Bugaboo's Hot Glue Quiet Book Part 2

Yesterday our special guest poster Kimberly from bugaboo, mini, mr & me shared her tutorial for making a quiet book with hot glue (see here for Part 1).  Today she's showing us how to add the finishing touches to the inside and outside of the book.  

It's bound to get pretty "puffy" on the inside when you start adding things to do, so you'll need a way to keep it shut up nice and tight.  Take two small rectangles of felt.  Put one on top of the other and place a button on top.  Hand sew the button on.  (I swear that's the only sewing you'll do)  Then glue in between the edges of the two felt rectangles.  Hot glue the bottom of the felt and button sandwich and stick it on to the front edge of the book in the middle.  Then, take a bit of ribbon or ric-rac, glue the two ends into a loop, hot glue the loop to the back edge of the book, across from the button.  Cover the hot glue-y mess with a small rectangle of felt.  

Closure!  By the way, you'll want to make sure there's a lot of give in the ric-rac because it's not stretchy and you'll need some room for the stuff inside.  OR, you could just use elastic...

Cut a pocket shape out of felt that's large enough to fit your doll.  I decorated mine so it kind of matched the button.  Hot glue around the curve and leave the top open.  Glue it to the front of the book.  You can decorate the rest any way you want.  I chose to write my daughter's name in ric-rac above the pocket.  Now your doll has a place to hang out while she's waiting to be played with.

Now we'll move inside the book.  Remember when I showed you that awful sketch up there?  It was a bedroom, right?  I made a few adjustments as I went (for instance, I couldn't comfortably fit the dresser in, so I left it out).  But the rest of this tutorial will show you how to make an interactive closet, window, bed, and clock.

For the closet, you'll need two brown rectangles, four small tan rectangles, a super skinny long black rectangle, a small black circle, and several key chain hook thingys.  For the outside of the closet, just hot glue the tan rectangles on one of the brown ones, and add the circle for the door knob.  For the inside, slide the key chain hooks onto the skinny black rectangle and hot glue them in place so there's a bit of space between each.  Then hot glue that whole thing onto the other brown rectangle towards the top.  Hangers!

Glue the inside rectangle to the book page where you want it.  Then run some glue down the edge of the outside rectangle and adhere it to the edge of the other rectangle.

Glue a small piece of black velcro - the hook side - onto the inside of the door of the closet.

Now you've got a closet the opens and closes with hangers inside and a latch to keep it closed.

Which means, you need some clothes to put in the closet.  You can make some super simple outfits for your doll by cutting two rectangles, one just a little wider than the other.  Then, cut the wider one straight across just off-center.  Glue a skinny strip of velcro (the rough side) to one side.  Then, shape the smaller rectangle into a shirt or dress - v neck, scoop neck, arm holes, whatever.  Glue along the side seams and shoulder seams and stick the two rectangles together.

You can make a ton of different clothes using this method and decorate them however you'd like.  I made a little ruffle out of ribbon for the purple dress, ric-rac along the orange dress, a big button (that actually works) for a vest, a piece of ruffly ribbon for a skirt, and pom pons to decorate the pajamas.

When you're done with the clothes, just hand sew some little jump rings to the back on top (whoops.  OK, now THAT'S the last of the sewing, promise.)  And clip the jump rings onto the hooks in the closet.

Every bedroom needs a window.  To let the sun in in the morning and to wish on stars at night.  So.  You will need a square of black and one of blue, four long skinny rectangles of brown, a white crescent and several white star shapes, a green bumpy shape, a yellow quarter circle, four bow shapes, and four curtain panel shapes.  Layer and hot glue the pieces as shown below to make a day window and a night window:

Glue the day window down onto the book page where you want it.  Then, glue the night window JUST at the top edge OVER the day window.  Glue a small piece of velcro to the book page above the windows.

Now you can start the day with the night window rolled up and secured with velcro and roll the night window down when it's time for bed.

Speaking of bed... you need to make one.  Where will your doll sleep otherwise?  First, construct the bed shape and glue it to the book page where you want it.  My initial shape is an oval for a rug under the bed, then two brown pieces that look like really wide, squat h's for the head and foot boards, and a cream colored rectangle for the mattress glued in between. Next, make the pillow - just two rounded rectangles, glued around three edges and stuck together, then stuffed with some batting and glued up tight.  Then glue some velcro to the back of the pillow.  Cut out a rounded blanket shape and glue on edge to the side of the bed.  Now you can roll it up out of the way, or tuck your doll in.  I decorated the pillow and mattress with pom-pons and the blanket with ric-rac.

To finish it off, I made a clock so you'll always know what time it is.  I simply glued a circle of felt to a circle of card stock for stability, then cut two rectangles for hands and used a brad to connect it all.  The little notches are drawn on with a sharpie.

Now, this is only the first page, but really you could stop there if you wanted.  

See, she's already thrilled!  Especially with that little stuffed teddy bear I added...

BUT, there are two other full pages of FUN!  A dining room and outdoors!  You'll have to visit my blog for the rest of the tutorials, though.

Just a peek...

Thanks to Cheryl for having me craft along, and thank YOU for checking out my no sew, all hot glue, felt busy book tutorial!  Hope to see you over at bugaboo!

Thanks for sharing such a great idea Kimberly!