How to Make a Quiet Book

A "months" quiet book

2011-11-19T14:35:00.001-06:00

I got an email from "Kendra" recently and she shared a link to a quiet book she had made that highlighted the months of the year. Look how cute this book is:

It goes through all the months of the year with each page themed as a particular month. See the book in its entirety here (all pictures on this post are linked from her blog).

My favorite month, is this month (November), the fuzzy turkey!:

And my second favorite is the February Valentine's page:

And look at this pretty April Easter basket and May flowers:

Thanks for sharing Kendra!

If you have unique quiet book idea, you'd like to share, email me (fowlerfam at gmail dot com) and I'd love to feature you here on the quietbook blog!

A "texture" quiet book

2011-09-24T15:23:00.003-05:00

above picture taken from here

I received an email from Vanessa from Lellaboutique, who by the way has SUCH a cute crafting blog full of some fantastic ideas.

Amongst all the other treasures Vanessa makes on her blog, she also has made her own rendition of quiet books, called "texture books".

above picture taken from here

She has some adorable baby boy and baby girl "texture books" and was willing to let me link to them from here.

above picture taken from here

Vanessa's texture books are made from an array of colorful fabric and have all sorts of textures for baby to roll their rolly-polly hands over and full of fun familiar pictures for their little eyes to light up over.

above picture taken from here

She gives a great tutorial on how to make the little boy book (which you follow for the baby girl book too), and tells you all the supplies you need to get.

above picture from here

The instructions are easy to follow and full of pictures, so hop on over to her blog and give a baby "texture book" a try!

above picture from here

And don't you just love how she frayed the book's page edges? I think my favorite baby boy page from her baby texture books is the dump truck full of fuzzy soft brown dirt! So cute, yet manly for baby boy!

above picture taken from here

My favorite page from her baby girl texture book has got to be the sunflowers with pom poms and buzzing bee page.

above picture from here

Thanks Vanessa for sharing!

A Polish Quiet Book

2011-09-11T21:48:00.000-05:00

I just love it when I hear from someone that has come across this blog and found it helpful. It makes me happy when you share with me your news about finally finishing your first quiet book, or how the pages remind you of the quiet book you had when you were younger, or maybe you have a question about a particular page.

Tonight I received one of those fun emails. From cute little "Marta" on the other side of the world in Poland. She wrote:

"Hello ! (Me: Hello back Marta!)

I've just finished my 2nd "quiet book" and I remember that U were interesting in collecting all bookmakers ideas :)
So, that's my link, which I would like to share with others:
QUIET BOOK 2#
http://marta-mojepasje.blogspot.com/2011/09/niesiona-wena-popeniam-kolejna.html
QUIET BOOK 1#
http://marta-mojepasje.blogspot.com/2011/08/quiet-book.html

I believe that my "pages" will inspire others to be creative :) (Oh yes they will Marta!)

Keep worm + hugs _ m@rta http://marta-mojepasje.blogspot.com

Please make sure you go and visit Marta's blog. It's so colorful and beautiful and I'm loving the Polish sewin' style of her Quiet Books. Here's a few of my favorites of her pages:

Aren't those awesome? Or "niesamowite" according to google translate :)

Thank you Marta!

Quiet Book GROUP

2011-08-27T00:10:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of buzz on the web lately about Quiet Book Groups. It's a social, fast, lower cost, and fun way of putting together a quiet book. In essence, what it is, is you round up a group of other people interested in making a quiet book. You decide on what pages you all want to include, you divide up the pages, and then you swap. So lets say if you had 12 people in your group, and you were each making a different page, so that your quiet books in the end were 12 pages big (6 pages back to back). You then would make 12 copies of that page you were in charge of. You could also do it with a smaller sized group and then just be in charge of more than one page.

One of our readers here, Jacki, was wonderful and shared with me a link to her blog showing the wonderful collection of quiet book pages she made in a group. She also was willing to share her "instructions" for how to do it in a group which you can see below. She also shared some tips which are in italics. Thanks a ton Jacki for sharing your instructions, tips and insights!

Quiet Book Group Instructions 

- Make 10 pages (they had a group of 10 women)
- Pages should be 10" x 12"
- Page should be created on home decor weight "target" material (Jacki mentioned that this ended up being a hard thing for a lot of the women in her group to find- and that in the future she'd recommend having one person buy a bolt of fabric and divide up the cost, as they  ended up with different color and fabric backgrounds because the material varied from person to person).
- Pages are due August 1, 2011 (Jacki's group gave themselves 2 months, they had to extend because of vacations getting in the way) 
- Leave 1/2" seam allowance around page edge to allow for binding  (Jacki mentioned that this is a very important thing that many people forgot about and people let their page coverings/extra felt bleed out onto the edge, making it difficult to bind.) 
- Make any detachable pieces sturdy and durable -- double felt with interface between, etc
- Only use sew-on velcro -- no sticker kind
- Make all pockets and openings out of hard felt or normal cotton fabric- felt pockets get stretched out easily
-  Sew with thread that matches the applique color (no white thread on  black felt)- so it looks more professional, and you can't see mistakes  as easily!) 
- Sew velcro so that the soft side is on the page (that way it won't stick to other pages when you close the book)
- Don't use glue
-  This is supposed to be a fun project, so don't worry, we'll all still  be friends regardless of how our pages turn out, right??!!

Be sure to check out Jacki's blog and see her quiet book pages! My favorites of hers were these:

Girl hair braiding complete with hair bows!:

A woman named Juli in Jacki's group made this delicious looking pie for the "weaving" page. Super cute eh?:

Another person in her group, Erika, made a Mrs. Potato Head page, how fun!:

And Look at this I-spy quilt puzzle Jacki made:

Thanks so much for sharing Jacki!

Have YOU done a quiet book group? Do you have any tips or suggestions? Please feel free to leave any ideas or tips in the comments section! Or email a link to your blog and I'll highlight it here.

Calling all quiet book makers!

2011-08-07T00:48:00.001-05:00

I want to hear from all you quiet book makers! Do you have a particular page you created in your quiet book that you are extra proud of and wouldn't mind sharing with the world how you made it? If so, I want to feature you and your page here!

Please email me at fowlerfam at gmail dot com with your page and instructions (templates/pictures included) and I will feature you and your page right here and link back to you (if you'd like).

I created this blog about 4 years ago because there really wasn't much at all in terms of quiet book instructions and ideas on the internet. Now, there are so many great ideas out there! And I'd love to feature them here!

Also if anyone has done a quiet book group (where a group of you have gotten together and done a swap with pages), I'd love to hear from you as well and feature your guidelines/ideas here! Just shoot me an email at the above address. -Anna

Button trouble!

2011-08-07T00:42:00.000-05:00

For some reason, my blog button stopped working (it's the little button on the right sidebar that you can "sew" on to your own blog to share with others that you are making a quiet book). I'm terribly sorry!

I got it up and running again. If you sewed on a button in the past and it is coming up as a black screen right now, you will have to re-sew it on. Just follow the instructions I have posted below the button (click highlight and then right click copy), then in your blog page elements page, click add a new gadget, select html code and then just right click paste the code you just copied. That should work!

Thanks to all of you that have shared this blog with others by sewing on a button to your blog!

Page 24: Tie My Shoe

2010-11-10T14:21:00.000-06:00

I'll be honest, I made this shoe page 4 years ago, and since then, have seen MUCH CUTER shoes out there on people's blogs. I'll provide instructions on how to make mine, but I'll also provide some links to even trendier shoe pages down below;)

And this is the last page in the quiet book (24 pages back to back total!). I'm going to try something new after this- I'll highlight different pages of quiet books I've found to be really great (if you have one you think is fabulous, and you want me to highlight, send me the link to: fowlerfam at gmaildotcom). I'll also spend some posts on highlighting tips and pictures of how to do a quietbook group (I had some friends do this last year and I attended one of their swaps and took a bunch of pictures). I'm also going to try and get templates up on each page. So stay tuned!

First off, here's the template I've made for this page:

This shoe page is yet another page I copied from my mom's old school quiet book page. There was a page with an old vinyl red shoe I remember as a kid practicing my tying skills on. Here's the template my mom made years ago:

One thing my mom recommended when I was making my own quiet book 4 years ago, was to make things out of fun, imaginative material. Throughout your quiet book you will want to have different textures of material. I know felt is what a lot of the book is made out of, but take advantage of the shoe page to use a different, new sort of material. You might try corduroy (like mine), or vinyl (like my mom's), or leather (if you are posh), or some sort of fuzzy material.

Items Needed: a piece of 7" x 10" in the material you want your shoe and shoe tongue out of. 8 eyelets (for 2 rows of 4), 1 shoelace (make sure it can easily fit through your eyelets, and a shorter size shoelace generally works better- or you can trim it down, although those plastic thingies on the end of a pre-cut one sure come in handy when you are threading the lace through the eyelets).

Teaches: how to tie your shoe! Also teaches lacing, tying a bow or knot.

Cut out the following pieces: (tip: I used pinking shears when cutting out my shoe material- since corduroy frays). Cut out a shoe and shoe tongue from the template pieces (only cut on the blue lines- the dotted lines are for top stitches you'll add later. If you want the shoe to have two different textures (like a white leather toe), then cut out a piece of the other material from the dotted top stitch line (be a little generous when cutting so you have room to sew them together). After you cut out the shoe shape, be sure to cut out the inside part and cut the line that goes up the front of the shoe on the lacing part.

Directions: First you are going to want to top stitch around the opening of the shoe and up the line under the laces. Then, add your eyelets. I have an eyelet tool which works great and is fast and easy for this. You then are going to want to add a top stitch that can secure the shoe tongue in place. Place the tongue piece under the shoe material/lacing slit so that it protrudes a bit out of the bottom, and then sew a stitch out from the left side of the shoe, over to the 3rd lacing hole, up around the lacing portion and shoe tongue top, and then down the right side to the 3rd lacing hole and out to the right edge of the shoe.

Next you are going to want to sew your shoe onto your quiet book page. Center it (and you might want to add a word blog with the text "Tie my shoe!" or "Can you tie me?" or something above it). And then sew it into place. Be sure to only sew around the outside of the shoe (you don't need to sew on the inside or around the hole). This will make it kind of fun too as your child can stick their hand inside the shoe (or even try their own foot! I remember trying that as a kid).

Last step- lace the shoe and tie a bow!

Here are links to really cute shoe pages for more ideas:
Thornock's do 2 shoes

My little sister's

Naptime Journal does a lacing football rendition
Crafty Chic lyric

Andrea's Original's (with template)

Leafy Tree top's page and template

For a football lacing rendition template, visit Jodell's template

Page 22 & 23: Counting 1-10

2010-08-06T09:02:00.006-05:00

*Sorry- for the hiatus in posting- I had a new baby and moved across the country!*
This is a page I copied from my mom's original quiet book. Here's some other links to cute numbers pages in other quiet books: Homemade by Jill's 1-4 (I love how her numbers have that cute stitching on them!), or a different approach to counting with objects with Sew can do's rendition with objects, and lastly my little sister, Sara Jean, made a really cute numbers page complete with a place to do MATH (her husband is into numbers, so this is perfect for their kids).

