Quiet Books for Kids

So this what my giant undertaking for Christmas. I decided to make quiet books for my niece (age 5) and my nephew (age 2). I love giving quiet entertain-yourself gifts to kids, and of all the ideas, this one seemed the best for travel also. I don't have kids, so I did a lot of guessing and research to figure out what would be best for the kiddos, and I learned alot.

All of the books are grommetted and then joined with those metal embroidery loops, so that pages can be added, removed, or exchanged as the kid grow in and out of things, or as pages need repair.

For the 5-year old, some things detach from the book, but have a storage space in one of the pages. For the 2 year old, everything is tied down.

Ok before we get into the pictures - Things that I learned:

#1 - Grommets only go through 2-3 layers of felt. I should have done the decorating on MOST of the page, but left a border for the binding only.

#2 - Sew EVERYTHING on. I glued a bunch of things to save time and energy, and those were the first things that got ripped out of the book. Oops. Live and learn I guess. Most of them were decorative elements more than anything, but if I could do it all over, I would just reduce the number of pages and sew every last thing.

#3 - Page size consistency! I bought packs of felt as well as individual sheets. I also cut  some from larger sheets of plastic and/or felt. Even though all of them were *supposed* to be 9"x13" - the only ones that were actually sized right were the ones I cut out. A template that was 8.5"x11" (with a 1" margin for binding) would have saved me SO much trouble in the end. But I didn't find out until I went to bind the books, and by then it was too late.

Ok, so here are the books!

Sophia's Cover Page!
The books velcro shut.

I-Spy Page
Made of plastic scraps I had and filled with beads, buttons and glitter.
I took a photo of everything and included a "find me checklist" in the book.
Inspiration Book

Everybody needs practice tying their shoes!

Clock Page & Telling the time!

Garden Pages

Flower Garden
The petals are individually button-holed and she can mix and match them.
Inspiration Image

Veggie Garden Page
The carrots are tethered in with ribbon but they can be harvested!
Inspiration Page

Dress Up Page
Pattern Here

Kitchen Page 1
The Grocery Bag holds all the food cut-outs.
Pattern page

Kitchen Page 1
to show the frying pan and eggs!

Kitchen Page 2
The plate, napkin, and silverware are sewn/glued down.
Pattern Page

Sandcastle Page 1
The pieces are stored in the bucket.
Pattern Page

Sandcastle Page 2
Pattern Page

Luke's Cover Page

Lion Page
I really didn't get this, but I saw it in a number of places.
As it turns out, Luke was captivated by this page!
Inspiration, Another Inspiration

Bead Page
I double stitched each end of each strand, plus the border!
Inspiration

Buttons Page
Inspiration

 

"Touch and Feel" Page
This page started out with a spare piece of trim, and I added the pom-poms to bring it together.

Shapes Page Inspiration

Zipper Page
Inspiration, Inspiration, and more Inspiration

Froggy Page
The flies are made of the fluffy part of velcro.
The loops/tough part is on the other side of the frog's tongue.
Inspiration Page

Matching the Socks Page
I don't remember where I got the idea for this one, but the socks are
tied down inside the basket.

Airport Page
The kids know that Uncle works at the airport, so Luke got this page.
I used the pattern provided on this site, and added the person too.
Because this is the baby's book, everything is attached.

Roads Page
I saw roads pages in other places, like here but I didn't like them.
I added this one at the end. I got the cars and tied the ribbon onto the underside.
Then I glued velcro to the car and to parking spots on the page.
I don't know if you can see, but I sewed the roads down with yellow lines down the middle.