Quiet Book

I did it! I made a quiet book. I had one when I was little and remember using it in church. I saw them popping up a lot lately on craft and home school blogs but never thought I would make one. Too much work and I didn't really have much use for it. Until...

We are taking our first 6 hour car trip with all three of our kiddos and our youngest who is 2 is going to need something to keep him busy. After looking for ideas for keeping 2 year olds busy I decided the quiet book was the best choice.

I did not buy a thing for this book. I had everything in my house, some things passed down from my grandma, some things I have had for a long time but never used. Some things upcycled from stuff we had in the house but never use either.

For the page base I used a bunch of quilt backing I had gotten with some fabric on Craig's list last year. I also used quilt batting to line most of the pages, that came from that Craig's list box too. I sewed three sides turned and tops stitched, then used bias tape for the open end and added small grommets. Of course this was after I had my design on each page. I am sure that is what you came here to see. 

So here we go!

 Mr. Potato Head with his extra pieces in the pocket. The pocket came from a shirt that no longer fit me. It worked nicely. Velcro the eyes nose and mouth into place.

I think this is my favorite page. I had a zipper page when I was little but it was just a zipper. A Tent is much more fun, especially with a sleeping bag and finger puppet mouse inside. How did I get my tent so tent like? By using an old fanny pack. Yep cut it up and pieced it together and it made an awesome tent. It zips closed no problem. Can't wait for him to explore this page.

 Button  flowers with felt flowers that have button holes, so he can button them on and off. Plan on doing color matching. The yellow felt flower goes on the yellow button.

  This was actually my last page. Thus how I knew I was done. It turned out the worst of them all but it functions and when I held up the train and asked him what it was he said "Train" so it's all good. :) This is so he can sing one of his favorite songs with. Choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo going up the railroad track. Choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo now we're coming back. As the train slides up and down on the string. The green hill is a sleeve I cut off a shirt in an earlier refashion here.

Couldn't just have a buckle on a page, had to have a reason for it. so how about a dog and cat collar. You can also attach the leash to the dog and put your hand through the loop to walk him. His ear spins around on the button so he can play peek-a-boo too. Looking back I think it would less crowded if the cat went on the next page by itself, but it was less work to just do one page. This was around #11 for me page wise, so I was burning out.

Rapunzel's Tower. You get to braid her hair and clip it into the bow alligator clip at the bottom.

I don't expect my 2 year old to braid, but my 6 year old daughter was getting jealous of the awesome book so I put a couple activities in there for her. My two year old will still have fun playing with them even if he is not able to actually do them.

 Here is the other big kid activity. Weaving. I tacked down the pink ribbon on both sides and tacked down the blue diamond ribbon on one side so they can be woven through again and again. Thought about making it a bead spread for a character on the page, but decided to just give her more to weave than to cut it shorter to make space for a character on the page.

Snap fish. The felt fish snap onto the water and you can catch them. Sorry about my sideways pics today. They are auto flipping on my netbook. I am too tired to figure out how to fix that right now. 

My boy likes putting his hands in things so I knew I wanted to do a left and right page like I had. But I did them a bit different. The left I made a baseball mitt.

The right hand I made a mitten with a removable Velcro snowman he can build.

This page has a button snake attached to it. He can lace the shapes though their button holes using the button. The button has Velcro on the back as well to hold it in place on the page when it is not in use.

"Here is a bee hive. Where are all the bees? Hidden away where nobody sees. Watch them come creeping out of their hive. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!"

He LOVES this finger play rhyme, so I figured I would put it on a page. He can push the string of bees into the hive and do the rhyme over and over again.

Hanging out the laundry! The ribbon goes through the tiny circle on the clothespin spring so they don't come off the line, but you can open and close them to hang up the clothes that are in this pocket. The second pocket from my old shirt. The opposite page has a stick figure drawn on it you can put the clothes on.