Today I Felt Crafty

Showing posts with label Quiet Books. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

It's been a year since I started this blog to share my crafts, and I'm so happy to look back and see how my style has changed (and hopefully improved) in a year! One of the first projects I shared on this blog was a Valentine's Day Quiet Mat. I hand sewed all of the activities on that mat, and I loved how everything turned out!

Now, a year later, I have a lot more experience with my sewing machine AND a new embroidery machine! I was able to make two of these books in the time it took me to sew that one quiet mat from last year. Two of these books are listed for sale in my Etsy shop and they would make great gifts for little ones on Valentine's Day! Take a look below for more pictures!

There are three pages with different activities. The first page has three flowers that button on and off of the stems. The second page has four chocolate shapes that velcro on with their matching shape names. The last page has a mail box that holds two felt envelopes, plus a sweet Valentine's Day message in each envelope!

Here are some close up pictures of the activities:

And because I love this fabric so much, here are some pictures of the backs of the pages!

Quiet Books

Thursday, December 31, 2015

I took a break from selling on Etsy for most of December to devote some time to personal craft projects and learning to use my Christmas gift from my husband...a new embroidery machine! I am in love with it and I can't wait to make some fun toys for the shop with it. In the meantime, I wanted to make another quiet book for Rhys to play with during our Christmas road trip, and I finished it just before we left!

This book is similar to my first Rainbow Quiet Book, but I included different activities in this book and added decorate buttons to most of the pages to use up some of my button stash :) I also fastened the pages with button holes and baby links this time, instead of grommets and binder rings.

I embroidered my son's name onto a piece of felt and sewed it to the cover. It's not perfectly straight but I'm happy with it!

The red page is a lacing activity (remember my Quidditch lacing page?) where he can lace a white string through the loops of ribbon on the rainbow. The string is stored behind the clouds at the bottom of the page and I glued blue felt to the tip of the string to make it stiffer and easier to lace.

The orange page is an I Spy activity with different colored button shapes hidden in the white buttons. I also sewed matching buttons around the border as a guide for what to look for.

The yellow page has a rainbow of six zippers to play with, because he can never have enough zippers!

The green page is a buckle/weaving activity that includes six buckles. It was a little tricky trying to figure out the placement of the buckles to get them to overlap without covering each other, but I love how it turned out!

The blue page is a shape matching activity, and it was my first attempt at using my embroidery machine! The shapes were all sewn by the machine which is why they look awesome and perfect :)

The turquoise page was my second attempt with the embroidery machine and again...I was so impressed! I embroidered the color names onto each piece of felt, and then stitched a rectangle around each one to make them into little tiles that Rhys can velcro on and off.

Finally, the purple page is a simple little abacus activity to practice counting! The purple felt warped a little while I was pulling the strings tight to sew them down, but at least I know the strings and beads are secure!

Here's a close up of the button holes...next time I might make them a little bigger but I think these worked out well for a first attempt!

Quiet Books

Friday, October 23, 2015

Rainbow Soft Books - Today I Felt Crafty

I could not be more in love with these books! I originally made one for my nephew at the beginning of the year (see it here), and a few weeks ago I received an order to make three of these for triplet girls! How sweet! I love how bright and colorful these books are and it was such a treat to get back to hand sewing for a little while.

The books are all hand sewn (except for the seams) and are stuffed to give them a soft, plush feel.
The white clouds have stuffing and ribbon loops as an added fun texture. The storm clouds have crinkle paper sewn behind them and the strips of rain drops are sewn onto satin ribbon. The suns are my favorite part and they each lift up to reveal a small circular mirror behind them. Enjoy more pretty pictures below!

Quiet Books

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

To say that I'm excited about this project would be a huge understatement. I put a lot of thought and energy into designing a new quiet book, and I knew I wanted to it to be bright, fun and educational. I wrote down ideas for seven different pages and figured out what skills and activities I wanted to incorporate. All of the activities are sewn onto colorful sheets of felt, and I paired each felt sheet with matching colorful fabric on the back! This was my first time using all wool felt and all machine sewing and I'm so happy with the results! Wool felt makes such a big difference!

This book makes a wonderful Christmas or birthday gift and provides hours of entertainment! You can remove pages for individual play or to swap them out with new pages. The activities are perfect for quiet play time at home, or take a few pages on the go with you to keep your little ones busy in waiting rooms, restaurants, church, car rides and plane rides!

The red page has 26 circles that velcro to the page to help practice the alphabet!
The orange page is a clock with hands that you can move.

The yellow page has three skills to practice: buckling, buttoning and zippering.

The green page has six shapes that can be grouped with their matching buttons.
The blue page helps with learning to lace and tie shoes!

The turquoise page has squares that make up three generations of a family tree. The squares velcro onto the page to help learn about your family. Each square is a pocket made of felt and clear vinyl so you can insert your own family pictures into them! The last generation line can fit up to four children.

The purple page is an I Spy page with four colorful animals mixed in with beads.