Items needed: felt in various colors for the numbers, felt or material to make a pocket to place numbers in, velcro pieces (I used 14 teeny squares, cut from a strip to make mine), thread.

Teaches: numbers 1-10, matching, color recognition, working with velcro.

Cut out the following pieces: cut out each number 3 times (1 for applying to the page, 2 for sewing together and becoming the removable number pieces). My numbers are roughly 3" tall. You are going to want to originally cut out the numbers a bit larger than the final product, as you will trim them down a bit after doing some sewing. You can also use the template below if you'd like:
Then cut out the velcro in square/rectangle shapes (if you are using velcro from a strip). I used 1 square piece of velcro on most numbers, except for the 2, 5, 0 (on the 10), where I used 2 pieces on the number.
Then cut out the pocket pieces. I used pinking shears on my bottom rectangle and on the bottom lid part of the upper rectangle so it wouldn't fray/be extra sturdy. My rectangle pieces for the pocket measure: 7.45" x 1.25" (pocket lid), and 7.45" x 3.5" (pocket bottom).

Directions: First you are going to want to sew the velcro to the numbers pieces. First apply the soft velcro piece to the backside of just one of the copies of numbers you just cut (so for instance, you should have three number 4's cut, just take one of these number 4's, flip it over, so you are looking at the number backwards- and from the backside, sew the velcro piece on). The picture below shows the number already sewn to the page (I took pictures after the page was finished), but at this point you are going to just be sewing the velcro onto just the number (not the muslin too). Sew the corresponding "prickly" piece of velcro to the number 4 piece that will be applied to the muslin page- this time sewing on the velcro to the right side of the number four. Be sure to sew the velcro onto these pieces so it matches up to the velcro sewn onto the number pieces. (Number 1 piece shown below- once again, this picture was taken after the page was finished- at this point, you will just be sewing the velcro to a single number (not 2 numbers sewn together).One thing to take note when applying the velcro and even cutting the velcro rectangles, is you will eventually be trimming down these numbers just a tad, so don't have the velcro go all the way out to the edges.

don't mind my messy stitching above :)

Next, you are going to want to make your number pieces (the removable piece) double thick. Do this by taking the number copy that has the soft velcro attached to the backside and the number copy with no velcro attached and pin them together. Sew these 2 pieces together by stitching around the edges. Once you've stitched them together, take a pair of scissors, and trim around the edges so that the stitch you just made is near the edge. Pick up the left over number copy (the one with the prickly velcro on the right side), and and hold it up against the number piece you just made and trim it down so it matches in size.

Next, place each "left-over" number copy on the muslin pages (I spread mine out over 2 pages), so you can get a feel for their placement on the page. On my page, the left page is numbers 1-6, and the right page is number 7-10 and then a pocket below those 7-10 numbers. You will also want to place the pocket pieces in place on the page before you sew the numbers on to make sure it all fits. Remember that you will be sewing the muslin page together to another muslin page in the end, so be sure to leave enough edge around the border.

Once things are in place, sew the single thickness numbers on the muslin page (don't sew the double thickness number pieces on- those will attach with velcro!) right side up, so the velcro shows. Then just velcro the numbers onto the page into place. Then sew on the pocket- mine is really simple. I just first sewed the pocket bottom on (just sewing around the left and right edges and bottom (leaving the top open), and then sewing on the pocket lid (placing the lid so it's lip goes over the pocket bottom slightly) by just stitching on the left and right side and top (not the bottom).There you have it- a numbers page. Get counting!
*Next up- Tie the shoe page, and then we're done!

Page 21: Picnic basket/table setting

2010-03-25T18:33:00.004-05:00

This is a page I came up with after wanting to do a buckle, and also wanting to be able to teach my kids how to set the table correctly (this is something I'm ashamed to admit, but as a mom I sometimes still do wrong!). Other great buckle page ideas can be found here (from little handsbigwork.blogspot.com), and here (this is my little sister's book, scroll down to the super man buckle), and here (scroll down to the sixth picture down).

Here's my attempt at providing a template. It is all drawn to scale on a 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, so if you are able to print it out at 100%, the sizes should be about right. The only thing not listed on the template is the napkin, which is pretty self explanitory- basically just a square folded up into a triangle.

Items needed: One small buckle (I got mine at Joann's. They have a variety of shapes/sizes/in metal or plastic- look at all these fun buckles), about 8" x 12" rectangle of material for placemat and napkin (I picked a red gingham that would fray at the edges to give it a picnic feel), 6 small velcro pieces (I cut mine down from one large piece), brown felt for the basket, 5" x 5" square of white pellon for place settings, 5" x 5" square of white felt for backing on place settings, 4 eyelets, brown and/or white thread for sewing.

Teaches: buckling/unbuckling, how to set a table, imaginative play.

Cut out the following pieces: from you large rectangle of material, you are going to want to cut 2 pieces- one large 7.5" x 7.5" square for the napkin, and one large 7.5" x 4.25" rectangle for the placemat. Cut your velcro pieces down to size later (they'll need to match the corresponding place setting). Cut your brown felt into the following 6 picnic basket pieces: basket body (mine is about 5" wide, 3" tall, and sort of rounded on the edges), basket lid (cut it like a long oval that will cover the basket pocket- mine is 5" wide, 1.5" tall, basket handle (cut it so that it is a wide upside down U-shaped piece- mine is 4.5" wide, and 1" tall), eyelet strip (cut out a long rectangle strip- with one end cut evenly, and the other en cut to a point- my strip is .75" wide x 3.5" long), buckle strip (this is the piece that will attach/fold over onto to the buckle- mine is 1.75" wide x 3" long), belt loop (this is a small piece that folds around the buckle strip and is like a belt loop and will fold around your buckle strip and hold your eyelet strip into place when all buckled- mine is .5" tall x 2" wide). Cut out your 5 place settings: Plate, fork , spoon, knife, cup, from the white pellon (I first drew them out with a black sharpie on the white pellon before cutting, and arranged them on the place mat to make sure they fit properly), and cut out identical pieces from the white felt. To give you a general idea, my plate is about 2.75" wide in diameter, and my utensils are about 3" tall. I ended up trimming my place settings down after sewing them the double thickness, so at this point, while doing the initial cutting, you might want cut them out generously and leave some room on the borders beyond the black marker so your stitching won't get too close to the edge.

Directions: First, let's make those places settings (plate, fork, knife, spoon, glass). I used sharpie pens to draw out mine. I used an ultra fine black sharpie (permanent marker) for drawing the utensils and then used a colored blue sharpie for coloring in the plate and water in the glass. Sharpies work great on the pellon as they don't bleed. Before you sew the white pelon to the white felt (to make the place settings double thickness), you are going to want to sew on the velcro to the white felt half. I used the soft/non sticky 1/2 of the velcro for this (so the placesettings wouldn't stick to the inside of the picnic basket) and just cut out small, thin pieces of velcro to match the specific place setting (see picture). Sew those into place onto the white felt pieces, and then sew the white pellon (drawn on) pieces to the felt/velcro pieces. After sewing those together to make them a double thickness, trim the edges so that they lie close to the stitch.
Now, for the napkin. This is pretty simple, just take your 7.5" x 7.5" square and fold over the edges and iron, and then stitch to provide a finished edge on all 4 edges. Then, I folded my napkin into a quarter (so it was triangle shaped), and sewed on a piece of velcro to it, so that it would stick to the place mat too. Because I applied the velcro to the napkin after folding it, it makes it so that you can't open the napkin completely, but it stays in a nice little triangle this way and makes it easy to use when setting the table. After applying the velcro to the napkin, I folded the napkin one more time and ironed/starched it (so it became a smaller triangle and fits nicely on the place mat).For the placemat, take the 7.5" x 4.25" rectangle and on the top and bottom edges of the rectangle, and fold them over and top stitch on top. I wanted to leave my side edges unfinished (frayed) to give it a picnic look, so I didn't fold those edges over, but rather frayed them and then top stitched where the fray meets the material so the fraying would stop. Then you are going to want to apply your other 1/2 of the velcro pieces to the place mat. Play around with the place settings and napkins and find out where they fit best. Then pin the velcro pieces into place and sew them to the place mat material.
Now you are ready to sew the place mat to the quiet book page. My place mat takes up the top half of the page. You may want to sort of position your basket on the bottom half, to make sure everything will fit okay (make sure to leave edges for the borders!). Once you've sewn the place mat on, you are ready to start working on the picnic basket!

Now, to build this picnic basket! First thing you are going to want to do is place the brown cut felt pieces together at the bottom of the page to sort of build the basket. This will help you know where to position the first piece you are going to sew on- the basket body. Before you sew on the basket body to the muslin quiet book page, you are going to want to top stitch just the top edge of the basket body. Since you sew this on like a pocket, it is this top edge that will not be sewn onto the page and will be tugged on the most. Once you've top stitched that, lay the basket body onto the page, and sew down the sides and across the bottom so you make a pocket.
Then you are going to want to top stitch the bottom half of the wide ovaled basket lid (since the top half will be sewn to the page it doesn't need top stitching). Then place the basket lid over the basket body, so that it's bottom rim comes down over the basket body about 1/3". Sew it into place by just sewing the top half of it to the muslin quiet book page. I for no particular reason (probably just ran out of one of the colors or something), used 2 different colors of thread here. If you look closely, you can see my white thread is the top stitching, and the brown thread is where I sewed the pieces to the muslin quiet book page.Next you are going to want to sew your basket handle to the page. I just placed it on top of the oval lid and stitched it twice back and forth into place.
Now for the buckle. Take your eyelet strip piece of felt, and apply four eyelets to it. On the pointed edge, I took a little bit of pellon (you could use any sort of reinforcement material here) and sewed it to the point so the point was sturdier (and would feed through the buckle easier). Place the eyelet strip now so the straight (not pointed) edge is in line with the top of the oval lid and sew that into place. I went back and forth on the sewing machine here with this stitch so that it was reinforced well to the felt/page since I knew it would get tugged on.

Next, you are going to want to apply your buckle to the buckle strip of felt. In order to do this, I had to loop the top edge over the buckle by making a small hole for the buckle tongue (the pin-like piece that feeds through the eyelets when the buckle is fastened) and then sewing the loop tightly into place around the base of the buckle so it becomes part of the buckle strip. I also reinforced my stitching here. Then you are going to want to take your belt loop, fold it into a ring shape and stitch it together, so it stays in a ring/loop. Slide this loop over the buckle strip you just built. Then sew the buckle strip onto the muslin quiet book page by placing it so that it's bottom edge (the edge without the buckle) lies flat with the bottom edge of the basket body. Before sewing this piece into place, you may have to play around withe buckle a bit and make sure it lines up well/attaches well with the eyelet strip that hangs down.

Lastly, if you want to put a text box on the page like mine, take some pellon and with permanent markers right something cute like "unpack the picnic basket and set the table", "set up a picnic!" or "a tisket a tasket, can you unbuckle my basket?"

Happy picnicking!

And up next is the "Numbers Page", so stay tuned! We're almost done with the 24 pages!!!

