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!

Tara's "Under the Sea" Quiet Book

Oh my gosh, you guys. Today's quiet book is so cute. So cute. I am constantly amazed at all of the talent you guys have, and this book that's been shared with me has brought that home again. You. guys. are. Amazing.

Tara from the blog Spot of Tea Designs made this "Under the Sea" quiet book, and it is fantastic. Each page is so colorful and cute. It has a colorful swimming fish page, a peekaboo clam page, an octopus with beaded arms to practice counting, a colorful snails page with velcro shells, a build-a-sandcastle page, a shell-shapes turtle page, a treasure chest page filled with sea animal finger puppets, a whale (with a zipper mouth) page, and a fish puzzle page. And do you know what's absolutely awesome? Tara made templates for every page in her book, and they are free to download and use if you visit her blog. Enjoy!

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
Tara. I was creative a long time before I was a mom and now I found a way to be both!

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they? 
My daughter, age 18 months.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Beginner, self taught hand sewer.

How long did it take you?
I have no idea, but longer than I expected! I completed this over several weeks whenever I could find time to work on it. Mostly at night or as a passenger in a long car ride.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
Yes! I made my own and they can be found as free downloads on my blog posts.

• Swimming Fish and Lift the Clam Templates: Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 1 
• Counting Octopus, Colorful Snails, Sandcastle, and Shape Turtle Templates: Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 2
• Treasure Chest Pocket, Finger Puppet, Zippered Whale, and Puzzle Fish Templates: Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 3 

How did you bind your quiet book? 
Book rings and grommets.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Buttons, beads, velcro and shoelace cords were used as accents.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
I spent maybe $15 on the whole thing as I used a lot of what was already in my collection.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
I like the treasure chest with the pocket for finger puppets.

To view Tara's quiet book on her own blog and to download her templates, check out her "Under the Sea" quiet book posts:
Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 1
Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 2
Spot of Tea Designs: Under the Sea Quiet Book Part 3

Tara, thank you so much for sharing your awesome quiet book with us! Now off to make my own, haha!

 

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

Caroline's Quiet Book

Today's quiet book is so cute and I'm so excited to share it with you! It was made by Caroline from the blog To the Piechecker! for her son Luke, and it is just adorable. All the way from the front page with her son's name sewn on it, to the awesome garden page, to the build-your-own sandwich page, to the cute fabric (bugs in jars) she chose for the quiet book cover, this book is full of cute details and fun activities that any kid would love.

 Shapes page with snap-off shapes and shapes sewn in matching colors on the page:

 An abacus/counting page:

I like that the circles are made of all felt - I've wanted to make a counting page like this before, but they're usually made with beads and I don't have any beads lying around my house. Felt circles are a great idea!

A space page (love the Tardis): 

Adorable garden page:

 I really like how Caroline added the tomato plant growing up from the hill; it's so cute and such a great use of space!

A bees and flowers threading page where you string the bee through the loops on the flowers, all the way to the beehive:

A dinosaur page:

A fish page with tails you can switch around:

A rainbow page with matching color names that can snap on the rainbow:

A "collect the fireflies" page with an awesome vinyl jar:

 (I absolutely love this lightning bug page - I've never seen a quiet book page like it before!)

And to top it all off, a build-your-own sandwich page (with "ingredients" for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a meat and veggies sandwich):

Interview

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

My name is Caroline, I'm an art school grad and currently a stay at home mother.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
I made this book for my son Luke, he is two years old.

What's your level of sewing experience?

I would say I have a novice level of sewing experience, I am much better at sewing by hand than on a machine.

How long did it take you?

I worked on this book for about 3 months, a few hours here and there after my son went to bed. It was impossible to work on with him running around, he kept stealing all the felt!

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

I looked at a lot of other quiet books for inspiration. Many of my pages were inspired by the Imagine Our Life blog. I also traced objects like shapes from my sons shape sorter, and letters.

How did you bind your quiet book?

I put grommets in all my pages and used binder rings to bind the book. I also sewed a cover that snaps closed.

What material are the pages made out of?

The cover is flannel and cotton, the pages are almost exclusively felt, except for a small amount of clear vinyl.

What other materials did you use?

I also used snaps, thread, ribbon, and d-rings.

How much did all the supplies cost you?

I probably spent over $50 for this project. It's hard to tell because I bought a bunch of felt by the yard, and only used a small amount of each color. 

What's your favorite page? Why?

I think my favorite page is the gardening one. It came out exactly as I imagined it and I love all the details. Plus we love gardening!

To see Caroline's quiet book on her own blog, with more details about each page, click here: To the Piechecker!

Caroline, thank you so much for sharing your 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!