Anyway, I told my family and friends that I would take pictures of it once it was done so that they could see what I've been working so hard on during Owen's naps and sometimes after the kids went to bed..
Cover - I splurged and got the front and back cover professionally embroidered (I knew I should have bought that embroidery machine that a lady in my old ward was selling a couple of years ago!).
The inside cover (you can kind of see on the left) has a pocket for any pieces that fall out and we don't have time to put them with the right page.
The Tree Page: One of my favs! I printed the apples on iron-on paper and then ironed them onto fabric that I had sewn velcro onto (so much faster than trying to make my own 'apples'!. The apples can be put on the tree or in the basket.
If you open up the trunk, you will find a cute little owl! I had this fabric with these adorable owls on it from another project (that never became reality - hate that) and wanted to add him:)
Another one of my absolute favorite 'layout'! I got the idea from http://masontrio.blogspot.com/2012/07/quiet-book.html (you need to scroll down a bit to get to her monkey page) but I wanted my monkey to look more like Owen's Mr. Monkey so I googled and found a tiny clip-art picture and just drew one free-hand by looking at the picture. His mouth is a zipper (first zipper I have ever sewn - so don't look too close at it!), and you can feed him the bananas. I wanted to add something else to do with the bananas, so I made a palm tree that you can stick the bananas onto if you don't want them in the basket or with the monkey.
You can move the space ship up and down the ribbon to fly to the moon or back.
I got the idea of adding flaps with family pictures behind them from a site where the lady used a school bus. Well, I didn't think I had enough space to make a school bus with enough windows for our family, so I made a house instead. You can pull the cardstock with the pictures on it at the top of the house (hopefully Owen won't figure that out!).
Peek! Our Family!
I don't know why some of these pictures are sideways, but at any rate, this is one of the first pages I made. Owen can take the paint and put them in the black 'bucket' or match them back up on the pallet. He can then 'paint.'
This is the last page I made... Owen LOVES ducks (almost as much as monkeys), so I had to make him a page that had ducks on it! We have a basket that has ducks on it, so I used that as a template to draw the ducks on felt. I cut and sewed them with velcro so that they can be taken off. The sun rays are ribbon for Owen to play with, too.
and lift the flaps in the water and what do you find?! A cute frog and turtle, looking at you!
I wanted to add a buckle and saw this cute idea on how to incorporate one into a quiet book... And it teaches how to set the table! A bit advanced for Owen right now, but at least he can play with the buckle and put the table setting back into the basket.
Since I think every little kid loves to write and draw, here you go! Owen can draw or write whatever he wants in his little notebook and then put it in the mailbox (and then put the red flag up).
Again, I don't know why this page is oriented this way, but oh well. The traffic light was the very first thing I made for this project. It sat on my desk for weeks and weeks afterwards as I tried to think of what to do with it - I even thought of just throwing it away. I'm glad I didn't as it goes perfectly with the road page! Owen likes playing with matchbox cars and saying 'vroom, vroom!' so a road page was a must. I made it a very simple square (some road page ideas on pinterest are pretty intense!), but then realized that I didn't have space to store the car! I happened to glance over and saw the traffic light and immediately sewed a pocket to it and viola! The colors on the traffic light can also be taken off and matched up to the right colors.
The left page (well, bottom in the picture) are balloons with beads that I sewed on. You match the colors. I decided to try beads instead of buttons because I didn't feel like sewing buttons on, but in hindsight, I wish I had taken the time to do so, as the balloons fall off of the beads very easily. There is a clear pocket (made out of vinyl) for the extra balloons to be stored if they aren't matched up.
The right page is where Owen can match his shapes. The screen rectangle is actually a pocket to store the shapes when they aren't matched up.
A shoe! What kid doesn't like to play with shoe laces?! This is one of Ethan's old shoes from when he was a baby. I've kept it and shortly before Owen was born I realized that I didn't have it's mate, but it was such a cute shoe that I didn't throw it away in hopes that I would find the other one. Well, I haven't found it, so I decided to cut it up and use it in the book instead of tossing it in the trash.
The Barn page
Open up the barn pages and there are some farm animals inside! Found the wooden animals at Michael's for $1... only problem is, is that they fall out of the pocket so easily - I know that they will get lost very soon.
The Pumpkin Page: There are different eyes, noses, and mouths that can be stuck to the Jack-o-Lantern. The pumpkin itself is a pocket to store the pieces when they aren't in use.
The Baseball Mit: Owen can stick his hand in the 'mit' to catch the ball.
Counting!
Back cover of the book
And it isn't complete without a bag to carry it in! First time making a flat-bottomed tote, so don't look too closely:) I wanted the inside to be the same green fabric as the inside covers of the quiet book, but I didn't have enough and JoAnn's hasn't had any more of it for weeks (I've been checking) and I didn't have time to order it online - so red polka dots it is!
What I have learned from this project:
- It doesn't have to be perfect, as kids will be playing with it and won't care that the pages aren't the exact same size or the thread doesn't match the fabric (it was hard to get over this, as I'm a perfectionist at times!)
- When I'm not worried about it being absolutely perfect, I really can accomplish a lot of sewing in an hour!
- Pay attention when ironing with Wonder Under! I accidentally ironed with the glue side up and it was a huge disaster, hence, I had to buy a new iron (sorry, Sean!)
- Wonder Under became my best 'sewing' friend for this project! (even though we had some disagreements when the iron got ruined).
- Most of the attachments can be attached to the book with velcro - which a lot of people said not to do because of the noise, but for me, it was the fastest and easiest way to do it. (I tried sewing snaps for the applies page and it didn't go so well). So, sorry to those who sit next to us during church and you hear all of the velcro!
- Google is awesome. Aside from getting some page ideas from Pinterest, Google is by far just plain awesome. It helped me find clip-art for the monkey and space ship so I could figure out how to draw it to the right size, and it helped me make a flat-bottomed tote bag!
- Next time I don't think I will line the pages with the Pellon that I used for these pages. It made the pages thicker than I wanted (even after trying to iron them to flatten them out). I will definitely line them with something, though.
Here are the two sources I used for how to make the tote bag:
- http://ericafaye.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-sew-box-bottom-bag.html
- Used this one to figure out what the dimensions of the fabric needed to be in order to make the bag the size I wanted
- http://whatthecraft.com/how-to-make-a-square-bottom-bag-video-tutorial/
- Great video tutorial! Thanks to our iPad, I followed her step-by-step at my sewing table.
