Finished Project: Toddler Quiet Book

Remember that time I thought I could finish LW's quiet book for Christmas!? HAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHA. That was good.

Well, now it's Easter and he IS getting the quiet book in his Easter basket. WAHOO!! A finished project. Want to see?

I made it page by page, rather than cutting everything at once then gluing everything, then sewing everything, etc. I like seeing progress and I tend to need instant-gratification when I am working on projects. Working on a page until I finished it in one sitting was both rewarding and efficient for me.

I did learn a few things as I went. The first half of the book took me about an hour per page. I was REALLY obsessed with every stitch and perfecting every cut. The second half of the book took about fifteen minutes per page because I either didn't sew it down at all (hot glue, people! MAGIC) or the pieces I needed to sew were minimal.

From sewing the first half of the book as much as I did, I gunked my sewing machine up pretty badly. The felt letters I used were adhesive backed, which I thought would help them stay extra firm on the book, but in actuality that adhesive screwed up the needles I was using. A little acetone took care of it, but still. Yuck.

Also, felt is a really inexpensive material and with sewing the less expensive the material, the more likely it is to "shed" into your machine.

So, needless to say after sewing this as much as I did my machine is due for a good cleaning.

Here is the cover:

I wanted lots of texture for him to touch and feel and wanted the letters to be big and bold. These are those adhesive letters I mentioned previously. Great for the book. Bad for the sewing machine.

The lion and mailbox spread took me the longest, but they were pages I was most passionate about. I really wanted a lion with a full, unique mane that LW could tousle his fingers through and a mailbox with a "Door" that really opened, plus a flag that really worked. Did them both! And the mailbox has a few surprises inside:

EEP! It's so cute. I used the special stitches on my machine to spell things on certain pages. You can't see in the image, but the lion page says "Lion Says Roar!" and one of the letters for the mailbox says "I love you!"

Then came the Tic-Tac-Toe page. This one took me a while too and was when I decided not to sew those little letters anymore. I stitched a quick little baggie to store the game pieces. These game pieces do not have anything to help adhere them to the felt - they are just sticking with felt on felt.

The caterpillar is a color-matching game. The goal is for LW to match the correct colored pieces to the stuck-on colors on the page. The game pieces have "hook" pieces of velcro on them, so if he pushes them down their little velcro teeth will catch.

This spread was faster than anticipated. The Peek-A-Boo page was just a few minutes to measure and cut the ribbons and fabric plus glue them down.

I worried the fish page would take a long time, but it didn't. The fish all have a tab of magnet on the backs of the pieces, so when he plays it for real it will be magnets facing out. The goal is for him to use the "bait" gold fish which also has a magnet on it, to pick up the other fish with the magnets. There is a little pocket labeled "Fish" to store the pieces in when not in use.

All of the pages are hot glued together and a little mish-moshed around the edges, but to me that just gives character and shows that it's homemade with love. Also, I'm lazy. Felt stretches and these pages were a far cry from their original sizes when I was done with them....so the answer was trim them all down and lose some of my hard work on the game pages or slap them all together and bluff that it's "character". I don't think LW will mind.

I made the back cover in my favorite color with a little love.

I'm thrilled with how it turned out and I can't wait to give it to LW on Sunday to see how he likes it!