Natalie's Quiet Book

Good morning! I have such a cute quiet book I get to share with you today. Natalie from the blog The Virginia Capells made this book for her son, using templates and inspiration from tons of different sites, and she did a great job!

Each page is so well made and looks so fun to play with. Natalie did a great job of choosing all the different pages and different activities - there are so many fun things in this book to keep someone occupied. It's really fun to see some made from The Quiet Book Blog's own templates! I don't think I could choose a favorite page from all of them, but one I haven't seen before and think is sooo darn cute is the piggy bank page. Also, I really liked how Natalie alternated blue and white pages for the backgrounds, and I really like the way the book is bound. Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Please enjoy Natalie's quiet book!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
I'm Natalie; I'm married, love to craft and sew, and am a stay-at-home mom to an adorably active little boy.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
I made it for my son Hayden, who is just about to turn 2.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Between Beginner and Intermediate. I like to do little sewing projects.

How long did it take you?
Well, I started in January and worked for a few weeks during nap time (2-3 hours each day) cutting, organizing, and doing a little sewing. I became burnt out and stir crazy so I put it away at the end of February. I picked it back up in May and worked solidly for two-three weeks for 3-5 hours a day. So, total assembly time, probably 3-4 hours a day for 4-6 weeks.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 

I used a TON of templates...

Potato Head: The Quiet Book Blog 

Barn: The Quiet Book Blog

Flowers: The Quiet Book Blog

Tic Tac Toe: Serving Pink Lemonade (I came up with my own thing for the X and O)

Toolbox & Tools: Serving Pink Lemonade (I just scaled it down to fit on the page) 

Road: Serving Pink Lemonade's Quiet Book Patterns, I got the house/building patterns from Camille's Casa

Noah's Ark: Free Patterns (I had to scale everything WAY down to make it fit, but it worked great!)

Dump Truck: All the Quiet Things (I decided to make it a counting page so just used the truck pattern)

Seasons Tree: Serving Pink Lemonade's Quiet Book Patterns

Mailbox: Imagine Our Life

The rest were inspired by things I saw online...

Baseball glove: Shouting for Ha

Shapes: Armelle Blog (I wanted more shapes so I used the patterns from Serving Pink Lemonade)

Piggy bank: The Crafting Chicks (We just made it look like the one in his room)

Cleat: All the Quiet Things

Balloons: Montoya's Meaningful Memories and Musings

Robot: The Riley's

How did you bind your quiet book?
Button holes & ribbon.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt (I added iron-on interfacing to the back-to-back pages to secure them better to each other).

What other materials did you use? 
Felt, freezer paper (to help cut out all the pieces), buttons, snaps, velcro, zippers, ribbon, puff paint, printable iron-on transfers, eyelets, cording.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
Between $30 and $40. I didn't have much on hand to start with, and I wanted all my thread colors to match the felt, so I went a little overboard. I have leftovers of a lot of supplies so the next one won't cost as much.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
The mailbox. My husband and I typed up little notes to Hayden and I ironed them onto the felt, so he has actual letters from Mom and Dad in his mailbox.

To see Natalie's quiet book on her own blog (with more pictures and description), click here: The Capell Family: The Quiet Book.  Thank you so much for sharing your awesome quiet book with us Natalie!

 

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

Old Testament Quiet Book - PDF Pattern Set Giveaway!!!

Hi everyone! I am so excited about today's post, because today marks the start of another Quiet Book Blog giveaway!

Today I get to share with you the fabulous Old Testament Bible quiet book created by Kate of the "Candidly Kate" Etsy shop. This book is seriously adorable, and would be so perfect for church. Your kids would be keeping quiet and learning about some bible stories! I seriously I wish I had one for my two little girls to play with. It would just be so perfect!

So, look at all of Kate's fantastic pages below, and then scroll down to enter the giveaway to win the complete PDF pattern set!

First, the cover:

An "I am a child of God" mirror page:

 Noah's ark, with port holes and finger puppets:

Jonah (who's a finger puppet) and the zipper-mouthed whale :

David and Goliath (who has lace-up sandals):

 Daniel in the lions den (the lion's mouth opens and closes!):

 Moses in the basket (whose strips you can weave):

 Moses parting the Red Sea (this one's my favorite!):

 Counting the days in which God made the earth:

Making Joseph's coat of many colors:

 Abraham and Isaac:

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (with a ton of adorable animals):

Joshua and the walls of Jericho that tumble down:

Braiding Sampson's hair:

 And a pocket for all of the extras!:

Interview

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

Kate. I am a blogger, and public health professional work-at-home mom and I love to create. 

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 

I made this quiet book for my little man who is turning two. 

What's your level of sewing experience? 

I have been sewing for many years, but each pattern includes about 25 pages of instructions with lots of pictures so that people with very limited sewing experience can complete the pages. The pages can also be constructed using fusible webbing with minimal sewing. 

How long did it take you?

Each pages takes about 5 hours to complete. 

