Quiet Book, Pt. I

Phew. Just finished this baby. Making a quiet book like this is a bit like childbirth. A lot of work in the moment, and you're sooo glad when you're done. But so worth it in the end, of course.

I thought it would be great to make something homemade for Annie for Christmas, and I've had my eye on tons of quiet book ideas for ages. I came up with some of the ideas on my own, but I got most my inspiration from blogs and Etsy. I think the important thing is to just do it how you like it, and tailor it to your kid's needs.

I really wanted to make this so the pages are removable. That way I could divvy them out among a few kids in the future, without fighting over one book. I just bought book rings at Walmart and made button holes in each page. They measure about 9x12" before finishing. Also, if she outgrows a page or ruins it, it's easily replacable. 

Pages 1 & 2:

I originally found the idea for this one here. 

Tying is a little advanced for a 1 1/2 year old, but I thought it was cute. I pretty much winged the shape of the ballet shoe out of felt. I had some leftover black ribbon from my party, so that's what I used for the ties. I added a little decorative stitch on the ribbon for fun.

Button flowers. I just used scraps I already had around my sewing room. The blue was actually already pieced like that, so I just cut out my shapes, sewed the blue to the green, and made my stems. The key on this one is to use all the same button sizes so all the flowers are interchangeable. I have an automatic button hole on my machine, so when I figured out the size of the first one, I was able to do all of them after that without adjusting anything. 

Pages 3 & 4:

Originally found the idea a few years ago on Homemade by Jill. Love her. Once again, I just winged it. I could have used ribbon as a border, but I didn't have any so I just zig zagged on some felt I cut into thin strips. The top window pops down and opens too. The finger puppet templates are also on Jill's website.

Mmm. Pie. I originally found this idea on a food-themed quiet book here, which was cute. This is a fun weaving activity. I used my pinking shears to make the zig zag edges on the crust. I love the food fabric underneath.

Pages 5 & 6:

My kid is mildly obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba. So of course, I had to make DJ Lance's boom box. This page was tricky because I had to rig it so it would open up. I ended up just making a whole separate boom box that was a tiny bit smaller, and attaching it to a base page that was the right size. See the base page? It's that orange/red print you can barely see.

Are those not the cutest finger puppets ever??

I kind of guessed on the sizes after doing the barn animals. I embroidered on the details, like Toodee's mouth and Brobee's stripes. Pretty sure this is my favorite page. 

Original idea here. 

I wanted to do other root vegetables, but I made the pockets too small so I had to stick with all carrots. I did the button holes in the brown first, and sewed pockets after using a piece of fabric on the back of the page. I put a tiny piece of floral wire between the front and back sides of the carrots, so they would be stiff enough to poke down the holes.

And that's it for today.... More quiet book to come.