Melina's Quiet Books

Today's awesome quiet books come to us all the way from Chile, made by mom Milena! They've got puzzles, memory games, counting games, and more.

Milena's first quiet book:

Milena's second quiet book:

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
I'm half time rheumathologist and half time wife and mother of three.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
I made the first one for my oldest, who was 3 and a half when I did it, and the next one for my second of 2 years old.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Basic.

How long did it take you? 
It took me too many hours, in about 2-3 months. But in that time I did 3 quiet books, one for my nephew too.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
No, But I copied several ideas from pinterest.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
I sewed the pages together and to the cover. I used lots of glue for the figures.

What material are the pages made out of? What other materials did you use? 
Only felt.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
I don't know, but not too much.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
Of the first quiet book, the memory game. My son loves it. And of the second book, the spy page.

 

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

Mandrina's Quiet Book

Today's adorable quiet book comes to us from Mandrina, a Canadian living in England. She made this book for her daughter, a toddler, and it is awesome. It is absolutely jam-packed full of fun activities.

She starts out with a Matryoshka doll page (Russian stacking dolls). They're something that I've never seen in a quiet book before and it is a really cute way to teach kids about big, bigger, and biggest. Mandrina then has a flower page and a forest page (with little animals hidden that can play peekaboo).

 Next there's a really cute counting page spread with leaves on one side covered in certain numbers of bugs. The leaves velcro off to show the number written underneath, and then the child can put the leaves in a vinyl jar on the opposite page. It's followed by another number page where you can lift the flap with a number on it to count the number of buttons beneath, and then an awesome page with two people one it, where you can flip the tops and bottoms to create new combinations of people. (It's really cool, and hard to explain. You'll just have to look for yourself.)

 

Next Mandrina has two space pages: one of the solar system with all the planets, and one with an astronaut, rocket, and alien. She made her daughter the astronaut. :) These pages are followed by a build-a-robot spread, and two snow pages where you can decorate a snowman. 

Following the snowman there's a laundry page, complete with washing machine and socks that you can match up on the page. The clothing theme continues into the next spread, which is a girl's bedroom with a wardrobe full of clothes. On the opposite page there's a doll that you can dress up with all the clothes from the wardrobe.

The next pages take us outside to a farm, where a barn is filled with adorable finger puppets (and I love the fabric used for the background!) and a tractor goes up the hill where you can pick carrots and radishes.

We then go underwater to one of the cleverest shape pages I've ever seen. All of the ocean animals are particular shapes, so you can practice with your toddler by asking them where the triangle-shaped fish is, the rectangle fish, and so on. The next page is an alphabet page with the ABCs sewed on to the page and also stored in little pockets, followed by a quilt page, and then the cover, which is made of cute fabric and has handles for easy carrying.

 

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.

My name is Mandrina and I'm a mom. If my former self were to meet me now she would probably lol.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made this book for my daughter who's 20 months old.

What's your level of sewing experience?
I've been sewing off and on (mostly off) since I was a kid. Becoming a mom has re sparked my interest in sewing and I've becoming a bit of a Pinterest junky. I still feel like a beginner. My work isn't perfect but I'm happy with the finished project.

How long did it take you?
I worked on it over three weeks for a few hours a day while my daughter was napping. I've fallen behind on a lot of other things.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I spent hours on Pinterest looking for inspiration for the pages and used templates from imagineourlife.com for the solar system, astronaut, socks and robot pages. Her designs are adorable and she has a great Montessori inspired blog. On the snowman page, I directly copied the skiing snowman from betzwhite.com.

How did you bind your quiet book?
I bound it with 3.5" rings pulled through button holes on each page and made a canvas cover with handles.

What material are the pages made out of?
I've been collecting loads of different fabric remnants, fat quarters and scraps. I used felt and various cotton bits.

What other materials did you use?
I used sequins, buttons, snaps, velcro, beads, clear vinyl sheets and ribbon as well.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
I think it all probably cost about £40 once I finished.

What's your favorite page? Why?
My favourite page is the forest page with my daughter's hand as the tree branches and the hiding animals because it's one that I designed on my own. I think it's also the one that took the least amount of time to put together.

Mandrina, thank you so much for sharing your fantastic 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!

Helga's Felt Quiet Book

Good morning! Today I get to share you another quiet book made by Helga, who made the cotton and transfer paper book that was featured on Tuesday. I really love this quiet book; each page is so cute and I absolutely love all of the animals.

Here's a peekaboo tree page with an owl, a bird that can be taken in and out of its nest, a fox, a hedgehog and mushrooms, and a bee:

 A garden page with carrots and radishes that can come in and out, a ladybug, and a hiding bunny:

A farm page with finger puppets, a dog, a hiding pig, and a little chick (I love the chick!):

An arctic page with a penguin, a seal, and a peekaboo igloo with a polar bear inside:

A mountain page with a peekaboo bear cave, a raccoon, and a squirrel:

And a really cute nature scene with a caterpillar, a peekaboo log with a beaver hiding behind it, cute details like the little mushroom, and a cloud pocket:

This quiet book is so cute and so sweet, and each page looks so fun to play with. Thank you so much, Helga, for sharing it 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!

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!