Quiet Book Page 12: Tic-Tac-Toe

Most of the pages I put in my quiet book are educational. This is one of the pages that isn't so much for learning as it is for fun. 

Page 12: Tic-Tac-Toe

Teaches: Matching, taking turns, winning and losing

My inspiration for this page came from here. Pinterest almost always had several ideas for each page I wanted to make and this was my favorite tic-tac-toe page. Bonus: it came with a pattern!!

Here is how my page turned out: 

I chose 3 colors to use - black, cream, and red. I then cut out the pattern pieces and stitched everything together. In the pops and podge page, she used fabric glue to hold most of her things together. I stitched all of mine. All of the black as well as the velcro is machine stitched, while the X's and O's are hand stitched to the circles. 

There is a pocket in the top left corner of the page for the extra pieces to be stored. Each piece has velcro on the back and there is velcro sewn in each square on the grid. 

I sewed the letters on by machine and it was surprisingly easy and turned out great! 

When making this quiet book, I was getting tired and overwhelmed. I was thinking about which pages to eliminate and this was a contender. My husband didn't want me to because then he wouldn't have a page to play with; so it ended up staying. I am so happy with how it turned out. 

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Pages 10 and 11: Alphabet

Sorry I have been a little MIA lately on the blog! We have been busy with our move back to school and getting settled in. Now that we are, I am excited to get back to blogging. 

The alphabet was a must-have for my quiet book. It turned out especially perfect for Owen's name; keep reading and you will see why!

Pages 10 and 11: Alphabet

Teaches: Alphabet, letters, spelling

My inspiration for this page came from my friend's quiet book. She made her quiet book and it inspired me to make mine. She included the alphabet and I just used the same materials and technique as her. 

Here are my pages:

I first chose 3 colors I liked for the felt. I bought the iron-on letters at Walmart. I measured the letters and cut the felt squares to fit (2" by 2"). I then sewed small squares of velcro to each felt square. The letters were then ironed on. I sewed on the other side of the velcro pieces onto the pages to fit 4 letters across on the left page and 3 across on the right. 

I used all of the letters in the package, so I sewed two pieces of felt to make a large pocket to hold all of the extra pieces. With all of the extra letters and the left page having spaces for 4 letters across, Owen will be able to learn to spell his first and last names using these letters!! 

I love how these pages turned out and I hope it will help Owen learn his alphabet!!

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Page 9: Tie the Laces!

When I was figuring out what pages to put in my quiet book, I decided I wanted the majority of them to teach something. This page with little pretend shoes is perfect for kids to learn how to tie shoes. I love it!

Page 9: Tie the Laces

Teaches: How to lace up and tie shoes

Throughout the process of making my quiet book, I was so grateful for templates to follow. They made the pages so easy to do. This was one of those template pages. I got the pattern from here and just followed all of her instructions. 

Here is my page: 

For the most part, my page is just like hers. As far as differences, I used larger grommets and I did not use glue for anything; the whole page was hand-stitched

"tie the laces" up close

I think this page turned out so cute! I look forward to when he will be able to use it.

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Page 8: Button Flowers

This was my fastest and easiest page to make. If I get the motivation, I may go back and spruce it up a bit. For now; however, it serves its purpose.

Page 8: Button Flowers

Teaches: Colors, how to do and undo a button

I saw many, many renditions of this page before and after I made it. I initially wanted to label the colors for each flower, but decided I would rather have more flowers instead. After I finished my page, a friend of mine sent an idea for a similar page that I loved, but I had already finished mine, so I didn't change it. I ended up with this: 

Each flower has a coordinating button to go on. 

For this page, I first picked through my button stash to find a button in every color. I then googled flower drawings and found one that I liked. I scaled the web page to the correct size and traced it onto plain white paper. I cut it out and used it as my pattern to cut one flower from each color of felt. I added a slit to the center of each flower and placed them on the page how I liked. Each button was hand sewn onto the page and then the flowers were buttoned on. 

As I mentioned at the top, if I get the motivation, I may spruce it up by adding another flower layer to make the flowers more sturdy. They work for now though, and Owen loves the colors!

~K.A.N.