Page 20: Baseball glove/mitt

2010-02-24T15:21:00.005-06:00

Items needed: Large square of brown felt (7" x 7"), 2 squares of white felt (3" x 3" each), red thread, black thread, 4 eyelets (brown), one small square of Velcro.

Teaches: imaginative play,

Alternate ideas: I have only boys (thus far), who love sports, so this page was very fitting for them. If you want to make a more girly theme, you could instead do an oven mitt and replace the baseball with a pie, tart or cupcake or something.

Cut out the following pieces: Cut out a baseball mitt/glove shape from the large piece of felt. (My mom gave me a bunch of sketches she made, way back in the 70's, while making her quiet book, and I scanned the baseball glove page sketch and will post it here. It might be helpful to enlarge the sketch picture and print it off and use it as a template when cutting your glove out.) Be sure to make the bottom of your glove big enough to be able to get your child's (and your!) hand in and out of it. My glove bottom is: 5" wide. Then, cut out 2 white circles from your white felt. My white circles are about 2.75" wide.

Directions: You are going to want to first top stitch with black thread on top of the baseball mitt the mitt seams/outlines. I did this on my sewing machine. Note: you are not sewing the mitt to the page yet! I first drew out the pattern of top stitching I wanted lightly on the felt with a pencil to give me some guidance. After you top stitch, you can add fun little eyelets (if you have them handy) as they add a nice "touch" to the bottom of the glove. I added 4 eyelets to mine.
Then you are going to want to sew the glove to the muslin page. I only sewed a stitch up the side edges of the glove and then across the top (not going down the fingers- it will make it too hard to slip hands/fingers in and out). If you look at the pic below closely, you can see where I have a double black stitch- one from top stitching, and one from sewing the glove to the page. Also, don't sew across the bottom or else there will be nowhere to slip the hand through!. Be sure to back stitch at the bottom (where the sides of the glove meet the page, since they will get tugged on lots during play.
Next you are going to want to sew the ball. To do this, first take one of the white circles and sew a piece of Velcro onto the back of it. Sew the other 1/2 of the Velcro to the muslin page above the glove (where the ball will be stationed when not in play mode). Once you've got your Velcro sewn on, you are going to want to sew the 2 white balls together (to make it double thick). I just sewed first around the edges in white thread. Then I trimmed the edges a wee bit so that the stitch lies at the ball's edges. Lastly, I loaded my machine with red thread, put it on the zig-zag function and adjust the stitch length so it is "fine" (will make the zig zag stitches really close together). Then I just sewed 2 red arches on the white ball so that it looks like a baseball. Another idea to make the red baseball stitches is to apply red ric-rac to the ball.

If you want to put a cute little text box on your page, just cut out a rectangle of muslin, write on it with sharpies the phrase you want (mine says "slip your hand into the baseball mitt", another idea is "take me out to the ball game" or "play ball!"), and sew that on too!

Stay tuned! Up next I will give the directions for my picnic basket/place setting page (see preview of it here)...

Page 19: Apple Tree

2010-02-15T11:53:00.010-06:00

Items needed: 6" x 3.5" square of red felt (4 apples), 6" x 6" square of green felt (tree leaves), 5" x 4" square of brown felt (tree trunk), 3" x 5" square of brown/any color felt (bucket), small piece of ric-rac to decorate bucket, thread (any color- I used brown on mine), 4 snaps (I used the big bulky snaps that you put it with a snap tool/eyelet tool, however, they are a bit tough to do/undo. I recommend using the sew-on snaps as they are easier for little fingers). If you want to put a text box on your page (mine says: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"), you will need a small rectangle of pellon to write the text on.

Teaches: snaps, counting, putting things away, and that apples are fun/good to pick/eat!

Cut out the following pieces: From your red felt, you are going to want to cut out eight apples (they will be doubled up in thickness, so in the end you will end up with 4 apples like my page). If you want more/less apples, then adjust accordingly. Also, here's a tip, you are going to want to cut the apples quite a bit bigger than the finished product (since you will trim the edges and they will reduce in size). My individual apples are roughly 1.5" tall and 1.25" wide, but when I first cut them out, they were about 1.75" tall and 1.5" wide before trimming them down (but don't trim them until you've sewed the snap on/sewed the 2 sides together).

Cut out the dark brown (or whatever color your bucket is) square into a bucket or basket shape. Make sure that the bucket mouth (width in between the handles) is big enough to fit the width of an apple in. And make sure to cut the bucket deep enough to fit a few apples in there. Cut out a piece of ric-rac/ribbon that can decorate your bucket (mine piece of ric-rac was 3" long).

Cut out the brown felt square and the green felt square into the shape of a tree and tree trunk. For the tree (green) part, I just cut out what looks like a fluffy cloud shape, and then when I sewed it on the page, I set the brown tree trunk part in front of the green cloud shape so it looks more like a tree top with the branches protruding it. I kind of just eyeballed my tree after looking at my mom's apple tree quiet book, and you can try and do the same. My mom gave me a bunch of sketches she made, way back in the 70's, while making her quiet book, and I scanned the Apple tree page sketch and will post it here. It might be helpful to enlarge the sketch picture and print it off and use it as a template when cutting your tree and trunk out:
Or you can get creative and make your own style of (apple) tree. Here are some links to cute other quiet book tree pages:

The Thornock family has 2 cute trees in their book- an apple tree and a tree with removable leaves for a spring and autumn theme.

My little sister, Sara made a cute apple tree page (complete with a blueberry bush!) for picking in her quiet book.

Jill from Homemade by Jill has a cute tree in her quiet book with individual leaves sewn on (a bit more time consuming but very nice looking).

Michelle from Sew Much More has a cute tree page rendition where she made a page that has leaves that button on branches.

Erika from "celebrating today" blog has a cute little apple tree with a patch of grass and even a template for the pages.

Directions: First we are going to start with making the little apples. Since you've already cut them out into apple shapes, the next step is to apply the 4 snaps to the back of 1/2 of the cut outs (so I applied 4 snaps onto 4 of the apple shapes, leaving 4 apple shapes without snaps- these will be the front layer of the apples). You are just going to want to apply 1/2 of the snap (the top or bottom) to the apple, and save the other 1/2 for application to the green felt of the tree.
Once you've gotten the snaps on the apples, you are going to want to sew the apples into a double thickness by placing the remaining apple shapes on top of the apple shapes with snaps on the back, and then sew along the border of the edges. After sewing these 2 layers together, you can trim the edges so the seam lies right close to the edge.Next take the remaining 4 snap halves and apply them onto the green tree felt part, positioning them where they look well-spaced. Now you are going to want to sew the tree onto the muslin quiet book page. Do this by first sewing on the green tree felt piece by sewing around it's edges. Then place the brown trunk felt piece and sew that into place also by sewing around the edges. You can now snap on the apples.
Next, is the bucket/basket. First sew on the ric-rac or ribbon onto the bucket felt piece if you are decorating it. I also sewed a straight stitch at the bucket mouth for reinforcement (since the felt will get tugged on a bit here). Then you are going to want to sew the bucket onto the muslin page. To do this. Sew around the edges of the bucket and the inside/outside edges of the handle. Make sure to not sew the bucket to the muslin across the mouth of the bucket- this will keep the bucket "open" and you can stuff things inside.Lastly, if you want a text box, cut out a small rectangle of white pellon (mine is 3" x 1.5" big) and write something cute on it like the apple a day phrase or the "tisket a tasket" rhyme.

Here's a picture of the apple tree in my mom's old quiet book (missing a few apples as you can see):
You're done! Have fun at the orchard!

Page 18: Weave a Tower

2009-11-30T13:54:00.005-06:00

*This page is SUPER easy to make- we're talking 15 minutes here! Also, I have boys, so I stuck with the building/tower theme, but I also thought that this would be an excellent page to "weave a blanket, "especially if you are wanting to make it girly. The tower when weaved together, kind of looks like a quilt, and you could do it so that you have a headboard/baseboard and pillow sewn onto the page, and the blanket is the felt pieces that you weave together. One of these days I'll try to put together this idea and add it as a page to the book.

Items Needed: 2 pieces of felt (although oilcloth or vinyl would work as well) in different colors (about 6" x 5.5" of each). If you want to put a text box at the top too (mine says "Weave a tower"), then you will need a square of white pellon to write on the words and then sew onto the page.

Teaches: Color recognition, weaving, "above"/"up" and "under"/"down" concept.

Cut out the following pieces: If you have a pair of pinking shears, use them to cut out the tower pieces. The zig-zag edge that the pinking shears give to the fabric make the individual weaving pieces more durable and won't fray.

Now to cut out the pieces: there is a template for the felt tower pieces in the back of Ann F. Pritt's book (go to this link and scroll down to page 17). You can use that, or you can use the following measurements I give from mine. The felt tower pieces need to be cut into 2 sort of trapezoid shapes (one will be longer and one will be wider). Here are the measurements for mine: my purple trapezoid (the longer one) has a base of 5", a top of 2.5", and a height of 5.25". My blue trapezoid (the wider one) has a base of 5.5", a top of 3.5", and a height of 5". When you cut these out, you are going to want to make the base of the trapezoids curved slightly (like in Ann F. Pritt's templates), and not a straight line across. I know Ann F. Pritt's templates show the trapezoids pre-cut into strips, but I didn't cut my trapezoids into strips until AFTER I cut them completely out. I think it was easier this way. So once you get those trapezoids cut out, then you are going to want to cut the longer trapezoid (purple) into four strips lengthwise (up/down).

Then cut the wider trapezoid (blue) into six strips crosswise (left to right).Directions: *It's interesting because this is probably the easiest page to make in the quiet book, but it is probably the hardest one for kids to do when playing with the book. I usually have to walk my boys through it when they get to this page as weaving is kind of a complex process for a 2-3 year old. My almost 5 year old is finally kind of getting it down. I patterned this page after one I found in Ann F. Pritt's "How to Make an LDS Quiet Book", page 1, "Tower of Babel" pattern which can be found here (0r template seen below).

To make this page, you will want to first take your strips from the longer tower (in my book these are the purple strips), and sew across their bottom to the page. I spaced my strips out just a tad (maybe 1/8" is all), so the weave isn't too tight. After you get these strips sewn on, place the opposing strips from the wide trapezoid (in my book these are blue strips) on top (you might want to weave them in now, just to make sure they are placed appropriately) and sew them to the page down the right side, as shown in the picture below.

Once you get these sewn on, you are done! You can also sew on a little text box like "weave a tower" if you'd like too.

Page 17: Teddy Bear Tie

2009-11-10T17:48:00.006-06:00

Items Needed: Brown and Pink felt for the bear, Googly eyes, 3 fun little buttons, about 18" of ribbon for the tie

Teaches: Tie a bow or knot, ABC letters/primary colors if you have ABC buttons in red blue and red.

Cut out the following pieces: Cut a large "teddy-bear-shape" out of your brown felt (see suggestions on measurement below in directions), cut out little pink pieces for the ears, nose, hands and feet. Cut your ribbon in half so each half is around 9" long.

Directions: This page is fairly easy to make. I patterned this page after a teddy bear page in my mom's quiet book. I kind of just "eyed" her page and cut a bear shape that was a similar size (and could fit on my page nicely) out of my brown felt. If you need help "eyeing", my bear shape (from bottom of feet to top of ears) is about 9" tall, and from side to side (arm to arm) about 6.5" wide.

