2nd Busy Book

Much earlier this year, my mom and I made another quiet book for Jo. (See the 1st one here.)  We did a lot of planning first, then some shopping, and finally, got sewing. All the machine sewing was done by me, while all the hand-sewing was done by my mom. She has serious skills!

Below each picture, I'll link to the source for the idea.

We decided on a blue theme for the backgrounds, and chose this cute patterned felt for the covers:

Each page has 3 grommets, which are all held together with binder rings.

We also created a hook-and-loop closure to hold everything inside, which - considering the weight of some of these pages - was a very good idea!

Spread 1:

The first page is her name:

Source

...with removable letters. The 'O' makes a great toddler bracelet, by the way.

The next page is a family tree. Behind each flap is a picture of a family member.

We combined several ideas: Source 1 Source 2 Source 3

Jo loves this page, but she's not very quiet about it, as she points to the pictures and shouts, "Dada! Mama!"

The pictures are protected behind clear vinyl squares. My mom hand-sewed down each vinyl square individually, so it wouldn't be too hard to swap out a picture if we want an update.

Spread 2:

A rainbow of zippers!

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We used an old holey mattress pad for the clouds.  My mom added some silver thread for raindrops.

The next page is a little garden, with carrots and radishes.

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They all can be pulled up or planted again, and have twine roots securing them to the book. I sewed a small piece of popsicle stick inside each vegetable to give them a little extra stability.

I left a flap at the bottom, so we can easily access the root system if need be.

Spread 3:

This page features a lacing exercise (which she hasn't figured out yet).

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And underneath is a cute giraffe!

Source - while we were inspired by her giraffe idea, we thought this one was cuter.

With removable bow-ties!

The next page teaches counting (and Roman numerals, too, just for fun).  Jo really likes to move the beads around.

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Spread 4:

I made a little vest with functioning snaps!

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The pockets are real, too, and are a great place to hide a little surprise snack.

The last page is just full of fun things to look at and feel. We considered making this an 'I Spy' page, but decided that at her age, this is just as much fun. This page accounts for most of the bulk and weight of this book. (And a side note: it's not super quiet when it gets moved!)

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Each section has a double layer of white tulle. This holds everything securely, but still allows things to be felt and moved. The top section holds just a bunch of random, fun, colorful items.

This one has rainbow pony beads, plus all the letters in 'Josephine'.

And this last one has these cool translucent beads, with some bright objects mixed in.

The back cover matches the front cover. We chose to leave both of them plain.

We had so much fun making this for her and watching it come together. I really enjoyed the process of passing pages back and forth to carry out our individual portions of the work.

Jo gets to play with this every Sunday during church. She's not always super quiet with it, but she sure enjoys playing with it!

Love and Giraffes,

Leah Joy

Jo's 1st Quiet Book

(Get ready for a post with far more pictures than necessary.)

I'm not sure when I first discovered the idea of quiet books, but I really like them. They are so versatile, and can be made for nearly any learning level; I've seen everything from 'how to lift a flap' to 'learn the animals of South America'.  Most quiet books, however, seem to hover around the basic ideas of colors, numbers, matching, and similar skills - things appropriate for (usually) a 2-5 year old.

I really wanted to make one for Josephine, but she's not yet even 1. We had two weddings within a week, though, and I wanted to have something quiet for her to do during the ceremonies.  After lots of research (of course) and planning, I decided to make a rainbow book.  (Anyone surprised?)  This book isn't necessarily meant to teach her colors, though.  The colors make it fun to look at, but mostly this book is about textures, which is perfect for a not-quite-1-year-old.

To start, here's a quick overview of the pages:

I'll also go over each page in much more detail, but feel free to skip ahead to the pictures of Josephine if you don't want all the details. :)

The cover page isn't necessary, but it's pretty.  I really like how the pink thread looks on the blue hearts, but honestly, I initially only did that because I didn't have blue thread.

All the letters and hearts are hand-stitched on.

The pages are machine stitched together (to hide all the messiness on the back of each page) and then I inserted grommets using my Crop-A-Dile. (Yay $5 Goodwill finds!)  The back of the grommet is pictured below. While it looks a little rough, I don't think Jo could hurt herself on it.

I used binder rings to bind the book. It's tidy and sturdy, but I can change out pages if I ever want to.

My first step in making the letters was to trace them on felt. This wasn't super smart, as I used a blue fine-tip Sharpie, and I couldn't cut close enough to remove all the traces of it.

For the red page, I used three pieces of different red fabrics to make flaps, which I machine-stitched to the felt. Under each flap, I hand-stitched something similar to the pattern on the flap fabric (squares and circles under the geometric patterned fabric, a flower under the rose fabric, and a felt heart under the heart fabric).

The orange page is probably my favorite. I didn't know if it would turn out how I envisioned it, but it did, and I'm very proud of it! Josephine is fascinated by zippers, so I wanted to include one somewhere in the book.  I purchased a short orange zipper and sewed it to some plain orange fabric. I cut it into the largest circle I could make fit on the page, then used a satin stitch on my sewing machine to attach it.  As a last minute detail, I made a leaf out of green fabric to serve as the zipper pull. I think it makes the whole page!

I know she's a little young yet to learn her numbers, but it never hurts to include learning when there's something fun involved, too.

I attached the numbers using extra-strength Heat'n'Bond.

Under each flap, I sewed the corresponding number of buttons.

Aren't they cute?

The green page was inspired by a cute quiet book page idea I saw on Pinterest where the child could decorate a tree in the book.  Josephine is much too young for that, so instead, I just made and decorated a tree for her to look at and touch.

I found the Christmas light garland in the mini Christmas tree section at Hobby Lobby. I attached it using yellow thread and the satin stitch on my machine. Gold thread would have been better, but I didn't have any on hand.

The blue page came directly from an idea I saw on Pinterest. The fish are strung on thin blue cord, so they can move back and forth.

The purple page was the simplest to put together: just a bunch of various purple ribbons. Lots of different textures to feel.

And so pretty! 

Josephine seemed to like it!

Love and (Lots of) Felt,

Leah Joy