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.

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.