Amber's Quiet Book

You guys. I love today's quiet book. It is so well made. Each page just shines with quality. I love all the details - the stitching around each page and each figure. It was made by Amber of By Amber's Hands, who clearly has a lot of talent. Check it out!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
My name is Amber. I'm a strange mix of extrovert and homebody, I love to create things and I always have more ideas than I have time to actually do.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made this for my son and gave it to him on his 2nd birthday.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I'm definitely a beginner. I actually thought I hated sewing for a long time. Then I got into hand-sewing and got comfortable with that pretty quickly. I was still terrified of sewing machines until I finally got one that was really user-friendly. Now I can't believe I haven't done more with it!

How long did it take you?
Umm... This is kind of a hard question to answer. I started planning it way before I actually worked on it. I had intended to make it much earlier than I did (by about 6 months, I think) but we had some unexpected things happen in my family, so I didn't start on it at all until about May. I didn't finish until September, but that's because I didn't have a ton of time to work on it all at once. I think each page probably only took me an hour or two from start to finish, but when you have a toddler you have to steal little bits of time here and there.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I didn't use any templates. I sketched out each page and made stencils out of heavy vellum, then traced it onto the fabric.

How did you bind your quiet book?
Well, I made one piece of fabric that was big enough to use as the front and back, with some room to bind. I had machine-sewed smaller groups of pages together, then when I bound it, I hand-sewed large stitches through the cover & all the pages. It worked ok, but was hard to keep everything together as I was stiching and to stitch straight!

What material are the pages made out of?
Felt.

What other materials did you use?
Cotton patterned fabrics for some things, canvas for the shoe, a zipper, velcro, snaps, Heatn' Bond, shoelace, buckle, bells, buttons...

How much did all the supplies cost you?
I honestly don't know... I bought the supplies a few months before I even started working on it, then it took me a few months to make it, then a few more months to blog about it... so it's been nearly a year since I bought most of the supplies!

What's your favorite page? Why?
I think my favorite is the first page, the one with the window & the cat. It was actually the last one I came up with, and I was kind of stuck. I had 9 pages that I had no trouble coming up with ideas for, but I needed one more. I actually didn't get the idea until I was at the fabric store, looking at different materials. I think the cat ended up cute, and the window was something I hadn't seen in other quiet books. I ended up having to make a change to it later, because my original materials didn't hold up. But it was a simple fix (I don't know why I didn't think to do it that way in the first place!) and I think it should last for a long time.


You should definitely check out Amber's quiet book on her own blog, where she has several more pictures and a lot more instructions and details about every page. Here are the links for the different pages:

Busy Book Pages 1 & 2 (The Cat in the Window and the Squirrel)
Busy Book Pages 3 & 4 (The Bird on the Nest and the Bear in the Tree)
Busy Book Pages 5 & 6 (The Dog and the Shoe)
Busy Book Pages 7, 8, 9, & 10 (The Pocket, Overalls, Numbers, and Colorful Shapes)

Thank you so much, Amber, for sharing your amazing quiet book with us! :)

Have you made a quiet book that you'd like to share? Click here for instructions on how to submit your own quiet book!

Kristina's Quiet Book

For all those non-sewers out there, today's quiet book is for you! Put together by Kristina of Mother's Niche, this cute and fun quiet book is made on paper, laminated, and took her less than an hour to make. She made several versions of no-sew quiet books: magnetic, velcro, and vinyl. Below are pictures of her magnetic quiet book, and her printable quiet book available in her Etsy shop Mother's Niche on Etsy.

Magnetic quiet book:

Kristina's printable quiet book templates (available at Mother's Niche):

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.  
Kristina.  If life consisted merely of creative projects I would be living a dream.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?  
My daughter and future children (my daughter is 14 months old and I'm pregnant with #2).

What's your level of sewing experience?  
Very beginner.

How long did it take you?  
To design the pages was probably 20 hours, to make the quiet book was probably less than an hour.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?  
Nope.  Since I couldn't find any "printable" or "no-sew" options at the time, I set out to make my own.

How did you bind your quiet book?  
Coil binding.

What material are the pages made out of?
Cardstock and lamination.

What other materials did you use?  
Velcro, magnets, or magnetic paint depending on the version.

How much did all the supplies cost you?  
Under $20 with exception to the magnetic paint version which was more.

What's your favorite page? Why?   
Daniel and the Lion's Den.  The concept of changing the Lion's moods from hungry to more pleasant just makes me giggle.

To view Kristina's quiet books on her blog (with more instructions and explanations of how she put it together), visit:
Mother's Niche: No-Sew Quiet Books
Mother's Niche: Printable Quiet Book

To check out Kristina's printable quiet book templates available in her Etsy shop, visit:
Mother's Niche Etsy Shop

Kristina, thank you so much for sharing your awesome quiet books with us!

