Renee's Quiet Books

Today I get to share with you not one, but four quiet books! These were made by mom Renee, and I love how she did it. She used the templates available here, and instead of binding all the pages into one large book, she bound each two-page spread into it's own book.

I love this idea because sometimes a big, full quiet book can be too bulky for wherever you're going - but two-page books like this could be perfect. And I love the felt she used for the covers!

 Quiet book 1:

Quiet book 2:

Quiet book 3:

Quiet book 4:

Renee, thank you so much for sharing your adorable quiet books!

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

Yankee's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book comes to us from Yankee, and it is so cute.

The front cover has a name sewn onto it, along with a car that has a little pocket. Peppa Pig and her family are finger puppets that fit into the pocket and look like they're driving in the car.

The book opens up to show a car page with several adorable little vehicles, including an ambulance and a fire truck, and several road signs (like a traffic light, stop sign, etc.). Across from the car page is a laundry page with a washing machine, lots of clothes, a clothes line, and socks that velcro off the page.

Next Yankee has a clock page with colorful numbers and moveable hands, and a shoe-tying page where children can practice making a bow.

Next comes one of my favorite pages - Cookie Monster! Cookie Monster's mouth zippers open and you can pull out a lot of cookies, each of which has a different number of chocolate chips sewn on top. These match to numbers on the next page, for children to practice counting and number recognition.

The next page is absolutely adorable, too. It's a nature scene with an apple tree (whose apples you can pick and put in a basket) and several animals to play with - a cow, giraffe, elephant, and lion. Opposite the apple tree page is an alligator (or crocodile) with a bird on his nose and a zipper mouth. Underneath him in the water there are several fish that can velcro off the page and go inside of his mouth.

The last pages in the book are a flower page and a shape page. The flowers can button on and off of their stems and store in the flower pot. The shapes page has ridiculously cute shapes (I love how they're puffy/stuffed) which velcro off and can be matched the their embroidered shapes on the page.

It is an adorable book and looks so fun to play with. Thank you for sharing it with us, Yankee!

 

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

Paula's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book is so cute and it looks so fun to play with. Made by Paula for her two children, this book has lots of great activities for children to play with. Even the cover has an activity - a mailbox with a flag that goes up and down, and that opens to show letters inside that can be taken out. The cover also has a buckle to keep the pages shut, which is a smart way to keep everything together.

Paula says that her favorite page is her fridge and place setting, and I have to say, I love that page too. Her refrigerator design is so clever, cute, and easy. The food (sandwich materials) that go inside are adorable, and make me want to put together a felt sandwich right now. It looks so fun! I also like her barn and farm page, and like how she combined the apple tree and farm pages from the original template. I think it's a definite improvement, and looks really cute. Her cute music pages finish off the book, both of which are unique and fun!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
My name is Paula and I am a full time working mother of 2 children.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made the quite book for my almost 5-year-old son and almost 2-year-old daughter. I wasn’t sure if I could commit to making two books so I had to try to make it appropriate for both of my children.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Beginner / Intermediate. I have always been into crafts but only really been interested in sewing for the past 6 months.

How long did it take you?
3 weeks. 2 to 4 hours a day on most days.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I used mostly templates and inspiration from this blog (The Quiet Book Blog) and Pinterest.
Mailbox on the cover: Template - Imagine Our Life: Mailbox & Letters Quiet Book Page.
Refrigerator and Place Setting: Inspiration from: Sabrina’s Quite Book
Mr. Potato Head, Farm, Tree, and Lady Bug: Templates from Jocelyn's Quiet Book
Shapes and Music Pages: Inspiration from Pinterest but my own templates.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
Sewed it on the sewing machine.

What material are the pages made out of? 
The book was made from cotton and batting on each page. For most pages there is a full sheet of felt sewed to the cotton and batting backing.

What other materials did you use? 
A buckle to close the book, snaps, and velcro.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
About $40 to $50 but I have a lot of supplies left over.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I like the refrigerator and place setting with sandwich. I think that is one of the pages that I can add to as I think of different things.

Paula, thank you so much for sharing your awesome 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!

Clara's Quiet Book

Today's post is special because we've never had a quiet book presented like this before. Clara from the blog Claras Nahkiste, instead of taking pictures of her quiet book, has made this video where she walks through the book and shows all of the interactive things that it does.

Clara's quiet book is huge and awesome. She has so many pages, and all of them look so fun to play with. Her video shows a clever cover and binding rings, a dress up page full of little clothes, a name page with moveable letters, a laundry page with socks that can go in a washing machine, an "I Spy" page with a removable bag full of things to find, a fruit-picking tree page (with multiple kinds of fruits and baskets, a weather and flower page,  a farm page (with adorable finger puppets - sooo cute), an igloo page with ice building blocks and snow characters, a car page with a big map of the town, an elephant with a tail you can braid, a camping page with a zipper tent, a clock page with moveable hands, and a mailbox with letters inside. Each page has more detail than I've summed up here, that's shown in the video. 

