Showing posts with label felt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label felt. Show all posts

Monday, 11 November 2013

Jolie's Quiet Book

My niece just turned 1 this past August, so this summer I took on the project of making her a quiet book. I have seen so many cute patterns online, and my sister-in-law mentioned that she wanted one for her kids, so that's what I did! I had lots of fun picking out templates and making it, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It took me so long to make though! I used my sewing machine for most of the pieces, but I had to change the thread every time I needed a new colour, which took a while. I also had to cut out the pattern pieces, two pieces of felt, and one piece of interfacing for each removable piece, which was also time-consuming. Jolie loves it though, so it's all worth it!

If you don't know what a quiet book is, it is an activity book made out of felt for young children. They are often used to keep kids occupied during church or in the car. There are pages just to look at, play with, and many of them have educational components such as colours, matching, numbers, and practice fine motor skills (buttons, snaps, zippers).

I decided to make 10 page spreads, so I printed the templates and did all the cutting at once, then all the sewing at once. When I finished and began to put everything together, the pile of pages was quite big, so I decided to split it into two books. The books have binder rings that hold the pages together which open, so the pages can be removed or placed all into one book. All of my pages were made of felt, which also contributed to the bulk of the book.

Below I have a picture of each page, links to the templates, and a few comments. I hope you enjoy my work! For more inspiration, see my quiet book Pinterest board. Most of my templates are from Imagine Our Life, which I highly recommend!

Cover
For the cover, I used a light corduroy material from Hobby Lobby, with white broadcloth on the inside. There are handles, and a velcro strap to keep it closed. As mentioned above, there are binder rings that hold the pieces together and also allow you to remove the pages (see the next picture too). I loosely followed this tutorial, but basically I sewed a big rectangle for the cover, two handles, a velcro strap, and two small straps inside to hold the binder rings (see next picture). 
Name Page
This is the only page in the book that I did not use a template for. I cut out the letters for Jolie's name, and attached snaps to the pieces and to the page. I hand embroidered "my name is" with embroidery floss, and sewed three sides for a pocket to hold the letters. I think using velcro rather than snaps would have made it easier to attach.
Ice Cream Sundae Page
I got this template from this link. For this page, you just play with the different ice cream scoops and toppings. One of my favourites because it is so cute!
Bathroom Page
I chose to make this page because Jolie has a book with a mirror at the end that she loves. I got lucky and found some shiny bristol board at Michael's that I used for the mirror. The brush, toothbrush, and toothpaste can go in the mug. The template I used (here) is for one page, but I spread it onto two.
Cookie Page
This page (tutorial here) involves matching the shapes and colours of the cookies. You also practice buttoning the pieces to the page. Super cute!
Mail Page
This page (from this link) is super cute! The envelopes all velcro open and have a letter inside. I sewed ribbon with writing on it on the outside of the envelopes and the inside letter pages. The letters go in the mailbox, and the red handle can go up.
Cupcake Page
This page has wrapper pockets that I hand-embroidered the numbers onto. Each of the cupcakes has the same number of sprinkles (beads) sewn on, so it can be a matching activity. I used the cupcake template here to cut out the shapes, but modeled it after this page.
Farm Page
This page has animal finger puppets that go in the barn, which has doors that open. The template for this page (link) had apples that snap onto the tree, but I thought those pieces were too small, so I made an owl that is under the tree leaves instead. I also sewed taggie-style ribbons under the sun.
Sock Page
In this page (template here) the socks each have a snap on the back and they match onto the right hand page. You can put them in the dryer as well (hilarious!). For the dryer door, I got a clear folder from the dollar store that I cut for the dryer door.
Dress Up Page 
For this page, there is a plain figure on the right hand page, with velcro as her underwear and bra. I sewed yarn on for her hair, and hand-embroidered her face. The suitcase has a zipper on it to store the clothes, which all have velcro on them to stick to the doll. I didn't follow a specific template, but you can find another example here.
Flower Page
This page (template here) just has flowers that you can practice buttoning on and off of the stems.

Friday, 8 February 2013

Valentine's Day Yarn Wreath

Since buying a house, I have to admit that one of my favourite things is having a front door that I can make various wreaths for. My goal is to have different wreaths for each season/most holidays. You may want to check out my Ornament Wreath Tutorial, or check out the pictures at the bottom of my Halloween wreath (no tutorial blogged for that one) and additional ornament wreaths I made this year. I got inspiration for this wreath from my friend Sarah over at The Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya's Kitchen. We took a trip to Hobby Lobby in the states before going to Olive Garden for our friend's birthday a few weeks ago and that's where I got the supplies for this project. Enjoy!


Materials:
-1 wreath form
-1 ball pink yarn (Supersaver)
-1 piece each of red and pink felt
-1 ball white yarn
-tacky glue

Instructions

1. (Optional) Wrap the yarn into a ball that fits in your hand easily. This step is optional, but I found it easier/faster to wrap the yarn this way than with the whole ball.

2. Tie the end of the yarn in a knot around the wreath form (I got this one from Hobby Lobby for $3.99, made of straw and covered in plastic wrap- leave the plastic wrap on).


3. Start wrapping! Wrap the yarn around the form (on top of the tail end), keeping it somewhat tight. Try to avoid having the yarn overlap- it's not a huge deal, but I think that it makes it look nicer. This will be inevitable at some points since it is not a straight line. If you run out of yarn, wrap a new ball, and tie the ends together, continue wrapping over the tail ends.


4. Once you have gone around the wreath once, go around again to cover up any holes. I found with the straw wreath form there were some parts that seemed to poke out. The second time you go around, don't worry about criss-crossing the yarn. Pull it nice and tight and you won't be able to tell the difference. I just went around to cover the spots that you could still see the straw underneath. Tie in the final end, and tuck it into the yarn.

5. Embellish it! To make it Valentine's Day-y, I cut out some hearts from felt (the red one is even sparkly!) and glued them on using tacky glue. Then I took a long piece of white yarn, started with the middle at the back of the wreath, and criss-crossed it around to get the argyle look, then tied the ends together at the back and tucked them in. You can also use different colours of yarn, make felt flowers, letters, etc. Be creative!
 
Valentine's Day Ornament Wreath

Halloween Wreath

Christmas Ornament Wreaths