Have you made a quiet book that you'd like to share? Click here for instructions on how to submit your own quiet book!

Keely's Quiet Books

Wow, I have a whole lot of cuteness to show you today! Keely from The Wilkins made not one but three awesome quiet books. Each of them is so cute and looks so fun to play with! And I love each of the covers she made - the fox, the viking ship, and the panda. Any kid who saw the cover of these quiet books would want to play with the pages inside. Check out all this awesomeness!

First Quiet Book:

Second Quiet Book:

Third Quiet Book:

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
Keely: I'm a wife and mother who is unable to sit still for long and happiest when I have my family around me and a project underway.

Who did you make these quiets book for? How old are they?
I made them for three children. Two of them are for my sons, who are both quite young (2 months and 18 months). One is geared toward an older level (which neither of my sons is really at yet, but they will grow into it) and the other is for younger kids (it's about right for my older son right now).
The third is for my niece who is also too young for it right now (6 months), but will grow into it. It is a mix of the two books I made for my boys, but it's a little more girly. Most of her pages are the same as the pages in my boys' books, but she also has a few unique pages.

What's your level of sewing experience?
Intermediate: I've been sewing with my mom since I was in elementary school, but that was mostly quilting and I'm not nearly as good as she is. I started working with felt a lot just a few years ago. I really enjoy sewing by hand so felt has been a fun medium to work with.

How long did it take you? (How many hours total? Spread over how many days?)
I started these book sometime in the summer while I was pregnant with my second son. I was so worried that with two little boys under 18 months old, I would never have time to work on projects again that I went on a frenzy of projects while my older son was napping or in bed. Needless to say, the three quiet books were my biggest projects and I was able to finish all but the binding before my son was born.

For all three books, it probably took 3 or 4 months working for 2-3 hours each day. Some days I didn't get to work at all, and sometimes on the weekends I worked a lot more because my husband was home to help with our son. It took longer because my books are completely hand done except that I used my machine to sew the pages to each other. It might have gone faster had I used my machine more.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I free-hand cut almost all the felt that I work with. It typically saves me time because I don't have to trace and copy patterns. For the viking ship cover I needed a pattern because it is so detailed. I found a picture of a viking ship online, enlarged it, printed it, and cut it out; then used it as a pattern. I also use a few templates from a blog called ServingPinkLemonade for the toolbox and its tools and the little boy because I just couldn't get the dimensions quite right. I adapted a few ideas from her blog for some of my other pages, but I didn't use her templates (although she does provide them for free). Many of the ideas for my pages were gathered from around Pinterest and other blogs, I just embellished on them to make them more how I wanted, but some pages are my original ideas.

How did you bind your quiet books?
I sewed two pages together back to back so that the messy backside of each page would be hidden and punched metal grommet eyelets into the pages. I used ribbons strung through the eyelets to tie the pages all together. I like this method because it is sturdy, but allows me to add additional pages to the book if I decide to; also I could update or clean one page at a time. My niece's book is actually the only one that is completely done because it was her Christmas present. I'm still looking for the time (with two little boys needing my attention) to finish binding the other two books.

What material are the pages made out of?
The actual pages are made from thick non-fusible Pellon. I used this material because I heard that it is more durable and holds its shape better than felt. It can be found at fabric stores with the fusible interfacing and is a really nice material to work with. Unfortunately, Pellon is only made in white, so the background to all my pages is white unless I sewed felt onto it.

I used wool felt for all the pictures in the book.A few years ago when I first stared working with felt I used the much less expensive synthetic felt, but found that it doesn't hold its shape as well as wool felt and pills (those little balls that gather up on fabric or on sweaters) very easily with a lot of use. I decided to spend the extra money on wool felt for all these books because I'm able to cut more detailed shapes from it and it stays looking nice much longer.

What other materials did you use?
Beads, buttons, Velcro, snaps, zippers, and of course embroidery floss.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
Ouch! I bet I spent close to $100. However, when you consider that I made three books with a total of about 40 pages, this isn't too bad. I have Pellon and felt still left over and plan to eventually make more pages to add into the books. Wool felt costs 3-4 times more than synthetic felt, especially when you buy it in the small squares rather than off the bolt (I did it this way because I needed a wider variety of colors). Had I used synthetic felt, it would have been much less expensive.

What's your favorite page? Why?
The cover of my boys' book with the viking ship is my favorite even though it doesn't have any activity that goes with it. My husband kept insisting that I do a viking ship, but I kept putting it off because I thought it was much too difficult. I finally cut a pattern out like I described above and spent a lot of time working on all the details of the ship. I like this page the best because it was the most challenging and I think it turned out really well.


To see more of Keely's quiet books, check them out on her blog here. Thank you, Keely, for sharing your seriously awesome quiet books with us!

Have you made a quiet book that you'd like to share? Click here for instructions on how to submit your own quiet book!