This book would be such a treasure to have as a child!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
My name is Clara, I'm 23 and I'm a crazy, sewing, Berlin teacher-to-be.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
 I made this book for my niece and godchild Sophie for her third birthday.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
I sew for more than three years now and I think I'm advanced.

How long did it take you?
I sew it over three weeks, in my semester break, all in all it took 66 hours.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I used some templates from this blog and many inspirations from Pinterest.

What material are the pages made out of? 
They all are made of cotton fabric in different colors, many details are made out of felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Felt, as mentioned and something that's called Vliesofix in Germany. It's used to make appliqués.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
Because I bought nearly no fabric, the costs were small. I think about 30€.
  
What's your favorite page? Why?
My favourite page is definitely the car-page. I love, that the lights of the car can flash and that my niece can visit her grandmothers or grandfathers house. It's also the page, she likes most :)

To see Clara's quiet book on her own blog with some pictures and explanation of the book, click here: Claras Nahkiste: Quietbook Zum 3. Geburtstag.

Clara, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful 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!

Dolores's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book was shared with me in unique circumstances. I was contacted by Gerd from South Africa, who had found this quiet book in a charity shop.The last page in the book lists the contact information of a woman named Dolores, who made the book. Gerd was able to get in contact with her family, and found out that Dolores passed away in January of this year, at the age of 95.

According to Dolores's obituary, she "...was born April 22, 1918 in Shelby, Ohio, the daughter of the late Joseph and Gertrude (Tome) Heiland. As a homemaker, Dolores was an excellent baker and cook. Known as the “cake lady,” she baked and decorated thousands of cakes for graduations, birthdays and many other occasions for many area families. She also loved doing crafts and needlepoints and cherished time with her children and grandchildren."

Thank you to all the women who share their love and brighten the lives of their families by sharing their talents with them. I hope you enjoy Dolores's quiet book. :)

"What time is it?"

"Make my face" and "Ring the bell"

"I can count numbers up to ten"

"Shape my nose" and "Lace the shoe"

"Button my shirt" and "Find the rabbit"

"Open the barn door" and "Hide the acorns"

"Match the colors" and "Peel the banana"

"Braid my hair" and "What's inside?"

"Snap me on my shapes" and "Overhaul the tractor"

"Tie my bow" and "Surprise!"

Tiffany's Twins' Quiet Books

This week I have a treat for you. :) I have a whole bunch of adorable quiet books to share with you from Tiffany of the blog Always Sewin' Somethin!, some of them books she made as gifts and some of them available in her Always Sewin' Somethin! Etsy shop.

The two books I get to share with you tonight are the first two quiet books she made; a set of matching books for her twin boys. Each book is unique, but they go together. I love her quilted covers - so cute, and they look so fun to touch! If we had those books at my house, I think I'd spend the most time just feeling the covers' texture, haha. :) They also have awesome velcro name pages, a shape matching page, a barn with finger puppets and a house with pictures of each boy, a bead counting page, a rice "I Spy" page, a seasons tree, a rocket ship, a counting/fishing page, and a robot. The books look super entertaining and very well made. Enjoy, and keep an eye out for more of Tiffany's books later this week!

 Interview
 

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

Tiffany; I am a stay-at-home mom to twin boys and I love to sew whenever I get some free time. 

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made these two books for my twin boys when they were about 16 months old.  I wanted something to keep them busy during church.

What's your level of sewing experience?

Probably intermediate.

How long did it take you?

I didn't keep track for these particular books, but I'm guessing about 20 hours spread over a couple of hours a day for a few weeks.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
The barn page came from here: Homemade by Jill.  
The tree page was from Serving Pink Lemonade, but now it's part of her book so it's not available for free anymore. 
Most of the other pages were inspired by things I found online (mostly Pinterest).  I have included links for all of these in my blog post.

How did you bind your quiet book?

2 Metal Key Rings and a hole punch

What material are the pages made out of?

Pellon Extra Firm Interfacing

What other materials did you use?

Felt, sew-on velcro, zippers, ribbon, beads, packing tape (to make the "vinyl" on the I-Spy page), random buttons and stickers for the I-Spy page, rice, magnets, elastic, and more buttons.

How much did all the supplies cost you?

Since these were my first quiet books, I didn't have a lot of the supplies on hand.  I probably spent $20-$30 on supplies, but then only used a little bit of each thing.

What's your favorite page? Why?

I think if you had asked me that question a year or two ago when I first made them, I probably would have said either the barn page or the I-Spy page.  But now that we've been playing with them for so long, I think the house page is my favorite.  My boys can talk now and it's so cute to watch them open the little doors/windows and say "Hi Jaxson," Or "Hi Bronx."  Plus, it's a fun way to see how much they have grown since then.

To see these two quiet books on Tiffany's own blog, with more pictures and a lot more explanation, click here: Always Sewin' Somethin!: Quiet Books. To see Tiffany's Etsy shop where she sells quiet books click here: Always Sewin' Somethin! on Etsy. Thanks so much for sharing these quiet books with us, Tiffany!

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