Also, here's a sketch mom made way back in the 70's, while making her quiet book. It might be helpful to enlarge the sketch picture and print it off and use it as a template when cutting your pieces out:Sew your little pink ear pieces onto the brown felt where you want them. Do the same with the little pink feet and hand pieces, just sewing them 1/8" away from the edge. Then take your little round pink nose circle and before applying it to the brown felt, you are going to want to sew a nose and mouth design on it. I did a sloppy job on mine with a black zig-zag stitch for the mouth and then just a back and forth (a thousand times) switch for the nose. You could also do an embroidery job here to make it look cuter. Then position the circle on the bear's face (you might want to also place the eyes in place so that you put the mouth/nose piece in the right spot and give the eyes enough room). Remove the googly eyes and then sew the circle into place.

Place your googly eyes onto the brown felt. I used heavy duty/industrial strength glue to apply the plastic eyes to the felt, you could probably also use a hot glue gun too. Or you could just make fabric or button eyes. I like the googly eyes because one of the things my boys like to do when playing with this page is tilt the bear from side to side and make his eyes shift.

Sew little buttons into place onto your bear's chest. I found some cute "ABC" buttons at Joann's, and I thought they could be helpful with teaching letters/colors on this page as well. Once your buttons are in place, take your ribbon and fold each strand over around the edge of the neck so it looks like it is coming from behind the bear's neck. Sew each strand into place. Fold over and sew the loose end of each ribbon so the ends won't fray.

Now all you've got to do is sew your teddy bear into place on the page. My bear took up almost all of my page (leaving 5/8" on the top and 5/8" on the bottom for when I sew the pages together). I also added a little text bubble with some white pellon and a blue permanent marker that says "Please help me tie my bow!"

Here's a picture of the teddy bear in my mom's quiet book. She used shoelaces instead of ribbon for the bow:

Page 16: Fishing

2009-08-31T13:24:00.007-05:00

Items needed: Blue material for the water (10.25" wide x 9.25" tall), blue ric rac for the waves (10.25' long), a bit of white pellon to trace/color "Peter" or fisherman on (5" x 4" square will do), netting/mesh material* for fish net (4" x 7" piece), 6 buttons (make sure the buttons aren't bigger then your fish bodies!), and 6 pieces of felt in assorted colors for the fish). *Regarding the net/mesh material- I first used a sort of white mesh (think laundry bag for washing hosiery and stuff), but it was very flimsy and hard to work with, so I went to the fabric store and found this great fish-net stuff (very 80's but exactly what I was looking for) in purple. And it was much more durable. I don't know how to explain the fabric other than to ask you to think of the 80's and those fish-net sweaters people use to wear over tank tops. That's the kind of material it is.

Teaches: buttoning, putting things in a bag, colors.

Cut out the following pieces: Cut out the assorted felt pieces in fish shapes. For mine, I actually bought some pre-cut felt flowers (see pic below) in the dollar bin at Joann's, and then I just snipped off some of the petals to make them into fish shapes. For the net, you are going to want to cut it up in a tall rectangle that can be folded into thirds. When you fold the bottom up, that will end up being the pocket, and then the the part of the net that extends to Peter's/fisherman's hands will be the upper third (and will not be folded over).

Directions: First of all, I must give proper credit for this particluar quiet book page. My mom passed onto me a wonderful quiet book instruction booklet called Ann F. Pritt's Quiet Book, which unfortunately now is out of print I hear. Ann has a number of great ideas in this book and you can see the individual templates for each page via this link at the Idea Door. Then click to page 12 to see the "Peter fishing" page. Here's also a snapshot of the page:

You will want to print off the page from the above link and then copy or cut out the net (it will help you know how to cut the right sort of rectangle/shape for it), as well as copy/trace Peter in the boat. I kind of made his boat a little deeper and I gave him additional facial features. I traced him right onto my white Pellon and then colored him with permanent markers and then cut him out.

The first thing you are going to want to sew onto your white muslin quiet book page is the blue "water" fabric. Make it take up the majority of the page, with about 2.75" of the white muslin showing at the top of the page. I actually placed the blue ric rac on at this time as well and then stitched over both the ric rac and top of the blue fabric sewing it to the muslin. I sewed 2 lines of stitches here as the first one didn't seem to catch the ric-rac well enough. Then you are going to want to stitch the sides and bottom of the blue water material to the muslin page as well. I did a 3/8" stitch that was really close to the end of the muslin fabric (I didn't want this stitch to show once the pages were all sewn together).

Then you are going to want to position Peter/the fisherman (and position the net as well, so you can make sure you are spacing it well). Sew Peter right onto the blue fabric/muslin page, stitching him on real close to his edges.

Now, you are going to want to sew the bottom 2/3 of the net up on the sides to make a pocket. You may also have to finish the edge (my fabric came finished) on the lip of the pocket to make it so it won't fray. Then position the net on top of Peter's boat so that the upper 1/3 extends up to his hands. Remember to use this (page 12) as a reference with the net. It will help you a ton.

Make sure your fishes can fit into your mesh net. My fishes fit, but it is a tight fit. My fishes are about 2" long and 1" tall, and then cut of course in a simple fish shape. You are going to want to sew a button hole into each of the fishes. My button holes in each of the fish are about 3/4" long, but yours will depend on how big your buttons are (my buttons are 1/2" wide). Then cut open the button hole with a seam ripper, making the hole about the size of your button's width. Position your fishes around the blue water material where you'd like their corresponding buttons to be. Make a small X inside the button hole onto the blue material. Remove the fishes, and you should have 6 small X's in various spots around the blue material. Remember not to position the fishes too close to the page's edge as you will be sewing about 5/8" of the border of the page under when you sew the pages together in the end.

Sew your buttons onto the X's and make sure you reinforce them really well to the page as they will get tugged on quite a bit by little hands. It's much easier to reinforce now than to have to find and sew back on buttons later. Attach your little fishies and walah! You have a fishing hole!

Here's a pic of my Peter fishing page with raw edges (before I sewed the pages together). Yours should look something like this:

Optional: you can also sew on a text box like I did on my page if you want. I just wrote the phrase "Help Peter catch some fish" with permanent marker on a rectangle of white pellon, cut it out and sewed it to the top of the page.

Page 14 & 15: Oven & Cupcakes

2009-06-12T15:18:00.008-05:00

This was one of my most favorite pages to make (along with the closet/getting dressed pages). I think I enjoyed it more because it got more of my creative juices flowing than the other pages. This page was actually thought up with the help of my friend Amy, who originally found the cute little felt cupcakes in the dollar bin at Joann's. She was showing them to me one day during a playdate and we started discussing what sort of quiet book page we could whip up to incorporate these cute little felt yummies. I have to admit, I love to see my boys practicing baking too ;) There's nothing that makes a mom more proud than to see her boys skillful and adept in the kitchen- so don't just think this is a girlie page! I only have boys, and they love "cooking cupcakes", and pretending their "H-h-h-hot"!

Page #14: the oven

Items needed: big felt piece for the oven, white pellon for the stove burners and panel of dials, some silver/metallic material, fun patterned material for inside the oven, 10" of an elastic cord/string, some felt scraps for the oven handle & circle-thing to anchor the hot pad's elastic string to the page, a small hot pad (consisting of 23" of thin white binding, two 4.5 x 4.5" squares of material, and a thin piece of batting cut in a 4.5" x 4.5" square to make it a bit fluffy like a hot pad should be), a small rectangle of velcro (to hold the oven door shut).

Teaches: cooking, imaginative play, counting, pockets, how to use a hot pad.

Cut out the following pieces: From the felt, cut a large oven shaped piece, with a little oven door cut out (that pulls down to open- I used pinking shears at the top for this, hence the zigzag cut at the oven door top), and a little oven door window cut out (a 2" x 1" rectangle). Cut a long rectangle and a circle from the felt scraps (a different color than the oven) for the oven door handle and the hot pad anchor. Also cute a small rectangle from the metallic fabric to use as the oven window. Cut it slightly bigger than what you cut the oven window in the big piece of felt. Cut out a large piece of fabric in sort of a skewed box shape (bottom 1/2 of the box is wider than top 1/2) to be used as the backing of the oven (seen when the oven door is opened. Lastly, cut 3 little ovals out of pellon (to be used as the burners), as well as a long rectangle to be used at the top of the oven as the dial/clock range.

Directions: Before I started, I sketched out my oven on a piece of paper to practice with how I wanted it to look and the right angles. I recommend doing this or if you like my oven, print off the picture and try to trace off of that. It's best to cut an oven out that has angles to it (see the angles in mine?) as it will make it easier when you are sewing it onto the page and differentiating the range from the oven. Okay, let's get started!

To start off, you are going to want to get your oven pieces you just cut out placed right and ready to go before sewing it all together. I would start off with the pellon. Take the white pellon oval pieces and with a black permanent marker, draw swirls on them to make them look like little burners.
With a finer tipped black permanent marker draw the dials and clock on the long rectangular piece of pellon. I used a pink permanent marker to accent this. Once you have these pellon pieces, set them aside (you'll sew them on after you get the oven door finished).

To start working on the oven door, first take your metallic material for the oven window, and if it is like mine, it probably frays, so you are going to want to either fold it over on the edges, or do a double stitch around the oven window like I did. Sew the window in place. Then you are going to want to sew a little oven door handle on there above the window with that felt scrap rectangle you cut out earlier. To do this, you are going to want to sew on the velcro at the same time (my velcro and oven handle are the same size pieces), so with the handle on front, and the velcro on the back, sew it into place. With the other half of the velcro, save it for later when you sew it onto the material used for the inside of the oven. Now sew a top stitch around the oven door. This will help keep the door from pulling/stretching.
Now with the oven door done, you are going to want to sew on your pellon stove top pieces. For the burners, I just sewed circles to keep them in place on the range. Next, you are going to want to place the material you want on the inside of the oven and make sure it fits nicely behind the bottom half of the oven appliance. I even trimmed my down a tad so that it wouldn't stick out around the edges. You can either sew on the velcro now or sew it onto that material when you are sewing everything to the page. I did mine before so I could get it over with, but if you're worried about your velcro shifting during top stitching, you could also sew it on later.

Place the oven on top of the material used for the inside of the oven, and place the entire piece on the muslin quiet book page where you want it. Now begin to top sew all around the oven (its borders, its creases(the places where you want it to look like a different angle/dimension is occurring- like at the top of the stove top, at the bottom of the stove top, around the front of the oven). If this stitching doesn't make very much sense, look at this oven picture and notice where the top stitches are on it. Remember I am not only using the stitching to stitch the oven to the page, but also to give the oven depth and dimension. Maybe other people don't really care to make your oven look 3-D, but I wanted that effect, hence the top stitching. It also serves as a good reinforcement to the felt. Speaking of reinforcing, I back stitched a few times where the oven door slit began on the left and right. I knew the door would be tugged on quite a bit and wanted to make sure it was reinforced adequately.

