Giveaway winner!

Good morning everyone! Thank you to everyone who participated this week in our giveaway for Amy Pincock's book "Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children."

Today I get to announce that our winner is...........

 Lisa H! 

She said: "I'll be making a quiet book (or two) for my two boys. They are age 3 years and 18 months. I just finished making them some felt food so I have lots of supplies already on hand...I'm all ready to start their books!"

Congratulations Lisa!

Again, thank you to everyone who participated!

Quiet Book Freebie from Kristy & Last day of the Giveaway

Good morning everybody! I hope you had a good weekend. I've got a couple of fun things for you today.

First off is a free template from Kristy, whose adorable quiet book posted on the blog last Friday. She made patterns for her book which are available in her Etsy store, Art in Everyday Life.

She decided to offer the template for the little "mini-me" doll in her quiet book free to Quiet Book Blog readers! Just click here: Mini-Me :: a free Quiet Book Pattern page to go to her blog and download the pdf. Both instructions on how to sew the doll and the pattern for the doll are in included in the template. And you get it free! Thank you Kristy!

The second note for today is that today is the last day of the Quiet Book Pattern book Giveaway! CLICK HERE to enter or click on the picture below! Make sure to get your entries in before midnight (Pacific Standard Time), and you might win Amy Pincock's "Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children!"

Click here to be taken to the giveaway!

So I hope you're having a great day, and enjoy your free template. :) And make sure you enter the giveaway!

Kristy's Quiet Book

Before I show you today's AWESOME quiet book, I just want to remind you again to enter this week's giveaway! You could win Amy's Pincock's book "Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children." The giveaway closes Monday at midnight (PST), so be sure to enter now before you forget!

Just click on this picture!

With that said, let's get to today's quiet book! This book was made by Kristy of the blog "The Art of Everyday Life," and it is so well made. I really really love her hot air balloon and boat pages - I've never seen pages like that before, and they're so cheerful and cute! I also really like how there's a doll on a ribbon that can play on every page. It's such a fun idea and works especially well with pages made for the doll, but you could add one even to a quiet book you've already made.

Kristy made templates of her quiet book pages, and they're for sale in her Etsy shop. You can find them here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/artineverydaylife.

Enjoy!

 

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
Kristy. I’m a creative, curious, unconventional, oh so grateful work-from-home mom to two precious girls and wife to one awesome husband.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
 My now 5 year old daughter, Ada. I gave it to her when she was 3. I’m now working on one for my 3 year old, Cora.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
I have been sewing by hand for years. I’m mostly self-taught. I’m good with my hands, but I think just about anyone could make a quiet book like this if they wanted. Especially with all the great training videos on-line these days.

How long did it take you?
It’s a little hard to say. I work on these types of projects a little bit at a time between diapers and feeding and cleaning and all that other homemaking, working, living stuff. I also usually have several creative projects going at one time. It’s just the way my mind works. It took me about a year(!) probably to get this finished. I would guess it was close to 60-80 hours total. But I designed every page myself, so a lot of that was design time.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
I design my own templates! They can be found here: www.etsy.com/shop/artineverydaylife.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
Grommets and binder rings. (Cutting a hole in and adding grommets to pages that took you hours and hours to create is a terrifying experience, by the way.)

What material are the pages made out of? 
Wool felt. I'm so glad I went with wool felt, it has held up beautifully!

What other materials did you use? 
Bits of fabric and embroidery floss and a few buttons here and there.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
Another tough answer because so much of the material I had on hand, or I only used part of in this project so I have scraps for other projects. I would guess around $20 - $30.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I don’t necessarily have a favorite page, but I do have a favorite element – the bees. Bees are sort of my symbol. I love that they are this sweet little hidden surprise on most every page. It was a fun challenge to design the pages around a place to hide a bee.

To get all of Kristy's adorable patterns, visit her etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/artineverydaylife. She's working on a new quiet book right now (which you can get a sneak peek at on her blog, here!).

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful quiet book with us, Kristy!

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

Magda's Christmas Quiet Book

Okay, before getting to today's post (which is an AWESOME Christmas quiet book), I want to remind you guys to enter this week's giveaway! You might win Amy Pincock's "Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children."

Just click on this picture!

