Quiet Books

The other creative thing that I have been working on since October is a Quiet Book for Daniel. A Facebook post had a picture of a Mr Potato Head page for a quiet book and it caught my eye. I looked up the site:
http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/mr-potato-head-quiet-book-pages-10-11.html
and had a look around. I decided that I would like to have a go at making this for Daniel. The book is just so very cute that is on the site and I think that Daniel would really enjoy using it. I found a site that had a good deal on felt (MTA - Modern Teaching Aids) so ordered a couple of packs of the felt. I asked Mum for the sewing machine she bought for Jens and I and set it up in the back room. I did a couple of attempts with scrap material and was remembering how to sew so decided to start with my Mr Potato Head page.

Not too bad for not having sewed since D&T at school (probably year 10??)

Complete with pocket

My little set up in the back room

The start

Mrs Potato Head

Mr Potato Head

All the different parts

Another shot of all the different parts

Next up I made a road. I used most of the ideas from the same blog, however, I did adapt it a little bit by making garages and using stop signs, lakes, etc. I was pretty happy with my little cars too.

 Next up were 2 pages that I though would be quite simple. How wrong I was. They took forever! Using press studs and velcro really takes a lot of time. Having said that I was again pretty happy with the finished product. 

The page on the blog was just an apple tree page, but I decided to add some variety by making flowers and autumn leaves. Just makes the page a little bit more interesting.

Next up was a dinosaur page. He's pretty cute! It was my first attempt with velcro.

The 3 pages together look like this:

Next up is a farm page which included finger puppets. It was pretty fun to make and see this one take shape. The finger puppets are so cute and lots of fun to use. I hope Daniel enjoys playing with them!

Old MacDonald had a farm...

First attempt at finger puppets. Pretty happy with them

I also added doors on the barn. You can see them in the final book photos.

 The next page Mum came around to help teach me how to make button holes as I never did them in high school. The machine is pretty clever but when the stitching gets caught up it's quite painful to fix! With the flowers there are 2 layers on each one. They can be taken off and swapped around so that the colours can be mixed. Or they can be put into the vase.

Then Mum came around to help me with the zipper for the ladybug as I haven't used a zipper foot on a sewing machine for many years, and I think I've only used it once. It was a good learning curve for us both. The spots are attached by press studs so you can take them off and store them in the pocket.

I then decided to have a go at being creative on my own by making a garbage truck page. Daniel just loves watching the garbage truck come each week and also pretends to be a garbage truck while riding his bike. As it's such a big part of his interests at the moment I was keen to make it.

The garbage bins are the same colours as ours - red = rubbish (with 2 garbage bags), yellow = recycling (with cardboard box and bottle), green = green waste (with 2 branches). They are attached by a stud so they can be taken off the page and emptied into the garbage truck. I am really happy with how the page turned out. I hope he loves playing with it!

Next I made a letterbox page. Daniel also loves going and seeing the postman and getting the letters from him. He will pretend to be a postman as he rides his bike around so I hope he enjoys this page.

I started with an envelope for Daniel and a few different notes that I wanted him to get. The envelopes open and close, attached with velcro

I then thought it would be fun to have an envelope for each person in our family so Daniel can send letters to anyone. I also added a few more letters.

The last page I made for in the book was a naughts and crosses page. He has no idea of the game at the moment but I am hoping that he will enjoy using this book for many years to come so will enjoy playing it later.

Once I had completed all the pages I realised that the book is WAY too big. Haha. Oh well. I decided (with some help from others) that I'd make 2 books. 1 is going to be just for Daniel (an interest one) and the other one will be shared between Eliza and Daniel. 
I then made 2 cover pages and 2 back pages for the books.

The little boy can be taken off and played with

So here is what Daniel's book will look like.

And here is Eliza and Daniel's share book.

I have sewed the pages together and am happy with how they look. I now need to do button holes on the pages and put them together.




I have enjoyed this project a lot! I plan to make one book for Eliza too but that will happen after New Zealand.