Quiet Book Project: That Daggone Mirror Page

Remember when I said that the simplest pages were the jerks of this project? No kidding.  

Mirror Page

 So here was my idea: get a craft mirror, glue it to the page, put some felt around it, and voila! Mirror page. Well, let me back-up. The planned concept for the facing page is to whip up a Mr. Potato Head sort of activity, with a blank human face and a bag full of facial features.

Boy, that sounds like the stuff of nightmares, doesn’t it? A BAG FULL OF FACES. Equipping my child with a healthy sack of neurosis, all in the name of second birthdays. 

So the idea is to make faces with the felt noses, eyes, mustaches, acne (well maybe not acne) on the facing page, then right across the proverbial street is a mirror to, get this, make face! Cute, right? So even though I haven’t begun to tackle the bag of faces I thought the mirror page was a 30-minute project, tops. And maybe it could have been. If you can trace and cut out a symmetrical circle. If you can cut a smaller circle out of the bigger circle and IF you can glue the resulting ring onto the mirror without missing it completely. I burned myself at least three times because, who knew? Hot glue is hot. Then, I couldn’t place the ring on top of the mirror to save my life, and put the mirror smack dab in the center of the page, completely neglecting the felt text that was supposed to go above it. Oh well. It’s done. And the mirror works in that you can look into it and see yourself looking back. I just need to quit trying to rush the easy stuff and take my dang time. I also need to keep my perfectionism in check and remember that this will end up in the hands of a toddler who will most likely spit, spill, and maybe even vomit on it at one point or another.

Difficulty: (SHOULD BE) Easy, just take your time and plan it out before you go whipping out your glue gun.

Total Time: 2 hours. Not a lot of time, but a lot of cuss.

Supplies:

• Two 9x11 rectangles of craft felt in the colors of your choosing
• One craft mirror 5” in diameter
• Embroidery thread
• Embroidery needle
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Inspiration: This is a page of my own design.  

I was pretty bummed with how this turned out, but I am completely stoked about the newest page that's in the works:

 

Quiet Book Project: Dinosaur Page

Like my Apple Tree page, this goofy dinosaur was inspired by the patterns available on Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows. I tweaked the pattern a bit, but the concept is exactly the same: give little ones fine motor skill practice with snap-on spots and Velcro spines. The construction of this page was much more involved than others I had previously attempted simply due to my obsession with blanket-stitching around each piece, but it was otherwise very simple.

Dinosaur Snap and Stick Page

Each of the dinosaur’s spots and spines are two layers of felt that are hand-edged with blanket stitching for durability. I used stick-on Velcro dots for the spines but lacked confidence in the adhesive’s ability to withstand toddler abuse so I sewed them on as a precaution. The spots are secured with little snaps and all removable pieces can be stored in the dual-purpose ground scenery / pocket on the bottom left of the page. I left this portion unsewn, but I’ll create the pocket when I sew this page to another page and edge them for the book, so I saved myself some time for the moment. 

Difficulty: Easy to semi-moderate (due to the amount of hand-stitching)

Total Time: 8 hours? (I sort of lost track, but I started this page at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring and completed it during the last few minutes of The Two Towers).

Supplies:

• Five 9x11 rectangles of craft felt in the following colors:
• Light blue (for the background)
• Light brown (for the ground/pocket)
• Neon green (for the dinosaur’s body)
• Purple (for the spines)
• Aqua (for the spots)
• 6 small sew-on snaps (I chose to use metal snaps for durability)
• Velcro dots (or sew-on Velcro cut into small squares)
• Embroidery thread
• Embroidery needle

Inspiration: Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

Quiet Book Project: Shape Matching Page

This is another very simple concept that was made without a pattern and ended-up being more time consuming than I originally planned. In hindsight, this page would have been a great candidate for the sewing machine. 

Match the Shapes Page

The page contains six 3-ply shapes that were a total pain to cut out without a pattern. You’d think that free-handing simple geometric shapes with some semblance of symmetry would be easy but NO. Then, once I had shapes that were somewhat tolerable, there was the task of neatly hand sewing them together, which was just a big old cuss. Note to self: from here on out, assume that the easiest pages are going to be the most frustrating. I used a Sharpie to write the page title directly onto the felt background and then embroidered over top of the ink. As you can see from the warping of the felt, my embroidery skills leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully I can fix some of the wrinkling when I sew it to another page and edge the borders. 

 

Difficulty: Easy (easier if you use a pattern for the shapes and save yourself some time by using a sewing machine)

Total Time: 5 hours

Supplies:

• Seven 9x11 rectangles of craft felt in the colors of your choosing
• Velcro dots (or sew-on Velcro cut into small squares. I used adhesive dots but I ended up needing to sew them to the page anyway to ensure the durability.)
• Embroidery thread
• Embroidery needle

Inspiration: This is a basic Quiet Book page that was made without the use of a pattern.  

