out a vase shaped piece of scrap fabric and stitched on some decorative ric-rac and then stitched it to the page (obviously leaving the top open, so flowers can be arranged in it).
For Mail Call simply cut out a mailbox shaped piece of fabric and cut a slot opening and then stitch on. You can stitch MAIL (or cheat like I did and use puffy paint) on it. I added a pocket on the other side with some folded & glued pieces of felt to make letters & postcards to put in or you can use/make paper mail for it.
For The Four Seasons I stitched on ribbon to make 4 separate rectangles on a piece of light blue felt and then freehand drew the beach items, tree, umbrella in felt, cut them out and stitched them on. For the weather elements (cloud, sun, leaf & snowman) I drew and then cut those out & stitched a snap on the backside & the opposite part of the snap onto the page. I used star shaped beads for the snowflakes in the winter scene. The pocket to hold the snap-on pieces was fashioned out of some vintage 70s quilted scrap that is made to look like denim.
Click HERE for more pages & pics of my mom's original quiet book for even more ideas.
I'll admit this week was a bit of a challenge. Baby had some rough nights & demanding days, we officially started homeschool for 2009-10, we attempted to get out of the house a bit, had our first toddler ER stitches experience and basically tried to have some semblance of "normal" life. Well, some things went better than others & I was frazzled/worn out on multiple occasions. I'm blessed with pretty good kids, but going from 2 to 3 has been a big change. We were lucky enough to get some good blocks of time most days for school and mixing our core stuff with Tot School Feelings theme worked well now that I'm juggling several ages here.
Obviously my down time to sew/craft is drastically reduced. I now realize that my sewing has been a major stress reliever for me & not being able to do much during this high stress time has had an impact. I found a few tiny bits of time to work on a quick baby blanket with some marshmallow-soft fabric I'd had squirreled away since winter. Fall is coming up fast here, so I wanted to have a winter weight blanket ready.
While in the middle of making it, I read about Greyson's Gift on a few other blogs and decided to squeeze in making a mini blanket for this wonderful cause. Meryntha, the blogger who came up with this idea from her own experience, has put a call out for all crafters to donate their skills & a little fabric to make mini blankets for NICU & stillborn babies. Although life has been crazy lately, I know I'm lucky to have a healthy, beautiful baby and my current stress is nothing compared to parents facing those difficult experiences. I'm happy to share my sewing skills & the little free time I have for something so special and hope some of you will too. All the details of what is needed and where to send them are on Meryntha's blog, please have a look and help if you can!
It's nearly two weeks now since our baby girl arrived and life is starting to take on a sort of schedule, albeit not a very productive one. Sleep is definitely interrupted, so our mornings are pretty much a loss. The day doesn't really start for us until about noon (when we're all finally conscious, dressed & fed).
I'm going to attempt to start our first week of the new homeschool year on Monday, but it's 50/50 whether we'll be able to pull it off or be a bit part-time for a while. Besides the challenge of adding in a new baby, our 3.5yr old will be home instead of in preschool this year. I have some lesson plans to help stay organized, but I'm hoping to still have themes to keep things interesting for us all. When we first started homeschooling and just used lesson plans, it began to feel chore-like after a while and more about checking things off than enjoying learning.
I decided to ease into our new routine the past week by using some great ideas from Carisa at Tot School. I made the Feelings Tot Book and got a bunch of great books & dvds on the topic from our local library.
Both my guys (ages 3 & 6) loved doing the activities in the lap book. Declan has been carrying around the emotion faces every morning now and saying what each expression means as he looks them over. We had him recognize and read the letters on the ones with words and then have Ethan read each word to him. They enjoyed hearing the Mo Willems Piggie & Elephant books, as well as the Mr. & Little Miss ones (that I loved as a kid too) and Ethan read a few of the other books to us for practice. I tried to have a good mix of items that showed emotions in real people, animals and pretend characters, so they could recognize feelings in various settings. My personal favorite was How Are You Peeling? by Saxton Freymann, because it is so darn cute & accurate in showing expressions on real fruits & vegetables.
We also spent a lot of time talking about what feelings we experience and what makes us feel that way and how our baby expresses her feelings since she can't tell us what's going on. The guys also spent a lot of time playing together and working on sharing, listening to each other and resolving disputes. I think it was a success, so I'm hopeful the next week will go well.
We got these gorgeous flowers from my parents when our baby was born last week and the crafter in me immediately thought "how could I duplicate this?"
Upon closer examination I found these tall stems were double wrapped with ribbon to make the "topiary" part and then stuck into florist foam in the base. The lower foliage and flowers were also stuck into the foam so you don't see anything but the beautiful flowers, but everything is really sturdy. So cute, unusual and simple - and they still look perfect despite being over a week old! Will have to try to do this myself when the need for a floral gift or centerpiece arises.
I've gotten a bit behind with my blog reading & writing since last week, but with a good reason: our baby girl arrived on Sunday, August 30th! Introducing Serena Emmeline, our little flower fairy, and the reason for all my crafty baby projects over the past year. We are all happy & healthy (and tired!), but once things settle down I'm looking forward to being able to showing my projects on this real little person and post some of the things I've been working on for the proud big brothers:)
For Sandwich Snackin', I cut out a fridge shape in gray felt & stitched on the "hinge" side and cut out a circle for the opposite page's plate.
To add some pizazz to the plate (and to each page), I used multi-colored thread. It's kind of hard to see, but it's an easy to do embellishment and it also serves as a seam to attach 2 pages together. I sewed on the fuzzy half of velcro to both so the sandwich "ingredients" would stick to the pages.
I sewed 2 bits of velcro - one side rough, the other fuzzy to all sandwich items, except the top piece of bread (just one side fuzzy on that), so they would stack properly and all store within the fridge.
Doesn't that faux sandwich look tasty!
For Dress-up I freehand drew two people shapes and stitched them to the background felt. I used embroidery floss for the faces (french knots & backstitches for the eyes/noses and mouths respectively). The girl's hair is ric-rac, the boy's is felt.
I used more of the grosgrain to stitch on the shapes of hangers in the closet.
Also, as promised, here are some pages of the quiet book my mom made for me ages ago. It still looks freshly made and hasn't aged a day since 1979. Me on the other hand....well it's 30yrs later and now I'm the one making a quiet book. Yes, that makes me feel O-L-D, but check out these cool page designs:
