How to Make a Quiet Book - For a Toddler

We usually make our own Christmas presents for family members.  This year for Maggie, I made 

A Quiet Book.

I wanted to make it full of things that she can touch, and that her little eyes and fingers can explore, (rather than of activities to do), since she was not yet twelve months old.  

To get ideas for what to make, I searched about on the net, and found something very similar to this finished project, 'Maggie's Garden', on Etsy.  The one I saw was actually so cute that I even thought about just buying it, but a little chat to Abby confirmed that she loves to have me make something myself.  

So - many hours later, here it is!  I really enjoyed doing it, and was especially impressed with myself to have it all finished in good time before Christmas day!

I particularly wanted to put it up online, since I very much appreciated being able to see the ideas that other people had shared.  Although I have copied a lot of what I have done from the book on Etsy, if you like any part of what I have put into this book and would like to pinch ideas, please be my guest!  

If you would like to see more detail in the pages, clicking on each picture will enlarge it.

So (or Sew!) - to the Book!

(Some instructions below)

Instructions - Such as they are!

My objective was to create a good amount of colour, shape, tactile and textural interest, by using a wide variety of  fabrics and notions such as: 

Silk, velour, velvet, lurex, wool, vinyl, satin, flannelette, plastic, metallic fabrics, cotton quilting prints, tinsel, elastic, buttons, beads, crystals, ribbons, lace, pom-poms, sequins, flowers, knick-knacks, fabric paint, glitter paint, hand and machine embroidery and silver thread, etc.

Leaves and wings can be lifted and played with.  Some of the wings have noisy cellophane stitched into them.

  

Each of the white pages are stiffened with iron-on interfacing, and the covers are lightly padded with iron-on pellon; each of the joined pages are bound with satin ribbon and threaded with two ribbons.  

My photos aren't fabulous; most of the pages are better when you can see and touch them.  For example, I love the spider's web page, which doesn't show up well here, unfortunately.  The background is black satin; the web is silver metallic embroidery floss, threaded with lots and lots of tiny glass beads and real crystals that can slide back and forth along small lengths of the thread.  

Pretty much everything is well-glued, then stitched and sewn down over and over again, to make it all as safe as I could for little ones to play with.  Most of the eyes are glued and sewn, although the smallest eyes are only glued, since they can't be sewn.  However, they seem to be very sturdily attached.  I went through the book several times myself, trying to pull everything off, so I hope it will all be fine! 

 The exceptions to this are the wings I have used on the firefly and dragonfly - the way they are attached is too fragile; they could be ripped off - so I would do those a little differently if I made this again.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who does something like this!

Christmas clown for Jenna.

To continue in my aim of catching up posts on some of our family's last six months:

For Christmas '09 I made a clown for our grand-daughter, Jenna.  It was a nostalgic choice, because I sewed up this same pattern for Tammy and Michael as Christmas presents when they were small. 

The same year I also made them for the children's cousins, Tammy and Russell,
who we were visiting in Adelaide for Christmas.

The pattern was from a Family Circle magazine that we still have. 
The face and colourful fingernails are embroidered. 

Tammy and Michael had their clowns for many years.  I remember replacing several noses, feet, hat pom-poms, and at least one arm along the way!
 I hope Jenna enjoys hers just as much.

Jenna with her clown and Abby and James' baby, Maggie.

Michael with his clown.

Tammy, Michael and Jonathon.

Christmas is coming......!

Thank you for the travel advice! Neil and I are still trying to find a time when we are both still awake and not too tired to finalize our plans, but your suggestions and thoughts on here and in emails have been very helpful :) The suggestion box is still open for now, if you think of anything else... :)

It's that time of the year when our family start to think more seriously about Christmas coming up, and Christmas presents. We've had a tradition since the children were little, of making our gifts for one another, so we are always on the look-out for ideas. I usually sit down with each of the children in the September holidays, to plan out anything they might need help with. Now of course, they are older and can usually take care of it themselves. (You can see an example of a previous present here.)

I know that Jessima is already all organized, as she usually and wonderfully is, (although I haven't managed yet to weedle out of her what exactly it is that she is doing! There's still time though - and I haven't even started on Jonny yet :) Abby and James seem to be all set too.

I've also pretty much planned out what I will be doing, and have started on making some of my presents. But since I also double as the 'Fount of all ideas for Christmas presents', for everyone else in the family, I've been checking out a few webs sites for more ideas.

One site that I've come across has some useful ideas, not just for gifts, but for activities to do with children, etc, too, that I thought some of you might find interesting. I admit that part of what I like about this particular site is that the photos are clear and beautiful, and I love the colours in them. You can find the site here. I enjoyed looking around on it to find some things I like - I hope you can find something useful there too. For example - in 'Photography Tips', there is an explanation on how to post larger pictures on your blog page.

Did you know that there are only 122 days left before Christmas?
:)