Owen's First Birthday

I had been thinking a long time about what to do to celebrate Owen's first birthday. I looked on Pinterest of course for inspiration, asked my little sister what she thought, and tried to think of the very best theme, date, time, etc. 

Eventually, I concluded that it was all a little too overwhelming for something he wouldn't even remember. I decided we would do a very simple celebration with a couple of friends on his birthday. 

Then my two younger sisters came to visit, and last minute, we decided to throw him a party before they had to go home.  They wanted to help with everything and be here to celebrate, so I figured, why not?

We chose a circus theme and I think it turned out great. He had fun and so did we. 

The first thing we did was make some decorations. We loved this idea from pinterest. It was so easy and looked great! Kennedy and I used cups, bowls, and small tupperwares to make different size circles on bright colored paper. We cut them out and taped them to black thread and then taped them up on each side of the ONE letters that Katy had made. 

We loved the highchair decorations from this party, so Katy and Kennedy made some just like it. Super cute!

I had red and white stripe fabric in my stash that went perfectly with the theme. We hung that up, used the extra paper circles to add decoration, and hung balloons. 

For food, we had homemade corndogs, homemade mashed potatoes, fruit salad, circus animal cookies, cherry sours, and of course cupcakes!

Owen got an extra large cupcake all to himself (pictured in the center).

After eating dinner, Owen opened his present from Mark and Caitlin. He took the top tissue paper out, took his present out (a sheriff onesie!), and was so excited about the last tissue paper. To him, that was the real present!

We loved having Aunt Katy and Aunt Kennedy here! They were so much fun and so helpful and we sure do miss them!

We took a little break after dinner and before dessert to let the food settle. Owen loved playing with the big dice! 

 Here is his cake smash outfit!! I just thought it was the cutest thing. 

Hat tutorial found here. I printed the pattern on cardstock, made the hat, then hot-glued the chevron fabric on it. I made the pom-pom for the top and added yarn to tie under his chin.

Tie tutorial and pattern found here. I printed the pattern and followed her tutorial and it turned out great!

Diaper cover tutorial and pattern found here. As with the tie, I printed the pattern and followed the tutorial. I used size 12-24 months because my little man has a big bum! It was a little big, but the elastic made it fit just fine. 

He didn't like the stickiness of the frosting at first, but I think he was enjoying it by the end. 

 After a nice bath to clean up, he relaxed with a bottle, then went to bed. 

Happy birthday to my sweet boy!!

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Pages 6 and 7: Barn and Grassy Hill

As I was making the quiet book, these pages were my favorite of all the ones I had made. They turned out so cute and didn't take a ton of time!

Pages 6 and 7: Barn and Grassy Hill

Teaches: Animals, imaginative play, using finger puppets

My inspiration and pattern for these pages came from here. It was SO nice having a template for everything rather than having to draw it out myself. It made it go a lot faster, and I love how it turned out!

I just printed off her template, cut out the pieces and sewed everything together! The whole barn page is machine stitched on. 

As is the grassy hill page. I used one whole piece of green felt for this page and cut it to make pocket for the animals to go in. 

The barn doors stay closed via velcro.

And there are the finger puppet animals!! Tucked nicely into their little pocket.

I just love these little animals. They were all hand stitched together, then the eyes were added using puffy paint. 

Here is the empty barn.

And the animals playing on the hill. 

Super fun and super cute! Thanks Jocelyn for the awesome template!

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Pages 4 and 5: Numbers and Math

Of all the pages I did, I think these took the most amount of time. It was worth the extra effort of hand stitching to get the end result though!

Pages 4 and 5: Numbers and Math

Teaches: numbers and counting, order, addition, subtraction

My inspiration for these pages came from all over. After looking at several quiet books, I knew I wanted a page with numbers. I initially wasn't planning on doing a math page, but I just couldn't help myself. Math is my favorite, so why not add it in? 

This is what I came up with: 

For the numbers, I found a web page that had numbers as coloring pages. I zoomed the screen to be the right size, then traced them by holding plain white paper right up to the computer screen and tracing (lightly) using a pencil. 

I picked the three colors of felt I wanted to use, cut the numbers out of the paper and used those as my pattern to cut the numbers out of felt. 