Once your oven is all sewn onto the muslin, you are going to want to make the hot pad! To make my hot pad, I actually just took a hot pad from our kitchen drawer and tried to copy it, just mini-size. My hot pad is 4.5" x 4.5" big.
To make it I first took 2 yellow squares of fabric, placed a thin piece of batting between them, and sewed diagonal lines (1" apart) from the left and and then the right to give it a genuine hot pad look. Then I placed the white binding tape around the ages, leaving a few inches at one corner to loop around and make a hot pad handle. I sewed this binding tape in place, and walla! you got yourself a kid-sized hot pad. I tied the elastic string around the loop and then placed the other end of the string under a felt circle and sewed that circle onto the page. I was a little worried about the string becoming unattached and making its way out of the circle, so I back stitched a bunch on the felt circle to make it a solid little anchor for that thing. There you have it. You're very own quiet book oven page! Now let's start cooking!
Page #15: the cupcakes and pan
Items needed: big rectangular piece of metallic material for the oven (7.5" x 9.5"), 6 cute little felt cupcake pieces from Joann's dollar bins (I found these in 2007/8 in packs of 10, so they very well may not have these anymore, if you can't find them, just make them yourself by cutting out cupcake-shaped felt pieces and sewing on little sequins to look like sprinkles on the top (or if you are super crafty, you could make little cupcakes that look like this), and an assortment of felt to make the 6 little felt cupcake liners/cups in different colors (I chose the classic pink, yellow blue since they reminded me of real cupcake/muffin cups).Teaches: cooking, imaginative play, counting, pockets, how to use a hot pad.

Cut out the following pieces: Cut the metallic material to a 8" x 9.5" rectangle, cut the cupcake cups so that they fit around the bottom of the cupcakes (mine were a trapezoid shape being: 1.25" wide at the base, and 1.75" wide at the top, and 1" tall) I cut these cups with pinking shears at the top to give them the zig-zag cupcake liner look. I also cut out a long rectangle of pellon to write the words "count the cupcakes" on and sew to the top of the page.

Directions: To start off, you are going to want to fold over the edges of the entire pan/metallic material. My material frayed quite easily, so it was important to to do this so the pan would stay in tact. Be careful about ironing- some metallic materials will melt under an iron. I folded over about 1/3" inch and then folded that over again and then sewed this fold into place by sewing around the pan's border. Then I sewed the empty pan onto the muslin quiet book page, just by sewing right over the border stitch I just sewed. Then you are going to want to sew the felt cupcake liners into place. Place them where you want them on the pan, and sew around their base and sides (so that you are sewing them onto the pan and the muslin page). Back stitch a couple times there at the top of each of the sides to give them reinforcement. Make sure the cupcakes can slip in and out easily of the felt liners. If you want a text box at the top, right something like "count the cupcakes" or "cook the cupcakes" on a piece of pellon and sew that right onto the muslin. There you have it! 6 delicious little cupcakes to nibble on and cook over and over!

Page 12 & 13: ABC's

2009-06-07T11:36:00.003-05:00

There are a number of ways you could make this page. I used iron on letters fused onto different pieces of colored felt. If you could find felt letters pre-cut to begin with, I would use those as that would eliminate the steps of having to iron on the letters to felt, and then cutting the felt pieces to match the letters. I couldn't seem to find any alphabet-shaped felt pieces so I had to make mine "homemade" style.

Items Needed: 1 pack of iron-on letters (these are found at any fabric store. I've even seen them at walmart), enough felt to fuse the letters onto (I made my letters rainbow colors, so I used a bit of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple felt), 2 ft. of a 3/4" wide Velcro strip (sew-on, not fusible*), and a rectangle of fabric to make a letter pocket at the bottom.

*I prefer to use Velcro that isn't adhesive and can be sewed on. The reason is, is that in my opinion, stitches usually last longer than adhesives. If you try to sew on the adhesive Velcro, then you will run into a gummy/sticky needle which is not fun to sew with. So my advice is to just get a pack of sew on Velcro.Teaches: Letters of the alphabet, order, spelling, Velcro.

Cut out the following pieces: First, I cut out little rectangles of felt that matched up with the letters they were being fused to (notice I cut them out each as rectangles first. I didn't trim them to shadow the letters until I had first sewn the Velcro on the back and then fused them to the iron-on letter. This way I didn't have to stitch the Velcro on through the fusible fabric, which can make your needle sticky, and just the felt. It also makes so you don't see the stitch used to sew on the Velcro). You will also want to cut out your pocket. My just consisted of a long rectangle (7" x 3") and a lid for the pocket (7" x 1.5").

Directions:I first cut out my iron-on letters so that I had the entire alphabet in caps (A-Z). Then, I cut out rectangles of felt that would fit those letters in an assortment of colors, so the rectangles were different sizes depending on the size of the iron-on letter. So, for example, the W needed a large rectangle of blue, but the I just needed a little rectangle of yellow. Don't trim the felt to match the iron-on letters just yet, leave them as rectangles until you get the Velcro sewed on and letters ironed on.

Then, you are going to want to position your alphabet how you want on the 2 pages of muslin. I was able to fit A-P on my first page (4 rows, 4 letters to a row), and then Q-Z on my second page (3 rows, and the bottom 1/3 of the page was reserved for a pocket to store letters). Then, you are going to want to sew little squares of Velcro onto the back of the felt rectangles. Now I put the scratchy side of Velcro on the felt and the soft side of Velcro on the muslin, but you can do it either way. In fact, as I was ironing on the letters to the felt, I got nervous since the scratchy Velcro was on the back of the felt and was plasticky- I thought it would surely melt. It didn't melt, but I did place a cloth underneath just as a precaution. If you wanted to not have to worry about anything possibly melting, you could just make sure to put the soft side of the Velcro on the felt rectangles instead of the plasticky, scratchy half of Velcro.

To sew the Velcro squares on, first sew them on the back of the felt rectangles, then sew the other half of Velcro directly onto the muslin page, making sure to position them first where you want them on the page before sewing. Once the Velcro is all sewed on, then you are going to want to iron on the letters to the felt rectangles. Make sure to follow all directions given on the iron-on letters package.
Lastly, you are going to want to sew on a pocket. This is done real easy by just sewing around the bottom and sides of the rectangle (reinforcing on the side tops since it will get tugged on more up there), and then sewing on a little lid (I first sewed on a little "letters" word box onto the lid first). To make it so your pocket doesn't fray, you can either fold over the borders of the fabric of the pocket box/lid, or just use pinking shears and sew it flat on like I did. The pocket is fun to have to stick all the letters in when your child is using the blank page to spell something or put the alphabet in order.

Also, you may want to make duplicates of some letters if your child's name has double letters since that is probably something they will want to practice a lot. Just store the extra letter(s) in the pocket.

Page 11: The Tepee

2009-04-27T15:15:00.007-05:00

Into the Tent! This is a fun little page that my kids like to put Mr. & Mrs. Noah into to "sleep" when they get off the boat. I also thought it would be fun to have a little compass (what kid doesn't like to play with watches or a compass?), so I made a little pocket for that. You could be creative and add whatever you like to this page in the white space. I found the compass at the dollar store as part of a key chain. I just cut off the part with the metal loop and sewed it on like that with a pocket for it to tuck into. My kids get a kick out of looking at the compass and figuring out which way is north.

Items needed: A fun, "feely" material for the tent (I used some neon green fuzz), Ric-rac (in any color) for the stripes on the teepee, a tad bit of Brown felt for the Tepee sticks at the top, one small zipper (around 5-6" long- can cut zipper down if you can't find a short enough zipper- they often don't sell them short these days), a felt square in any color for the compass pocket, and a compass or old watch to stick/sew into the pocket. I found my compass at the dollar store in the key chain section. Optional fun things to stick in the teeppee: Noah figurines, animal finger puppets from Ikea, Go-fish/memory cards, cheerios for snacking on.

Teaches: zippering, imaginative play, compass/watch reading

Cut out the following pieces out of felt: Take your fun fuzzy/rigid/groovy material for the tepee and cut into a triangle (approximately: 8"w x 8.5"h x 8.5"h). Cut your ric-rac into 3 pieces that fit across the tent lengthwise and then some (mine measured to be 8.5", 6.5", 3.5"), Cut out three little sticks from the brown felt (I used up some of my scraps for these), and cut a little pocket (mine measures: 2.5"w x 2.25"h). I used a pinking shears cut on the top of my pocket for fun/durability.

Directions: Take your 3 pieces of ric rac and sew them onto your triangle. Leave a little bit of ric rac at the edges, and fold under the material before sewing so that it provides a finished edge on the ends (ric rac will fray). You are going to want to double stitch/reinforce the ric rac in the center of the tepee (I just did a back stitch there in the center while sewing on the ric rac), since that ric rac will eventually be snipped right through when putting the zipper in.

Then you are going to want to put the zipper in. There are a number of ways to do this. You can first cut the slit in the tepee and sew it on, or you can cut the slit AFTER sewing the zipper on. I cut it after, so I will show you how to sew it on in that fashion, but feel free to sew that zipper on however you feel most comfortable. First, place the closed zipper on the underside of the tepee, where you want it to be. Make sure to position the zipper so it reaches the bottom of the tepee, but not the top. You can pin the zipper in place if you want. If you've used a zipper that has been cut down, you are going to want to make sure to reinforce the stitches at the end of the zipper (top) over and over so the zipper doesn't fall apart.

To sew the zipper to the felt, just sew around it (by sewing on the back side of the felt, so the zipper is on top of the back of the felt, but the zipper is wrong side up), making a Π shape, with the opening at the bottom of the teepee. Make sure to reinforce the zipper at the top. Then you are going to cut the slit from the front where the zipper is hiding. You can use a pair of scissors or a seam ripper. You'll want to cut your slit slightly smaller than the length of your zipper so the ending is hidden under the felt (my slit was about 5.5" long). Now your zipper should be peeking out. Unzip/zip it a few times to make sure it works. You may have to trim the ric rac back a bit on the slit part so it doesn't get tangled in the zipper.

Then, you are going to want to position the brown felt sticks where you want them on the muslin page (you can pin the tepee into place if it helps), so they peek out of the top of the tepee. Sew the sticks into place, then sew the tepee ontop into place. When sewing the tepee into place, be sure to double reinforce the stitching at the very bottom of the tepee where the slit is (when you're sewing it will be a bumpity ride as you go from teepee material to zipper to slit to zipper to teepee material.

Lastly, you will want to sew on your pocket (very simple), just sew around it on the muslin leaving the top open so you can stick the compass inside (if you want to sew on some words like "compass", sew this onto the pocket before sewing the pocket onto the muslin page). I kept my compass on the little black belt it came on with the key chain (with the key chain part cut off) and sewed that black belt to the muslin so it could reach into the pocket as well as have enough slack to be taken out and played with.

Here's a picture of a similar key chain I found online, to give you a general idea of what to look for at the dollar store if you go compass-huntin':

There you have it! A Tepee! Now, go campin'!

And here's my mom's rendition of the Tepee page (the original!): Also, here's a sketch (from the 70's!) my mom made when she was putting together her quiet book. Looks like she originally planned on making a little Indian doll to go with:

Page 10: The ark

2009-01-20T15:55:00.010-06:00

In my book, I have the ark page and tee pee page side by side. It works out well this way since the little Mr. and Mrs. Noah figurines can be tucked away in the tee pee or ark (depending on if they've made it safe to the promise land or they are still afloat!).

