Marci's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book is fantastic. It is seriously so cute, so well made, and looks so fun.

Made by Marci of the blog If These Walls Could Speak, this book has so many awesome pages. It has a painter's palette with colors to match, a shape matching page with a ton of shapes, a camping page with an adorable tent, little finger puppets in sleeping bags, and stars and a moon that are snap on/off, a lion ribbon page, a mailbox with envelopes whose stamps velcro on and off and felt "letters" inside, a puzzle page with three amazing puzzles, a Mr. Potato Head page with awesome accessories, a colorful caterpillar page, a shoe-lacing page, a car and traffic page with velcro road signs, a laundry line page with matching socks, a build-a-snowman page with two snowman and accessories, and a Christmas tree with a lace-up ribbon and tree decorations that snap on and off.

I love this book. It is so cute and every page is packed with fun activities. I love all the details, like the little stars on the camping page that snap on and off, and the stamps on the letters, and the banners on the cover, and the little finger puppets in their sleeping bags. I'm definitely inspired by this book, and I hope you will be too! Enjoy!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
 I'm Marci. I'm a wife, blogger, DIY-er and stay-at-home mama to 2 boys!

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I originally made it for my son, Jack, who was 17 months at the time we gifted it to him on Christmas Eve. However, it's intended to be played with by our younger boy as well and any other future children!

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Somewhere between beginner and intermediate. I've done a lot of sewing projects but I prefer to stick with "small" projects like this quiet book, bow ties, etc. I'm also terrible at following patterns - I pretty much wing everything I do.

How long did it take you?
About 5 months of working on it off and on during nap time. I would say each page took an average of 5 hours so total time was probably around 80 hours.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I used the Mr. Potato Head template from this blog but for everything else I looked at pages on Pinterest and then created it myself without patterns.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
I used three grommets per page and intended to hold the book together with D rings but I haven't yet found any big enough so it's currently held together by ribbons threaded through the grommets.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Snaps, velcro, sequins, grommets, ribbons, buttons, zipper, shoelaces, mini clothespins.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
I had a lot of supplies on hand already but I probably spent somewhere between $30-$40 on items I didn't already have.  

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I think I love the tent/camping page the most just because it's so interactive! The star/moon snaps, the zip, and the finger puppets all make it a really fun page! It's also one of the few pages that has something unique I hadn't seen somewhere else first (the finger puppets in sleeping bags inside the tent).

To see Marci's quiet book on her own blog, with more pictures and detail, click here: Jack's Quiet Book - Revealed! Thank you so much, Marci, for sharing your fantastic 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!

Jaime's Quiet Book

Today I get to show you a super cute quiet book from Jaime of the blog Crafty Math Mama. All of her pages look so fun - it starts off with a page where you can braid Rapunzel's hair, a page with a personalized felt family and pets, a dog with collar to buckle, a purse with lots of fun things inside, a pizza with toppings, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, a fishing page, the Eensy-Weensy Spider, a pirate page, and a music page (I love how on the music page the notes can slide along their strings!). Jaime's favorite page is the family page, and it's definitely one of my favorites too - how fun would having little dolls of your own family be for a child? This whole book is awesome. So please enjoy!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
My name is Jaime and I'm a mom of a 2 year old named Delia with a baby boy on the way! When I'm not at my job teaching math, I love to craft, sew, bake, and decorate cakes.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made this quiet book for my daughter Delia to give to her for her 2nd birthday. She is now almost 2 1/2.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I can sew basic things. I learned in school and from my mother. My sewing experience includes these quiet book pages, pillows, and a few dresses for Delia.

How long did it take you?
I'm not sure how many hours this quiet book took me. I started last summer sewing maybe an hour or two each night and then when school started again I didn't have time to continue. When I had Christmas and Winter breaks I took the time to finish up what I wanted to include before Delia's birthday in March.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I used one of the Quiet Book Blog's templates for Mr. Potato Head and the others I used were from ImagineOurLife.com. Some pages I took ideas from Pinterest and recreated them in my own way.

What material are the pages made out of? What other materials did you use?
The pages are made of felt and most of the decorations are made from felt and sewn with embroidery floss. Some pages have little random trinkets like the dog collar, jewels, hair clips, buttons, ribbon, and magnets.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
The wonderful thing about quiet books is that they can be very cheap to make. Felt is only about $0.30 per plain sheet and about $1.00 for a patterned piece. Anything extra I had to get, I tried to get from the dollar store or the dollar bins at the craft store.

What's your favorite page? Why?
My favorite page is probably the page I designed to look like our house. It has finger puppets of all our family members including baby who is on the way.


To view Jaime's quiet book on her own blog, with more pictures and a lot more explanations, click here: Crafty Math Mama - Delia's Quiet Book. 

Jaime, thank you so much for sharing your adorable 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!