Activity Book (Quiet Book)

It's been quite some time since I last updated. I'm not really good about updating frequently, but this time I had an excuse--we were traveling for the past two weeks. We went to visit my family in CA, and hubby had work to do in CA too. It was a long, but good trip. No more traveling for a while since #3 is coming soon (in 5 weeks!!).

I finished the activity book I was working on for my niece and gave it to her...so now I can post all the photos of it (my sister had snuck a peak at the post I had written a while back here...I guess it wasn't fair to tell her to not look...it's like telling someone not to look at a car accident as you drive by...kinda the same thing...?)

Anyway, here it is!

I used my Silhouette Cameo (which I love!!) to make the "cover page". 

1) First, Cally picks her vegetables in the garden. And then plays with her farm animals (Doesn't have much to do with food, but I wanted to include finger puppets.)

For more about these pages, see this post. The only changes I made from the previous post are the flowers which are brads, the sun and clouds, and the buttons for the door handles.

2) Then she picks her apples & strawberries.

Again for more about these pages, see this post.

3) Then "cuts" her veggies & fruit. See below for more details on these pages.

4) She then makes a pie with her ingredients.

5) And she can also "make" cupcakes. This cupcake page is also educational because she has to match the number of sprinkles with the number on the cupcake liners. More details below.

That's it! I wish I had had more time to make more pages. It was very time consuming as is. Maybe I can add to it in the future. Now I'm craving some cupcakes. ;)

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Here are the details for the last few pages of the book.

Cutting board: velcro strips to hold the fruit & veggie pieces.

Beet (these are "puzzles" since she has to assemble them before she can "cut" them)

Strawberry

Apple

Carrot

Weave the pie

This is the only fabric I had that had apples on it. Is it kinda gross that she is baking elephants?

Again my Silhouette Cameo came in handy. 

I used puffy paint for the numbers. For the cupcake liners I used stiff glittery felt.

Cupcakes

 No more activity books for a while. I definitely need a break. :) Happy Crafting!

Update (5/22/12): I'm so excited that I was featured on Sew Can Do. It is very encouraging to know that people are inspired by what I'm doing...gives me motivation to keep creating. It is definitely my stress relief and helps me keep my sanity during crazy days when hubby is traveling and this 8-month preggo belly of mine weighs me down... and my 17 month old is screaming for something... and my 3 year old just wants attention. But life is good and I'm blessed. :)
 

Update (8/30/12): Thanks to all the visitors who have found me through Pinterest. I am so excited that you all like this quiet book. Please take a look around and feel free to leave comments (they are very encouraging and let me know that someone out there is reading this). :) And again, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. xoxo jean

***UPDATE*** (11/24/12): Several of you have been asking me for templates for this book. For some of the pages I used templates I found on other blogs (I have noted those throughout the post so please go to their respective blogs). For other pages I free-handed the items. And the cupcake one I came up with a simple template. Which you can find by clicking here. Hope that helps! :)

Activity Book (aka Quiet Book): Garden, Barn, & Apple Tree Pages

A couple months ago, I finished making a Quiet Book for C-bub (I will post about that at a later time). I definitely needed a break from making something so time-consuming. But when I was brainstorming what to make for my niece Cally's 3rd birthday present, I couldn't resist the idea of making a book for her as well. She is in love with all things food-related these days. My sister said she tried hiding her kitchen and food toys because that's all she would play with. She gave her some blocks to play with instead, and guess what little sweet Cally did, she pretended the blocks were food items.

Sorry, sister, I have decided to do a food-themed Activity Book. :)

It is again consuming my time, but I love it! Hoping to finish it before I go to LA at the end of April. Here is what I have so far...


I love the Vegetable Garden page here. I think it's adorable and so creative! I made a few minor adjustments, but need to give Leafy Treetop Spot all the credit.

I thought it would be perfect to have the garden next to the barn page. For the barn, I used these great templates from Homemade by Jill. A couple of the finger puppets were also templates from there, but I also came up with a few myself.

Rather than having a felt pocket for the puppets to go in, I sewed elastic to the inside of the barn so that I could fit more puppets. It works well to hold them in place.

I still have to sew on some buttons like the ones here on my son's page so that the doors will stay closed.

Now back to the cute garden~

I used "fuschia" felt for the beets. My husband thought they were radishes.
I didn't know this, but here are the differences between beets and radishes...in case you were curious.

Carrot detail

Beet detail

I used velcro to keep the bottom closed (I did find it necessary to have an opening
to adjust the veggies back in place. I sewed a piece of green felt on top for grass.

I was inspired by the apple tree/strawberry picking page in the quiet book made by Mama Duck (click here for her awesome book).

It's all in the details...I found the fabric for the basket at Joann's. Hot glue gunned a cute bow onto the basket. I added a ladybug, because ladybugs are so adorable...and this book is going to be about all things cute...and food. I sewed snaps for the apples. I also plan on having strawberries like the ones on Mama Duck's page, but they haven't come yet (ordered them on ebay here). 

Cricut "Create a Critter" deer (used a black brad for the eye)

I love that these four pages tie so well together. Cally can pick all her vegetables and fruit and put them in her basket. Looking at this reminds me of Easter. Yay for Easter egg hunts...and of course yay for Jesus! :)