Quiet Book Project: Apple Tree Page

For my second Quiet Book page, I decided to take on something with a little more detail. The Apple Tree page is great practice for fine motor skills as the lightly-stuffed apples are attached to the tree via sew-on snaps. Little ones can pick the apples and then store them in the convenient bushel pocket at the base of the trunk. I had a great time making this page and of the few that I’ve made so far, this is my husband’s favorite.

Apple Tree Page

All of the page elements are hand-stitched and embroidered with basic sewing or blanket stitches. I used the leaves of silk flowers to create the apple stems and green ombre embroidery thread to create the grass effect (which is my favorite part of the page). Though I ended up tweaking the pattern quite a bit as I went along, this page was directly inspired by Jocelyn’s lovely Apple Tree page (complete with printable pattern!). Her blog is an excellent Quiet Book resource and her patterns are great. In fact, she even created a second blog to showcase her reader's creations. I loved her ideas so much that I even decided to make her Dinosaur page, but we’ll get to that later.

 

 

Difficulty: Easy

Total Time: 5 hours

Supplies:

• Six 9x11 rectangles of craft felt in the following colors:
• White (for the background)
• Hunter green (for the tree foliage)
• Neon green (for the grass)
• Red (for the apples)
• Dark brown (for the trunk)
• Light brown (for the bushel pocket)
• 5 small sew-on snaps (I chose to use metal snaps for durability)
• Embroidery thread
• Embroidery needle
• Silk flower leaves (this is entirely optional – you can just as easily use ribbon or felt for the stems or forego the stems altogether)

Inspiration: Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

Quiet Book Project: Simple Counting Page

For G’s second birthday, I really wanted to come up with a present that would carry some meaning. Our apartment is already a plastic rainbow shrine to every modern toy-making conglomerate, so there’s nothing out there with enough wings, zings, and bangs to outdo the chattering of his toy chest. Like every other woman with internet access, I started rifling through Pinterest and then got sucked into the world of Quiet Books.

Did any of you have one of these growing up? If no, I’ll explain. They’re cloth books for babies, toddlers, and older little kids where each page has some sort of activity. From what I gather, the original concept was bred out of needing to keep munchkins quiet during church services when the old hens in their pews want to get their fix of Our Fathers without the a whiny kid competing for airspace. Though we don't have a pressing need to regularly keep his excitable outburst under control, the educational aspect of these handmade books was very appealing to me. Plus, we’re talking about a world of crafty possibilities here. The things some of these Quiet Book makers have pulled together are amazing. We're talking light-up pages with conductive thread. How cool is that? If you have a few hours to kill and want to see some really magnificent work, you should leaf through all of her Quiet Book patterns and ideas. Simply put, it’s amazingly creative stuff.

Once I decided to attempt this project, I did what any other anal-retentive sewer would do: I created an Excel spreadsheet of my pages. I didn’t want to lose any of my ideas and also wanted to design the overall layout from the get-go, so I took about a week to stew and fret over it. I started out with 50 page ideas, but after sewing the first page and curbing my instinct to bite off more than I can chew, I whittled it down to 37. I know that this vision is still far loftier than reason will allow, but only time will tell which pages actually end up in the book and which are shelved for other projects.

I initiated this project without access to a working sewing machine so I needed to start with a simple concept. I wanted something that could be done completely by hand until I found a way to conjure magic and sew more than two inches of fabric before cussing out my abysmal machine. This page is standard fare for Quiet Books and it’s very easy for those of you like me who are constructing a page sans machine or without any formal embroidery knowledge whatsoever.

Simple Beaded String Counting Page

The counting beads are novelty pony beads that I found in the kid’s aisle of the craft store. The rainbow lacing is polyester cord that’s been twisted to create a spiraling pattern before securing the knotted ends with stitching and a bit of Fraycheck, just in case. The numbers were drawn free-hand onto the felt and then secured with your basic, easy, over and under stitching. Like all of the pages in the book, this page will eventually be sewn back-to-back with another page, fitted with grommets for the binding, and trimmed with bias tape to protect the edging. In order to leave myself with the most flexibility and prevent over-lap, I left at least a half-inch seam allowance around the entire page.

 

One page down, many…many more to go. 

Difficulty: Easy

Total Time: 3 hours

Supplies:

• Two 9"x11" rectangles of craft felt in whatever colors you prefer 
• Some sort of lacing (you can use really anything you want: shoe lacing, yarn, ribbon, etc.) 
• Beads of your choosing 
• Embroidery thread 
• Embroidery needle 
• FrayCheck (optional) 

Inspiration: General Pinterest scavenging through all of the available Quiet Books on the web.