Page 10: The Ark
Items needed: Brown felt for boat and boat roof, blue felt for windows and water, felts (in any colors) for ark house and door and "ARK" letters, blue ric rac for ocean tip. One small zipper (at least 6" long- can cut zipper down if you can't find a short enough zipper- they often don't sell them short these days). The items to put inside the ark are optional: animal finger puppets from Ikea, Go-fish cards with animals on them (cut down and used like memory game cards), Noah and his wife plastic figurines (I got mine at the dollar store, I've also seen them sold at Allen's grocery store in their dollar aisle).

Ikea Finger Puppets

Animal Go Fish cards made into memory cards

Noah and his wife plastic figurines

Teaches: zippering, matching (memory game), imaginative play.

Cut out the following pieces out of felt: Brown big boat bottom (mine measured approximately 8" wide, 5" tall), 1 brown roof, rectangle for boat house (mine measured 4" wide by 2" tall), a small rectangle for boat door, the letters A, R, & K, a 6" zipper (or longer/shorter depending on your ark size), big blue ark windows (4), small blue ark windows (2), a rectangle in blue/green to make the water piece at bottom (mine measured 9.5" wide x 1.5 inches tall- will depend on how big your muslin page is), and 9.5" of blue ric-rac to make the waves.

Directions:

First, you are going to want to sew the zipper on to the ark. I'm no spectacular zipper-sewer, so my directions will be basic. You can google it, but most of the instructions are quite advanced and for hidden zippers like on the back of a skirt or something. Here's what I did to sew in the zipper: place the closed zipper on the underside of the boat, where you want it to be. Make sure to position the zipper about .25" from the top and be sure to leave about 1" on the sides between the sides of the arc and the beginning/ending parts of the zipper. You can pin the zipper in place if you want. If you've used a zipper that has been cut down, you are going to want to make sure to reinforce the stitches at the end of the zipper over and over so the zipper doesn't fall apart. To sew the zipper to the felt, just sew around it (by sewing on the back side of the felt, so the zipper is on top of the back of the felt, but the zipper is wrong side up), making a continuous rectangle (don't worry, your zipper will come out and play eventually!). Make sure to reinforce the stitches well since this will get tugged on a lot. Then you are going to cut the slit from the front where the zipper is hiding. I started my slit by using a seam ripper and then cut the rest of the slit with a pair of scissors. You'll want to cut your slit slightly smaller than the length of your zipper so the ending is hidden under the felt (my slit was about 6" long). Now your zipper should be peeking out. Unzip/zip it a few times to make sure it works. Phew! Did that work? Zippers are hard to explain.

Secondly, you are going to want to sew on the A R K letters onto the boat bottom of the ark and the 4 big blue windows. Next, sew your little windows and door onto the arc house. Place the arc roof, arc house and ark boat bottom onto the muslin page in the positions your prefer. Sew everything in place by going around their borders (you might want to leave a teeny-weeny slot unsewn if you are going to put a little flag in there like I did- see last directions below). You are also going to want to make sure to sew the horizontal borders in between the ark bottom, the ark house and the roof (this will make the felt lay flatter on the page and not come up when you use the zipper).

Next, sew on the water at the bottom. I just positioned the blue felt at the bottom of the page and made it so it went all the way to the ends/bottom of the muslin (when the page is finally sewn together with another page, it will all look nice and finished). Also, it was touching the base of the ark (so the ark looks like it is on top of the water).

Then sew the ric rac atop the blue water so it goes on top of the ark, to create a wave affect.

The last thing I did (and this is totally optional) was I made a little narrow slit/slot for the plastic flag to be placed in in front of the boat. This plastic flag says "Noah's Ark" and was part of another Noah figurine set I got at the dollar store. To do this, just sew a little thin slit down (about 2.5")and then back up right at the end of the boat. Make it snug for the flag as the felt will eventually stretch. Here's a picture for helps: Tada! You should be finished! This is a really fun page. Probably my second most played with page in my book, so definitely a favorite! And if you really want the Noah/wife figurines but can't find them at your local dollar store or Allen's grocery store, you can email me (I've picked up a few extra- however I don't recommend this route because you are going to end up paying for shipping and handling, which will make this "dollar toy" much more expensive- make sure to look around at your local dollar stores first!).

And here's my mother's 35 year old ark (Complete with a little felt Noah!) that inspired my ark:
Stay tuned for Mr. & Mrs. Noah's tee pee!

Pages 8 & 9: Mail

2009-01-14T12:46:00.006-06:00

*This is probably my most popular page for my kids to play with out of my entire quiet book.

Items needed: felt pieces in different colors for the pencil pocket, the notepad pocket, and some red/blue/white felt for the mailbox. Some ric-rac to decorate the pockets with. A small piece of white pellon (optional) to write a text box (mine says "write a letter, place it in the mailbox"). Once the page is finished, you will want to have a pencil, notepad, some envelopes and stickers to stick in the pockets too.

Teaches: Writing, imaginative play, practices writing and mailing a letter.

Cut out the following pieces: My dimensions for the pockets were as follows: pencil pocket- 5.5h" x 1.5w", notepad pocket- 5.75"h x5.25"w. I just came up with my measurements from an average notepad and pencil we had laying around If you have a certain unique notepad/pencil you'd like to use, feel free to alter the sizes. Cut out 2 pieces of ric-rac to adorn the pockets cut to the following lengths: 1.75" long and 6" long. The cut out the mailbox- I just took the design from my mom's quiet book. Here are some sketches she made (back in the 70's!) when she was creating her book. You are welcome to click on them/enlarge and print off to use as a template if you want to make the same style of mailbox:
If you wanted to make a more modern looking mailbox you could come up with your own. To make a mailbox like mine, you are going to want to cut out a big blue box of felt that is about 6.75" wide and 8.75" tall. Then you are going to want to clip and curve the corners and edges to make it look more like a mailbox (take a look at the picture) and be sure to cut a pocket slit/hole in the top center of it. You are also going to want to cut out Red letters for the word "MAIL" and a box out of the red felt that is about 4.25" wide x 2" tall. You;ll also need to cut out a little keyhole ( out of blue and white felt)and white strip (out of white felt), but you can just eyeball these so I won't give exact dimensions.

Directions: We'll start with page #8, the pockets page. You are first going to want to sew on ric rac strips on each felt rectangle (about 1 inch from top edge). Fold over the unfinished ends of ric rac underneath the felt pockets before you sew on the ric-rac and sew it on that way so there is no unfinished edges of ric rac showing (as it will fray) . Place the felt rectangle pockets on the page and sew in place just by sewing on the left edge, bottom edge, and right edge (making sure to reinforce the stitch extra well as the tops of the pocket since that part will most likely receive extra tugging when the page is being played with. You can also put a little text box above the pockets by writing on a piece of white pellon with permanent marker and sewing the pellon onto the page.For Page #9, the mailbox page, you are first going to want to sew the red letters and the key box/key hole onto the big blue mailbox felt piece. Once you've got all that sewn on, you will want to sew around the mailbox hole for reinforcement. Once that is stitched, the mailbox is ready to be stitched onto the page. Once again, when doing this, take into mind as to whether this will be a left page or a right page and place accordingly with adequate space for 3 binder holes that will eventually be placed in the center (you should make sure to do this with EVERY page, just a reminder here since the mailbox takes up so much room and space is limited on this page). Sew the mailbox on by sewing around all the edges of the mailbox. I even sewed a line across the top for extra reinforcement (see picture below).

Place a fun pencil and notepad in the pocket (it fits a 6" x 4" notepad perfectly!). I also stick an assortment of envelopes and stickers (to use as stamps) in the pockets too. Your kids will be entertained for longer than you think! Plus, the little "notes" they write to each other and to you and dad are definitely keepsakes!

Stay tuned for the "ark" and "teepee" pages (my kids' next favorite pages) coming up next!

Page 7: Telephone

2009-01-12T13:13:00.006-06:00

Items needed: felt for phone and handset and dial, white pellon circle for border of dial, no-tie shoelace (the ones that coil up- I found mine at walmart, but I know they sell them at most shoe stores), sharpie marker for writing the numbers on the pellon circle, 2 snaps (I recommend getting the smaller, hand-sew-on snaps. I used the heavy duty snaps that came with my eyelet tool and they are just so hard to snap/unsnap I wished I would have used the smaller ones).

Teaches: numbers, snapping, talking on the phone.

Cut out the following pieces: Cut out felt in the following shapes: a telephone base shape (don't forget to cut out the 2 little pieces at the top that protrude and in real life hold the phone on the base. You'll use these 2 little pieces that stick out for placing snaps on later), a circle, and a handset (handset you need 2 pieces thick). Cut out a circle (which is a bit larger than your circle of felt) from the white pellon. You can also cut out a white word box from the pellon if you'd like (mine says "Make a phone call!"). Also cut your coily shoe lace the length you'd like the phone cord to be (with about a 1/2 inch extra that will end up being tucked into the phone/handset.

Directions: First you are going to want to take the small felt circle and cut a circle in the middle of it (to do this I just folded it in half and cut a half circle). Then you are going to want to take a hole punch and make 10 holes around the circle, spacing them so that it looks like the old fashioned phone dial. Here's a fun picture of one for reference:

Above image from http://www.craphound.com/images/giantfonedial.jpg

Then, you are going to want to take your circle of white pellon and place it underneath the felt circle with holes in it. Sew it together by sewing a seam around the inner circle and outer circle (see pic). Then you can take a permanent market and right the numbers in the holes (write on the pellon fabric). Then take this dial piece you've just made and place it in the center of the piece of felt shaped like a phone base. And sew them together by sewing a circle seam around the outter rim of the pellon.Next you are going to want to sew the hand piece. Before you sew the pieces together, you are going to want to place 2 snap halves in one of the copies of the felt hand pieces.

Do this placing the snaps so they line up with the phone bases 2 little protruding things (where you are going to place the other snap halves). After applying the snap halves one of the headset phone pieces, sew the 2 handset felt pieces together, leaving a small hole to stick the coily shoelace end through. Once you stick the shoelace end through, reinforce the stitch a couple of times to make it real sturdy over the shoelace.

Now you are going to want to sew the phone base to the muslin book page (I applied the snaps very last- so they went through the felt and the muslin- I did this to make them a bit sturdier, and to make it easier so I didn't have to sew around the snaps when sewing the base to the page). Place the phone base where you want it on the page and sew it around the age. Leave a little opening at the bottom side of the phone where you can stick the other end of the coily shoelace/phone cord in. Reinforce the stitch where you are tucking in the phone cord to make it really sturdy (that phone cord will get stretched!). The last thing to do is apply the bottom halves of the snaps to the 2 little protruding things (I don't know what to call these!) on the phone base. Make sure they line up with the snaps you've sewn on the handset.

You can also sew on a text box if you want at the top of the page introducing the phone! Mine reads "Make a phone call!". Another idea for this page is to make it look like a cell phone (since phones like this one aren't really around anymore- but then of course you miss out on the fun little coily phone cord which in my opinion is one of the highlights of this page).

