I’m so excited to have Tiffany here today sharing some adorable and very useful quiet books that she made for her twin boys. She is an amazing seamstress with her own blog (Sewin’ Somethin’) where she documents all her incredible projects (mainly gorgeous quilts).
Take it away, Tiffany!
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I wanted to make my boys a set of quiet books for Easter this year. I’m hoping they will help us keep them contained during church. 🙂
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 ideas. 🙂
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 with snaps or buttons yet, and since I only had two weeks to accomplish it – no complicated hand embroidery for me! Almost everything was done by machine and I used lots of Heat N Bond.
Wanna see them? Sweet! Here they are:
Barn:
I was mostly inspired by THIS barn. Pattern for this page can be found HERE. Those are little finger puppets hiding inside.
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”).
Name Pages:
Those N’s and X’s 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 Joann’s 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.
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 have since seen a few similar things online.
The plastic part is just packing tape with the sticky sides together. This one didn’t handle the sewing machine well, so I used liberal amounts of hot glue.
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.
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 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.
Robot:
The arms/legs are elastic, and the gears turn. The hubby says this looks more like a monster. What do you think?
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.
And finally, the backing:
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!
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These are amazing! Thanks so much for sharing your talents today, Tiffany!
Kimberli@
greatastestuesdays@gmail.com greatastestuesdays.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful week.
Just follow the link....http://sew-licious.blogspot.com/2013/04/saturday-show-licious-craft-showcase-27.html.
Marti
-Amy
www.thestitchinmommy.com
Hugs & Smiles,
Jamie
www.huckleberrylove.com
Jennifer
www.thejennyevolution.com