Donna's Quiet Book

Happy Wednesday! I hope your week has been a little bit warmer than ours; we had some freezing rain last night and all the schools in the area canceled school because of the ice! So we're wearing warm clothes and trying to stay cozy inside.

Today I get to share with you a quiet book made by Donna, a stay at home mom who made this book for her friend's son. It is such a cute book and has some unique, really fun pages! The first page is a "Dress Jake" page, for fans of the "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" show. Donna's Jake and his clothes are so cute and so like the cartoon! I love it. She also has a piggy bank page, a camping page, a toolbox page, a dog page, a pizza page, and a car page. One of the details I really like is the pepperoni on the pizza page - each pizza slice has a different number of pepperonis, so kids can use the different slices to count up to four. Very easy, and clever! So without further ado, her is Donna's adorable quiet book!

 Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence. 
Donna, I'm a stay at home mom and love crafting.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
My friends little boy. He is two.

What's your level of sewing experience? 
Beginner.

How long did it take you?
About 10 hours over about one week.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found? 
No templates really. Just kind of drew them out from looking at pictures. I did get some ideas from other books I have seen on Pinterest. The camping idea came from Imagine Our Life: Camping Quiet Book Page.

How did you bind your quiet book? 
With eyelets.

What material are the pages made out of? 
Felt.

What other materials did you use? 
Cotton.

How much did all the supplies cost you? 
Around $20.

What's your favorite page? Why? 
The dress up Jake because that is my friends sons favorite character.

Thank you so much for sharing your super cute quiet book, Donna!

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

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!

Emma's Quiet Books

Today we have two quiet books that come to us from Emma of Southern Belle Sewing. Emma is actually just in her teens, and she made these for two of her younger siblings! There are so many things that I like about these quiet books - I like the name and felt clasp on the cover of James's book, I love the puzzle pieces for the puzzle page (especially that owl and mouse! wow!), and the rocket page, and the mechanic page...basically all of it.

James's quiet book:

Faith's quiet book:

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
Emma. I love to sew for my family of twelve and I'm learning to knit.

Who did you make this quiet book for? How old are they?
My 3 year old brother and my 2 year old sister for Christmas.

What's your level of sewing experience?
My family says I'm great. They don't always see the annoying little things that I do.

How long did it take you?
Less than a month for Faith's. James's I did most of and then put it off for a while to work on other presents. His took the longest because it is completely handsewn.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I made my own.

How did you bind your quiet book?
Ties for James's and a lot of work and frustration for Faith's including a broken needle.

What material are the pages made out of?
James's is completely felt and Faith's is mostly cotton from my huge fabric stash

What other materials did you use?
Snaps, buttons, Velcro, beads, shells, lace, ribbon, heat'n' bond, you name it, I probably used it.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
Next to nothing. Most of the things were on hand. Faith's was completely on hand and James's I had to buy the felt for, but was on sale so I got it for $10 and still had enough for another present with lots left over.

What's your favorite page? Why?
That's a hard question. For James's it would probably be the jungle page. I love the puzzles, on one side is a parrot and if you flip them over, it's an owl puzzle. For Faith's, it would be the dress up and cat page. That's her favorite too. She once took one of the dresses and put it up to herself and said "It fits!"

If you'd like to see Emma's quiet books on her own blog check out this post: James Quiet Book and this one: Faith's Quiet Book. Thank you so much for sharing your awesome quiet books with us, Emma!

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

Keely's Quiet Books

Wow, I have a whole lot of cuteness to show you today! Keely from The Wilkins made not one but three awesome quiet books. Each of them is so cute and looks so fun to play with! And I love each of the covers she made - the fox, the viking ship, and the panda. Any kid who saw the cover of these quiet books would want to play with the pages inside. Check out all this awesomeness!

First Quiet Book:

Second Quiet Book:

Third Quiet Book:

Interview

What's your name? Describe yourself in one sentence.
Keely: I'm a wife and mother who is unable to sit still for long and happiest when I have my family around me and a project underway.