Here's a picture of where I got my inspiration- good ol' Alice's (my mom's) quiet book:And here's a link to a sketch she made (way back in the 70's) when she was creating her quiet book. Feel free to enlarge it/print it off and use it as a template:

Page 6: Shapes

2008-12-08T13:20:00.008-06:00

Items needed: felt pieces in different colors for shapes (star, diamond, square, circle, triangle, plus sign), a bunch of black felt for squares and box, 7 snaps, and optional ric rac and pellon for text box.
Teaches: snapping, matching, colors, shapes.
Cut out the following pieces: 3 copies each of the 6 different shapes (cut them out over sized/bigger than the black squares since you end up trimming them in the end), 6 black squares (mine where 2"tall/wide), and a shape box out of 2 rectangular pieces (lid and box) out of any color of felt (I used black).
Directions: Cut the 6 black squares to a size so that they fit nicely 3 across & 2 tall on the quiet book page. For each shape, you need 3 copies (one for sewing to the page, and 2 for sewing together and making the pieces). Trim down one of the copies of the shapes and sew onto a black square and repeat for 5 remaining shapes/squares. Before you sew the black squared shape onto the page, sew bottom halves of snaps onto the centers of each piece. Then sew piece (which consists of 1 black square, 1 shape and 1 snap bottom) onto the muslin page, and repeat for 5 remaining pieces.

For the shape pieces, first sew top halves of snaps onto one of the felt pieces for each of the 6 shapes. Then, sew the 2 pieces of felt together, so the snap is on the outside. After sewing together, trim down in size so it matches the shape on the black square and fits nicely in the black square.

Now, your done with the hard part. The shape box is easy. Take the 2 pieces of felt in rectangular pieces (one making the lid, one making the box), and sew on any rick rack or a "shape" text box from pellon if desired. Sew on a snap bottom to top rim of box, and a snap top onto the underside of the lower rim of lid (or you can wait and sew on the snaps after you've sewn the box onto the muslin- I think I may have done this). To sew the box/lid onto the lower half of the muslin page, just place the bottom box and sew around the sides and bottom edges (making a pocket). Then place the lid on so that it overlaps a bit/the snaps match up and sew the sides and top. I didn't sew all the way down on the sides on mine (maybe 1/2 way down on the lid), so that the lid could swing open upwards. But do make sure when you are sewing this all onto the muslin, you are doing a reverse stitch a few times at the end of each stitch line so that it all stays sturdy on the page and can withstand numerous little tugs on it while your kiddo is opening and closing the box.

To play: put the shapes in the box and have your child, remove them and match!

My sister made a simpler rendition of this page- she did one with just shapes (no black boxes) as well as she also did a really cool page with a simliar idea, but with mathmatic equations! Check 'em out!

And here's a pic of the original from my mom, Alice's book:

Page 4 & 5: getting dressed

2008-10-19T15:16:00.006-05:00

Page #4: the closet

Items needed: felt pieces for closet and making clothes, zipper.
Teaches: zippering, getting dressed, velcroing, imaginative play.
Cut out the following pieces: A large rectangle of felt for the closet (approximately 6" x 8"), felt circles for doorknobs (2), various clothes/outfits, shoes, mittens, etc. out of different colors, a bunch of little velcro squares for applying to the clothes.

Directions: Sew a zipper onto the big rectangular piece of fabric. The easiest way to do this is to sew the zipper first to the rectangle (down the center of it- just place it on the underside of the felt, facing in and sew around), and then cut a slit up the middle (but not all the way to the end- leave about .25" at top), so the zipper now peeks out. Before you cut the slit, you will want to reinforce the top/end of the zipper just by back sewing a few times. Sew on the door knobs/felt circles. Then Position the rectangle in the center of the page (but perhaps a bit to the left if it is a left handed page as mine is, to leave room for the 3 holes for the eyelets later. Sew the closet onto the page by just sewing the 4 edges of the closet to the muslin.
Then make a bunch of fun little outfits- this is the fun part! You will want to first make a little cardboard cut out of the "person" on the adjoining page and cut the clothes to fit/match (kind of paper-doll style), then use that cut out to make the pellon person so it all fits nicely together. All of my clothes were just single thickness, but I sewed around the edges to make them a little more sturdy and less likely to rip/tear. Sew on the velcro pieces so that they match the opposite velcro pieces that are on the little person on the next page (chest, pelvis, feet, hands). Ideas for different outfits include: athletic outfit, church/dress outfit, play clothes, shoes, mittens, a basketball, a bible/scriptures (for holding in the hand).

When deciding which velcro side to sew onto the clothes vs. the body, you probably want to sew the sticky side onto the clothes, so that the body doesn't stick to the closet every time you close the book (the sticky velcro will stick to normal felt). So put the soft velcro 1/2 on the body.

Page #5: the body

Items needed: pellon cut out of body, sharpie markers, yarn, velcro pieces (6).
Teaches: getting dressed, velcroing, imaginative play, body parts.
Cut out the following pieces: a body from pellon material(traced from the cardboard cutout mentioned in previous page), a long strand (1-2') of yarn in color of desired hair,
Directions: Make a cardboard cut-out of a body (if you haven't already) with the desired shape. Keep it simple- "gingerbread style" and make the hands/feet knobs rather than doing fingers since you will be having to sew this pattern onto the page eventually and you don't want to make it too complex. Leave the head bald/like a gingerbread man since you will be applying yarn later for the hair. Trace the body onto Pellon and draw in features like eyes/nose/mouth/heart with a black ultra fine sharpie permanent marker. Color in with colored sharpie markers if desired. Sew velcro (soft side) onto the pellon at the feet/hands/pelvis/chest parts. Sew the pellon body onto the page. To do the hair, you can do strands or loops or braids, depending on what kind of hair style you want and if it is a boy/girl/neutral. To do the loops, I just zig-zagged the yarn in 1/2" loops and then scrunched it together and placed it on the head and sewed back and forth over it a few times. If you like the word-bubble "Help me get dressed", just write on some pellon with permanent marker, cut it out, and sew it on!

Here's some pics from the good ol' Alice quiet book (my mom's):

Page 2 & 3: traffic light and road

2008-10-04T12:57:00.007-05:00

Page #2: Traffic Light

Items needed: black felt or material, red, green yellow felt, Velcro.
Teaches: safety, traffic light understanding, color coordinating/placement, using Velcro
Cut out the following pieces: Black traffic light shape (1), red felt circle (2), yellow felt circle (2), green felt circle, Velcro squares (3).
Directions: After cutting out the black traffic shape (I used black material instead of felt and folded/sewed over the unfinished edges- but using felt would probably be easier since you don't have to fold over/sew the edges), you are going to want to sew on 3 of the Velcro squares onto the black traffic light. Just sew on 1/2 of the Velcro to the traffic light of course (the other 1/2-fuzzy or sticky side, you will be sewing onto the red, green, yellow circles). Once the Velcro is in place, sew the black traffic light onto the muslin fabric page. Remember to position it according to whether it is a back or front page, and you may want to leave room for the little traffic light rhyme if you are putting that on the page too.

To make the circle lights, you will want to make them double strong of felt (why you cut out 2 circles of each color). But before you sew the circles together, sew the other 1/2 of the felt pieces onto one circle from each color. Make sure the Velcro placement allows for them to be Velcroed onto the traffic light in an even manner (not overlapping). Once the circles have Velcro on the back, sew the same colored circles together, so that the circle lights are double thick with Velcro on the back. Position them on the traffic light with red on top, yellow in the middle, and green below.

Optional: If you want, you can add a little word/rhyme box (traffic rhyme) like I did with some pellon fabric and permanent markers. Write the word on the pellon, cut it out, and then sew it on the page.

Here's a pic of the traffic light page in my mom's book which inspired this one:

And here's a link to a sketch my mom made when she was creating her book. You can enlarge it and print it out to use it as a template (like I did) if it helps:
Page #3: Road pageItems needed: one toy car, various colored felt, ric rac, iron-on adhesive or iron-on patch, 1 small snap.

Teaches: unsnapping (garage), line-following, imaginative play
Cut out the following pieces: black/grey felt road (1), large rectangular shape (with one end wider than the other) of felt for garage (1), assorted shapes for felt houses/buildings/roofs (4), felt trees and stumps (4), felt lake (1), white felt arrow (1), little windows/doors cut out from iron-on adhesive or patch for houses/buildings (10-13), yellow ric rac (1).

Directions: cut out the road felt piece so that it fits on the page appropriately. Sew the yellow ric rac down the center of the road piece. No need to cut the ric rac at turns, just fold it over one time in the direction you want it to go. Sew on a white felt arrow to the road felt if desired. Pin the road piece onto the muslin page (placing it appropriately on the page as to whether this is a front/back page).

Put windows on the buildings/houses by using either iron-on adhesive between felt or a jean iron-on patch.

Place the cut out houses/buildings, trees and lake around the road. Leave a rectangle place for the car garage. Sew the road felt into place. Then sew on the houses/buildings/trees/lakes into place. Then, take the garage felt (skewed rectangle with one end longer than the other) and hand sew a snap half onto the end of the piece of felt that is a bit wider. Sew the garage piece into a rectangular space (but allowing the end that is a bit wider to pull up, so the car can be placed into it, and forms a pocket). Sew the other snap side underneath the garage, so the pocket snaps shuts. Make sure as you are making the garage, you can get a matchbox car or similar to fit into it nicely.

Optional: instead of using a matchbox car, you could make a little car or two out of felt and tuck those into the garage instead (this would make the page lay flatter too!)

Here's a pic of my mom's road page that inspired my own:

Page 1: flower vase

2008-09-28T22:29:00.009-05:00

Items needed: 5 chunky buttons, felt, and ric rac.

Teaches: how to button/unbutton, color matching

Cut out the following pieces:
Felt Vase (1)
Felt Flowers (5 x 2)
Assorted ric rac for vase decor (1) and flower stems (5)

Directions: After the vase is cut out, cut out a piece of ric rac to line the top of the vase with, and sew it onto the vase. Sew the vase on the page, leaving the top lip of the vase open (to stick the rick rack stems down in).
Cut out 2 flowers of equal size of each of the 5 colors. Sew the 2 felt flowers together so that the flowers are double thick (or you can just use the flower felt shapes shown below from Joann's $1 bins that are already thick enough- you won't have to double up and won't have to reinforce the button hole with these). Once the flower felts are sewn together, sew a buttonhole (that will be large enough to fit the buttons through). Place the flowers where you want them on the page, and make a small x through the button hole on to the fabric so you know where to place the buttons.

Before you sew on the buttons, cut and place ric rac stems on the page. Sew the stems into place so that they come out of the vase lip and end where the x's are for the buttons. Then sew on the buttons using a shank fashion. This will help keep the button from laying too close to the fabric and so the felt can fit under it when fastened.
If you want, you can add a little word box (flowers) like I did with some pellon fabric and permanent markers. Write the word on the pellon, cut it out, and then sew it on the page.

Ta dah! Your first quiet book page is finished!!! Don't you feel proud!

