I've been busy! For Easter, I wanted my boys to have quiet books to take with them to church. I finished with two days to spare! (Nothing like a deadline to keep one productive).
I pretty much had no idea what I was doing, so I drew TONS of inspiration from Pinterest and Google Image searches. Apparently I don't like coming up with my own original ideas. I like other people to do that and then I copy them. :)
I created a secret board on Pinterest (since I figured all my friends didn't want their pages overloaded with millions of quiet book pages that looked pretty much the same). "
The Quiet Book Blog" was pretty much AMAZING in providing inspiration. I relied on it heavily, as well as the blog "
Serving Pink Lemonade." I finally narrowed my choices based on simplicity, since my kids are only 16 months old and can't work snaps or buttons yet, and since I only had two weeks to work with - no complicated hand embroidery for me! Almost everything was done by machine and I used lots of Heat N Bond.
Wanna see them? Yippee! Here they are:
Covers:
I made these last, and I must admit - they are mostly for myself. I was inspired by
THIS quilt a long time ago and have been dying to try out the technique for awhile now. I figured the extra texture would be perfect for my cover. I really like how the white one turned out - probably because the flannel I used was slightly higher quality and frayed better, partly because of the color placement and design.
Name Pages:
Those Ns and Xs were especially hard to sew by machine. Too bad each of my kids has one in their names! :) I also added ribbon to the zippers to make them easier to grab.
Shapes:
I added a tiny bit of batting to the shapes to make them a little puffier.
I used Pellon extra firm non-fusible interfacing for my pages (copying "
Serving Pink Lemonade"). The lady at Joanns seemed to think it was too stiff, but I kind of like how sturdy it makes my books. I made the pages 7 x 8.5 inches ("
Serving Pink Lemonade" style), which in hindsight makes for REALLY small pieces. Yowza.
Barn:
I was mostly inspired by
THIS barn. Pattern for this page can be found
HERE. Those are little finger puppets hiding inside. Remember how the smaller page size meant for smaller pieces? Yeah, the first attempt at finger puppets barely fit on my babies' fingers, so I had to make a second set. :)
Houses:
I was going to make up my own house, but then I ended up copying
THIS one because I liked it the best. The windows and doors open up to reveal a member of our family.
I printed our pictures on fabric (using the "freezer paper method"). I found
THIS post, which teaches how to make homemade "Bubble Jet" - thus making your fabric washable and colorfast. I spent a whole bunch of money and time making a solution and then tested it out on the label I made for my Valor Quilt. I printed one copy with the solution and one without. Then I washed both labels. I was dissappointed when I pulled them out of the wash and BOTH labels had faded dramatically - the red had turned yellow and the blue was almost completely gone. So sad. So for the quiet books, I just printed on normal fabric and now I just have to pray it never needs to be washed!
Beads:
This one was the simplest page to make. Just slide the beads on the ribbon. Inspiration
HERE.
I-Spy:
I came up with this one all on my own! I didn't want to buy special vinyl just for this project, especially since I only needed a tiny amount, so I made my own using packing tape! It was a good idea, until it came time to sew through it. My poor sewing machine handled it fine, but I'm pretty sure my needle needs to be replaced again. I was completely finished with it and handed it to the boys to test it out, when it ripped! Of course, the packing tape vinyl didn't hold up well with all the tiny holes my machine punched into it. SO I threw that page out and started over fresh - this time using liberal amounts of hot glue. That baby is NOT falling apart on me again!
It's filled with rice, 3D stickers of woodland creatures and cars (with tape on the back to keep them from sticking to things), beads, and some buttons.
p.s. What does that shape look like to you? It's supposed to by a magnifying glass, but I suppose a backwards Q (for "question") would work too...
Tree:
Inspiration/Pattern found
HERE. Luckily, I didn't have to sew that tree down, thanks to my Heat N Bond. :)
There are pieces in the pocket for...
Spring
Summer
Fall
and Winter (The snow clumps were my own addition. Around here our trees aren't just bare in the winter, they are heavy laden with snow.)
Rocket:
Inspired by
THIS post (pattern included). I considered making
THIS one, but decided against it. The rocket slides along the ribbon.
Fish:
I think my original inspiration for the fish was
THIS post, and then
THIS one.
I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out a cheap way to make a fishing pole - I used a leftover corn dog stick! The fishing pole has a magnet stuck to the end of it and the fish have magnets sewn into them. My first attempt at fish involved making them out of the same felt as the rest of the quiet book. However, the felt was so thick that the magnets couldn't pick anything up through them. SO I had to start over with regular fabric, which was MUCH harder to sew at this size. Ah well. I still like this page.
Robot:
Original inspiration
HERE. Although I really wish I could have made something like
THIS.
The arms/legs are elastic, and the gears turn. The hubby says this looks more like an alien. What do you think?
And finally, the backs. I just sewed two pieces of flannel onto the back of my last page.
Peak Hour Cars
and some of my last bits of Letters
I attached the pages by sewing them together back to back and then punching holes in them (HARD to do through three layers of flannel!) for a ribbon tie.
We'll try these out on Sunday and see if they can keep two 16 month old babies entertained!
Linking up!