Who did you make these quiets book for? How old are they?
I made them for three children. Two of them are for my sons, who are both quite young (2 months and 18 months). One is geared toward an older level (which neither of my sons is really at yet, but they will grow into it) and the other is for younger kids (it's about right for my older son right now).
The third is for my niece who is also too young for it right now (6 months), but will grow into it. It is a mix of the two books I made for my boys, but it's a little more girly. Most of her pages are the same as the pages in my boys' books, but she also has a few unique pages.

What's your level of sewing experience?
Intermediate: I've been sewing with my mom since I was in elementary school, but that was mostly quilting and I'm not nearly as good as she is. I started working with felt a lot just a few years ago. I really enjoy sewing by hand so felt has been a fun medium to work with.

How long did it take you? (How many hours total? Spread over how many days?)
I started these book sometime in the summer while I was pregnant with my second son. I was so worried that with two little boys under 18 months old, I would never have time to work on projects again that I went on a frenzy of projects while my older son was napping or in bed. Needless to say, the three quiet books were my biggest projects and I was able to finish all but the binding before my son was born.

For all three books, it probably took 3 or 4 months working for 2-3 hours each day. Some days I didn't get to work at all, and sometimes on the weekends I worked a lot more because my husband was home to help with our son. It took longer because my books are completely hand done except that I used my machine to sew the pages to each other. It might have gone faster had I used my machine more.

Did you use any templates? Where can they be found?
I free-hand cut almost all the felt that I work with. It typically saves me time because I don't have to trace and copy patterns. For the viking ship cover I needed a pattern because it is so detailed. I found a picture of a viking ship online, enlarged it, printed it, and cut it out; then used it as a pattern. I also use a few templates from a blog called ServingPinkLemonade for the toolbox and its tools and the little boy because I just couldn't get the dimensions quite right. I adapted a few ideas from her blog for some of my other pages, but I didn't use her templates (although she does provide them for free). Many of the ideas for my pages were gathered from around Pinterest and other blogs, I just embellished on them to make them more how I wanted, but some pages are my original ideas.

How did you bind your quiet books?
I sewed two pages together back to back so that the messy backside of each page would be hidden and punched metal grommet eyelets into the pages. I used ribbons strung through the eyelets to tie the pages all together. I like this method because it is sturdy, but allows me to add additional pages to the book if I decide to; also I could update or clean one page at a time. My niece's book is actually the only one that is completely done because it was her Christmas present. I'm still looking for the time (with two little boys needing my attention) to finish binding the other two books.

What material are the pages made out of?
The actual pages are made from thick non-fusible Pellon. I used this material because I heard that it is more durable and holds its shape better than felt. It can be found at fabric stores with the fusible interfacing and is a really nice material to work with. Unfortunately, Pellon is only made in white, so the background to all my pages is white unless I sewed felt onto it.

I used wool felt for all the pictures in the book.A few years ago when I first stared working with felt I used the much less expensive synthetic felt, but found that it doesn't hold its shape as well as wool felt and pills (those little balls that gather up on fabric or on sweaters) very easily with a lot of use. I decided to spend the extra money on wool felt for all these books because I'm able to cut more detailed shapes from it and it stays looking nice much longer.

What other materials did you use?
Beads, buttons, Velcro, snaps, zippers, and of course embroidery floss.

How much did all the supplies cost you?
Ouch! I bet I spent close to $100. However, when you consider that I made three books with a total of about 40 pages, this isn't too bad. I have Pellon and felt still left over and plan to eventually make more pages to add into the books. Wool felt costs 3-4 times more than synthetic felt, especially when you buy it in the small squares rather than off the bolt (I did it this way because I needed a wider variety of colors). Had I used synthetic felt, it would have been much less expensive.

What's your favorite page? Why?
The cover of my boys' book with the viking ship is my favorite even though it doesn't have any activity that goes with it. My husband kept insisting that I do a viking ship, but I kept putting it off because I thought it was much too difficult. I finally cut a pattern out like I described above and spent a lot of time working on all the details of the ship. I like this page the best because it was the most challenging and I think it turned out really well.


To see more of Keely's quiet books, check them out on her blog here. Thank you, Keely, for sharing your seriously awesome quiet books 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!