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 

Pattern and instructions for sale here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/candidlykate 

How did you bind your quiet book? 

I use a unique idea that allows you to keep the pages all together without permanently binding them using overall clips that come from the back page around to the front. That way you can grab only a few pages if you wish OR pass different pages out to different children. 

What material are the pages made out of? 

Felt.

What other materials did you use? 

Snaps, magnets, buttons, mirror, ribbon, and a variety of other materials. 

How much did all the supplies cost you? 

Many of the supplies can be found in your stash but the total cost for all supplies is probably around $40 to make the whole book with no coupons used. 

What's your favorite page? Why? 

Adam and Eve. I think the fox is adorable!

To visit Kate's Etsy shop and see more pictures of each of the pages, click here: Candidly Kate on Etsy.

And now for the giveaway! There are three prizes for Kate's Bible Quiet Book giveway. One reader will win the entire PDF pattern set to "The Complete Old Testament Bible Story Quiet Book." That's sixteen pages of patterns! And two other readers will each win the PDF patterns to their two favorite pages from the set. The giveway will run from this Monday, August 4 to next Monday, August 11. So make sure to enter! You could win one of three awesome prizes.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**Remember - if you enter by leaving a comment, make sure to say which is your favorite Bible quiet book page!**

Max's Quiet Book

The first quiet book that I get to share with you this week is actually one that I made myself. My brother and his family were in town earlier this year, and my nephew had his first birthday while he was here. I knew that I wanted to make him a quiet book, but I also didn't have much time to make one (since we were doing things every day with my whole family).

So, to speed up the process of making a quiet book, I altered my usual quiet book techniques in a few ways. First, and this was the biggest time saver, I only made four pages. Less pages naturally equals less time. Secondly, I used velcro (and not snaps) to attach the detachable pieces. Snaps (since they're hand sewn) take longer to attach than velcro (which can be machine sewn or hot glued). Third, I hot glued all of the velcro pieces, on to the quiet book pages themselves and on to the detachable pieces. Hot gluing the velcro, instead of sewing it, saved a lot of time. I made sure that it was very sturdy and well attached. Fourth, I hot glued all the details. I sewed the main pieces on to each page - the tree and basket, boat, jellyfish, and dinosaur body - but hot glued the jellyfish's face and spots and the dinosaur's face on.

One thing I did with this quiet book that actually took more time, but was totally worth it, was sewing a cover. With my previous quiet books I've simply sewn button holes in the sides of the pages and then attached all the pages with binder rings. Not this time. This time, I cut a piece of fabric from a big, old t-shirt, laid the pages down on it, pinned it everywhere, and sewed. I sewed the front and end pages directly onto the cover, and the middle page I sewed to the middle of the cover by leaving some extra felt on the side of the page, and sewing that side of the page to the cover. (I'll show this with pictures at the end.) And I love it! The book is all one piece, all attached, and since the cover is made of t-shirt fabric it is super soft and nice to touch.

So, without further ado, here is my nephew Max's quiet book!

The apple tree page:

Noah's ark, with finger puppets (um, I only had time to make one finger puppet by his birthday...I'm going to make him more, I promise!)

The main body of the ark is a big pocket for finger puppets. I sewed around the top of the pocket (using a little thread design my sewing machine offered) to reinforce the edge. That way the felt won't get too stretched out when children used the pocket. I did the same thing with the basket on the apple tree page. (I also sewed some detail on the ark's roof, using another thread design setting on my sewing machine.)

The jellyfish page:

And dinosaur page:

Now here's a bunch of shots of the cover and the binding:

How the middle page is attached to the center:

I really like how it turned out, and I hope Max and my brother and sister-in-law like it too!

Interview 
(is it really an interview if I'm asking myself the questions?)

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
I'm Jocelyn! I'm a homemaker and I like making stuff.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
My nephew, who just turned one year old.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Intermediate.

How long did it take you? 
Ooh, tough question. I was totally going to mark down exactly how long it took me so I could tell you guys, but...I forgot. So, I'll just have to give you my best estimate. I worked on it at nighttime for a couple weeks. All told, I would guess about 14 hours?

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
I actually used my own templates for the apple tree page and the dinosaur page (you can get them by clicking on those links). I didn't use a template for Noah's ark, just kind of winged it after looking at a lot of pages for inspiration. My jellyfish page was based on this jellyfish page.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
I cut a big piece of fabric out of an old t-shirt to use as a cover. I sewed the first and last page directly on to the fabric (I turned in and sewed the fabric edges under the felt so that the edges are nice and clean). I sewed the second and third pages back to back, leaving room on the side of the page. I used that extra room to sew those pages directly to the cover as well, in between the two end pages.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Velcro, thread, and ribbons.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
I already had most of the supplies, and the extra supplies I needed (I think just velcro, and a page or two of felt) only cost me a couple dollars.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I think the jellyfish, because it's so colorful and happy.

And that's my newest quiet book! I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Linking up to:

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