Here's a pic of my mom's flower vase page in her old book:And here's a link to a sketch she drew in the 70's while preparing her quiet book:

Preface to sewing

2008-09-28T21:43:00.005-05:00

Figure out how many and which pages you want to include in your book. When you are positioning the felt and items on the page in preparation to sew, make sure to leave a little bit of room on the left or right margin (depending on whether this is a front page or a back page). You are going to have to leave a little more room on the left margin if it is a front page for the eyelet holes and a little more room on the right margin if it is a back page.

Also, when you cut the muslin, cut it doubled up, so that you have identical cut pieces of material to go on the front and back (this will make it easy when you are sewing the pieces together as they will be the same size). I put little 1F and 1B marks in the corners of the pages after I cut them out, to keep them in order. So 1F stood for page 1 front, and 1B stood for page 1 Back, and then the next 2 pages I cut out were 2F and 2B and so on.

Also, when you are positioning the felt, make sure you don't put it too close to the margins. You will want to leave about a 5/8" invisible frame around the page since this frame/margin will end up on the inside of the pages when you sew the pages together.

Wait until you've finished sewing the felt onto all the pages before you begin to sew the pages together back to back. This way, if you find you need to do a bit of switching around with the pages you can. I did this a bit with my pages and tried to position them so that different things like zippers were spread out from each other or there wasn't 2 button pages in a row.

When you do begin to sew the pages together, do so by placing the finished felt sides together so that the back of the pages are on the outside. Sew a 1/2"-5/8" seam around the margins, leaving about a 3-4" opening on one of the sides (I left this opening on the margin where the eyelet holes were). Turn the pages outside in, so the right sides now appear on the outside. Press with an iron on low heat, making sure to get the edges, nice and firm (I used a bit of ironing spray to get the pages stiff). When you are sure you don't need to make any changes to the pages, then you can sew the finishing stitch on the unfinished 3-4" opening you left. Just use a simple stitch with thread similar to the muslin color. The page is now ready for eyelets.

Before placing the eyelets. Get out a piece of notebook paper and use the 3-holes as a guide so that all of your pages have equally spaced out holes helping them to fit together nicely in the quiet book and binder rings. Place the paper over the page and with a pencil, trace the circles of the holes on the left handed margin (on the front side page). You will use these marks then for putting the eyelets in the pages. Once you've put the eyelets in (3 to a page), they are ready to go in your book!

Gathering the supplies

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*Feel free to pick and choose which supplies you'll need according to which pages you want to do.

MATERIAL:

Pages: I made my pages out of unbleached muslin. My mom's book was made out of this stuff and it lasts, doesn't stretch, and will wash well. I got mine for a great price at Walmart (I think like 4 bucks a yard). Each page side requires about 10.5" x 12" of fabric (prior to sewing them together). So use that measurement when purchasing the amount of fabric. If you want 24 pages (12 when sewn together) like my book, then you will need fabric large enough to cut out 24 rectangles that are 10.5" x 12". If you get 3 yards of muslin, you should have more than enough.

Cover: I used a red sparkly vinyl. I chose this fancy stuff because it reminded me of my mom's quiet book which was also covered in red vinyl. I found it at Joann's in the back, near the vinyl material in those really tall rolls, where the picnic tablecloth vinyls are. My sister, Sara, also made a quiet book recently and she covered it in some cool blue vinyl. See it here. My cover was double thick (which was actually kind of tough on my sewing machine to sew together) to make it sturdy and cover up the unfinished side most vinyls have on the back. My cover fabric was 26" long and 13" tall (it folded over so this included the front cover and back cover). If you want to double the vinyl, like I did, you will need 2 rectangles with the above dimensions.

Felt: You will need a lot of felt for the book. I got most of mine for free. I got it off of freecycle. I put a "wanted" out for felt. And I heard back from quite a few people older ladies who had hoards of felt they were very willing to give away (I think felt was quiet the crafty thing to have back in the 70's). Also, the felt they sell nowadays isn't as good as the old sturdier stuff, so I totally recommend looking through your mom or grandma's old sewing scraps or asking for some on freecycle so you can get you yourself a good ol' stash. I did buy some felt squares from Joann's, but they seemed to stretch and pull more so then the "real" stuff. Give freecycle a try in your city. You'd be surprised how many people have boxes of felt lying around.

Pellon: I used this white, thin, stiff fabric (non fusible type) for the pages where I wanted to draw faces or write words with colorful permanent markers (see the little word boxes on many of the pages, and the dressing boy, and fisherman). Joann's sells this stuff in rolls. Just make sure you get a thin thickness. You only need about 1/2 yard of this.

Silvery fabric: used for the oven/cupcake pages as the pan and oven window. You really only need a little square of this, so just buy 1/8 of a yard.

Netting: used for the fisherman page as his net. I used a sort of thick netty material but a simple mesh would work too.

Plaid fabric: for the picnic page (like a gingham red). You only need a little bit of fabric for this, so look in the remnants!

Vinyl or corduroy fabric: for shoe page. Just need a bit.

TOOLS/HARDWARE:

Pinking shears:(fiskars are a great brand) if you want to do the zig zag edge on the cover. I also used the pinking shears on a couple things in the quiet book with material that was more prone to run.

Eyelet plier kit: And be sure to get eyelets (in the same size as the tool). I got my tool at Walmart for about 8 or 9 bucks I believe. And it came with some eyelets and snaps too (and I used the snaps to clasp the vinyl cover shut). I used about 55 eyelets in assorted colors throughout the entire book (see baseball glove page, picnic basket page, shoe page). Including the 3 eyelets on each page for where the binder rings fit through (this will make your book last a long time by using these).

Binder/book rings: You will need 3 of them. I bought mine at Staples in a pack of 12. Get the 1.5" size.

Sharpie pens: I got a pack of these in an assortment of colors to use for the writing and people faces. Get the fine tip ones as they do bleed a little.

A buckle: get the small kind. I used this on the picnic page.

ACCESSORIES:

Buttons: You'll need some big chunky ones (5) for the flower page (I got mine at Joann's), some smaller ones (6) for the fishing page, and some fun decorative ones (I got A, B,C) for the teddy bear page.

Ric-Rac: This is that zig zag stuff that is sold near the binding in fabric stores. Cheapest place to buy is at walmart. Get a couple fun different colors. I used this on the flower page, the car/road page, shapes page, mail page, ark and tent pages, tower weaving page, and fish page.

Thread: get an assortment of colors. Both for your sewing machine and for some hand sewing.

Velcro: Get about a yard of white sew-on Velcro to use throughout the book.

Patches: I used an old fuse-able blue jean patch for the windows on the buildings in the car/road page.

Iron-on letters: I used these for the alphabet page. Get the 1.5" tall size.

Zippers: in my opinion, the old, chunky zippers are the best. I came across some fun, bright, old ones at a thrift store. They usually don't sell the short zippers anymore in fabric stores, so just buy the shortest length ones offered and cut them to size. Then sew a reinforcer stitch so the zipper still stops at the top.

Snaps: I prefer to use the small, sew-on snaps for the pages (used on apple tree page, shapes page, phone page, car/road page). I used both the small and large in my quiet book and the larger snaps that are the ones you hammer into the page/or use the eyelet tool, are too hard to undo (especially for little kid's hands). The small sew-on snaps take a little more time to sew into the pages, but they are much more kid learning friendly. You will need about 14 of these snaps.

Yarn: You just need a little for the hair on the dressing boy page.

Spiral shoelace: These are sold at walmart in the shoe section. They come in all sorts of colors and are advertised as "no-tie" shoelaces. These make a great telephone cord for the telephone page.

Stationary: You will need a small pad of paper, a pencil and some blank envelopes to keep in the pockets on the mail page. I also tuck in some stickers to play with like postage stamps.

Toys for inside Noah's Ark and Teepee: I got a great little plastic Noah and wife figurine at the dollar store. I also sometimes stick the little Ikea animal finger puppets in there. I also cut up pictures of animal pairs from go fish cards (from Joann's dollar section) for a little memory/matching card game that goes inside the ark too to help build some memory skills. I also stuck a compass on the tee pee page which any kid would love to play with. I got it at the dollar store in the key chain section.

Felt shapes: I found mine in the dollar section in Joann's. I got felt flowers and felt cupcakes and felt butterflies. You can cut up the flowers or butterflies into different shapes too like fishes (as seen on the fisherman page), so buy some extra packs of these.

Googly eyes: for the teddy bear

A ribbon: for the teddy bears tie

Shoelace: used for the toe tying page. Get the shortest lace possible. And the round, thin laces (think men's dress shoes) work good.

Money saving tips: use freecycle as mentioned above, find great accessories and ideas at the dollar store (or the dollar section of Joann's), find supplies like zippers and buttons and material at thrift stores, and ask around- your neighbors/friends/family might have some old fabric/felt just lying around waiting to be used. Also, get online and join Joanne's email group so you can get the 40% off coupons. This really paid off as I don't think I ever bought anything from Joanne's at full price other than the little dollar items.

Introduction

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One of the fondest memories I have growing up was playing with the big red quiet book my mother made for us kids. It would keep us quiet in church. It taught me how to tie a shoe. It helped me learn my numbers. And it was sturdy and strong, lasting through all 7 of us kids. And now the grand kids are the ones to enjoy.

Last year, while visiting my parents, my son Jimmy (who was 2 at the time) was enthralled with the book. I loved how it kept him so busy (and quiet) as he learned about so many different tasks- buttoning, zippering, matching, snapping, tieing, and more. Having so many brothers and sisters (all of whom adore this quiet book), I knew it was a fat chance it would get passed on down to me to use with my own kids, so I decided, I was going to make my own. I took pictures of each page of my mom's quiet book and then made patterns for cutting the felt. I mostly copied pages from my mom's book and added a few ideas of my own. I made it for fairly cheap in regards to all the supplies (and I have a ton of suggestions on how to do so).

It took quite a bit of time, but it was such an experience to make. I couldn't help but think as I was slaving over my sewing machine, ripping out seams and changing thread, "I wonder if this will be something my kids will try and mimic someday just as I am trying to mimic my own mother's book?" and "would these little buttons someday be fondled by my grand kids?"

My mom gave me a lot of great pointers as I created the book. She encouraged me to make sure each page was teaching something, and fostering imagination. I see some of the quiet books out there on the market and think they lack the whole learning/teaching factor. That is what keeps the child entertained- something that keeps their mind churning and learning.

I encourage everyone to make a book like this. And that is why I am sharing it with you all via this blog. I think I have something great to share- my mom's quiet book has lasted 35 years so far and is STILL in good functioning order, so if you put the time into this, you should have something that really lasts and will be worth so very much (in a sentimental way) to your kids and grandkids- more than you can imagine.

So have fun bouncing around this blog, leave me a comment or two and let me know your "quiet book story", and what great ideas you come up with.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions. You can reach me at fowlerfam at gmail dot com. Happy quiet book making!!!

PS- as I get this blog up and running with pictures and instructions and all, you may notice it being under construction and only partly finished. Please feel free to follow this link to the quiet book page on my family blog in the mean time and see a few pictures there if you just can't wait: http://fowlerfam.blogspot.com/2008/02/quiet-book.html

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