With each number cut out, I then cut out black rectangles to be just larger than the numbers. I used a blanket stitch to hand sew each number onto the black. That is the part that took forever. I love how they turned out though, so I'm glad I took the time to do it that way. 

I then cut nine more black rectangles, machine stitched one side of velcro on each, then machine stitched those to the page. I then realized that if I didn't want machine stitching to show through my numbers (which I didn't) I was going to have to hand stitch the other side of velcro on the back of the number rectangles. I knew I would rather take the time now to do the work and have it be exactly how I wanted, so I did. 

For the math page, a similar approach was taken. I made a whole second set of numbers (plus a 0) to allow every possible addition and subtraction formula of the numbers 1-9 to be done. The plus, minus, and both equal signs were hand stitched onto the page. 

As with the numbers page, these numbers velcro on and off. A large pocket was sewn to the bottom of the page to hold the extra numbers. 

So far, these have been two of Owen's favorite pages. He may not know what they are actually for, but he loves the velcro and the bright colors!

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Pages 2 and 3: Traffic Light and Road

These pages were fun to make! I did a mix of hand stitching and machine stitching and wouldn't change a thing about them. 

Pages 2 and 3: Traffic Light and Road

Teaches: Traffic light and meaning, imaginative play, velcro

My inspiration for this page came from here.

Her pages looked great, so I wanted mine to look just like hers. This is how mine turned out: 

As with the shapes page, I made sketches of both of these pages which I then used as a pattern. 

For the traffic light page, I cut out the black and one layer of felt for a red, yellow, and green circle. I machine stitched those onto the black, then added a square of velcro. The black felt piece was then machine stitched onto the page. I then cut two layers of felt of each color, machine stitched them together, trimmed, and added the other side of a square of velcro. 

The rhyme was written in sharpie on the same thick interfacing I used on the shapes page. (It goes to the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

The road page was mostly hand stitched using a blanket stitch. I really love how it turned out! 

The red block at the top is a "garage" for the little car I made! It is wider on one end, then stitched down in straight lines to allow room for the car to go in. 

I also attached a ribbon to the car and the back of the garage so the car doesn't get lost!

Once again, here are the pages together! If you have questions, just leave a comment and I will do my best to answer them!

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Page 1: Shapes

This first page took me much longer than it should have to complete. It was the combination of getting started and not knowing exactly how I wanted to do this page that made it so time consuming. With that in mind, my first suggestion for each page is to plan exactly what you want before you do anything. 

Page 1: Shapes

Teaches: Snaps, Shapes, Colors

My inspiration for this page came from the shapes page in Sabrina's quiet book off of The Quiet Book Blog. 

I love how perfect all of Sabrina's pages look. The matching colors, the amazing stitching, everything! Her shapes page was my favorite that I found, so I decided to copy it to the best of my ability. 

Here is what I came up with: 

For all of my pages, I first make a general sketch of what the page would look like on letter size paper (8.5 inches by 11 inches). For these shapes, I traced Owen's shape blocks because they were just the size I needed. I then decided on the colors for each of the shapes. I cut two layers of felt and one layer of a coordinating cotton for each shape.

I machine stitched the two layers of felt together, trimmed the edges, and then added a snap to the center. 

I used Heat N' Bond Lite for the cotton shapes attached to the pages. I ironed the first side on, added the snap, then ironed it to the page. I then zig-zag stitched around the outside to keep it in place. 

I used a very thick interfacing and sharpie to write the names of the shapes. I cut them to size, wrote the shape names, and then machine stitched around the edges. 

Here is pictured how the shapes snap on to their matching cotton shape. 

And a closer picture of the outer stitching:

Below is the circle. Two layers of blue felt machine stitched together with a snap applied to both layers. My recommendation here is to trim to what you have sewn. Even if your stitching isn't perfect, the trimming will make that shape look great!

Here are four extra shapes. This was my first attempt at what I wanted to do. I cut out one layer and applied the snaps. They look pretty but are way too flimsy. 

No worries though, because they just get tucked right in to that nice little pocket at the bottom of the page as extras!

Once again, here is the page overall. Although it is not quite as pretty as Sabrina's, I love how it turned out!!

~K.A.N.