All right, now today's quiet book comes to us from Magda, a stay-at-home mom from Poland who's currently living in China. She made an adorable Christmas/winter-themed quiet book (two of them, actually) as a Christmas present. I love so much about this quiet book, but some of my favorite things are the Christmas tree branch (on the first page), the Christmas tree with different shape ornaments on it, and Santa and his reindeer. I love how well done everything is and how interactive the pages are - the Snowman dress-up is a great idea, and I love how the penguin's igloo is also a puzzle. I know it's March and Christmas is a long ways away, but it's never to early to start planning quiet books! Enjoy!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
My name is Magda. I'm Polish but currently living in China. I'm a stay-at-home mum of 2 kids.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
I made two books. They were Christmas gifts for a boy who is 2.5 and a girl who is 1.5 years old.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I'm a beginner.

How long did it take you?
About 2 weeks. I sew mostly for about 2-3 hours in the evenings.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I used part of the "Penguin & Igloo" template from Imagineourlife.com for the igloo page. Christmas tree - the idea taken from iSLCOLLECTIVE: Shapes and Colors worksheet.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
I sewed the pages together with embroidery floss.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Snaps, Velcro, ribbons, buttons and beads.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
Not sure. I had all the supplies at home.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I love a gift page and a Santa page. They were real fun to make and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful quiet book with us, Magda!

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

"Quiet Book Patterns" Book Review & GIVEAWAY!

*Disclosure: I was given a copy of Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children for the purposes of this review. The opinions that I express are definitely my own. :)

Hey everyone! Today is a very exciting day because it is the day of the Quiet Book Blog's first giveaway!

A little while ago I was contacted by Amy Pincock from the popular craft blog Serving Pink Lemonade. She has recently published a book of quiet book patterns and instructions: Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children.

Not only is this book stinkin' cute, it's full of instructions of how to make a quiet book, has lots of pictures, instructions, and templates for twenty-five different pages, and comes with a CD with printable quiet book templates. (You can also access the templates online once you've purchased the book.)

To try out the book I made two of the different pages: the "sock match" page and the "season tree" page. They were both pages that I've been wanting to make for a long time, but both seemed too complex for me to try making them. This book really simplified the process and made making them easy!

Here's my sock match page:

I really like how it turned out. I personalized it a little bit - did a tan hamper instead of gray, added a heart to the red sock - but for the huge majority of it just followed the template and instructions exactly. I used velcro to attach the socks with their partners, and instead of sewing the velcro on I just hot-glued it. Just as effective, and easier and faster. I was all about easy when making these pages.

And here's my season tree page! I looove this page. Ever since I first saw it on Amy's blog, waaay back when I was gathering ideas for my first quiet book, I've wanted to make one. I just think it's such a fun page. But, like the sock page, I was intimidated by how hard it looked to make. Especially the tree trunk and branches - I pictured sewing that on and it was like, no way.

Again, the book made this page so much easier. It still took a while to make - I had to cut out all the pieces and attach them together - but with the instructions on interfacing and the templates I could just print, it was a lot better than I was expecting.

Here's the pocket for all the extra leaves:

I used velcro again because it's easier for my daughter to use than snaps. I sewed the velcro on to the flowers and autumn leaves before it occurred to me I could just hot glue it on (I made this page before the sock one), so that's what I did for the rest of the leaves. Hot gluing from the start would have saved me a lot of time.

I really like the way it turned out!

I really like Amy's pattern book. It's both really cute and very useful. It would be a great starting point for someone who's never made a quiet book before; it starts on square one and tells you where to begin. It's also great for people who have made quiet books before (as I can testify); it helped me tackle some pages I've been wanting to make but thought would be too difficult. And I think it would be a great gift; I can think of a couple people I know who might be getting one from me in the future. To top it all off, it's super cheap.

To find Amy's quiet book pattern book on Amazon, click here: Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children (CD Included).

So here's the super fun part for you: Amy is giving away a copy of her book to one Quiet Book Blog reader!

The giveaway is open from today, March 10, and will close at midnight (Pacific Standard Time) on Monday, March 17. Be sure to enter every way you can, and you might win this book!

Good luck! :D

Quiet Book Patterns Book Giveaway