Gardening and Birdhouse Quiet Book Pages

Last two pages!

As cute as the farm scene pages are, my favorite page in this book is the gardening page. We start our own seeds and the kids get to help sometimes, so it was something else I really wanted to include in the book.

I made a little seed box with hand embroidered letters and sewed on some seed beads as if they had spilled. #keepitreal

The flowerpot turned out unintentionally patriotic. I really don't have much navy fabric.

The seed packets were made by printing vintage seed packet images onto iron-on transfer paper. I just sewed up little white packets from the transfers, including seed beads and buttons for the sunflowers inside before sewing them shut.

The little sprout pushes down into the flowerpot so that it can grow. I wish I had embroidered "grow" in a different color. The flowerpot is two pieces of gray fabric fused together with ribbon between them at the spout. I sewed around it for stability. I also had to make my own little hook out of wire to store the watering can in the book.

The last page is a birdhouse, with the front of the birdhouse being a velcro flap. The roof was made of bias tape and I did some hand embroidery vine details.

The nest is made of vintage lace, just like the one in the forest scene for

THIS

book. The little bird is made of felt. This is why my daughter started calling it the "birdie book."

You can see the rest of the pages in the spring quiet book by clicking on the link below.

You can see all of my quiet books by clicking HERE.

With this book completed, I can check the first thing off of my list for the third quarter of the Finish-A-Long! I have since finished several other things on the list and will blog about them soon!

Farm Animals Quiet Book Page

On our little farm, spring means lots of new baby animals. I wanted to reflect that in the spring quiet book, too. I came up with this little sunset farm scene and tried out some different applique techniques. I hand embroidered the fence and some details, then sewed on the barn.

The barn doors are held shut with a round button and a loop of narrow elastic. Inside the barn are some "animal pens" made of little pockets. Those store tiny animals that I cut from a fat quarter print fused to backing fabric. (I also used them to make memory cards in

THIS

book.)

I was going to make felt animals, but this was easier and faster. They are cute and she has fun with them.

The top of the barn has yellow ribbon "straw" and the roof is made of white grosgrain ribbon.

I was going to add even more details, like a mud pit for the pig, but I stopped myself because I wanted to finish the book.

I can't believe these are the first farm pages I have done!

You can see the rest of the spring quiet book pages by clicking on the image below:

Umbrella and Flowers Quiet Book Pages

One of the first ideas I had for a spring themed quiet book page was to make an umbrella with sliding bead raindrops. That grew into the April showers bring May flowers pages.

I had some gray bias tape on hand, but I had to buy a big bag of clear beads just for the few that I needed.

I appliqued a yellow umbrella with the machine, but the handle is hand embroidered with a satin stitch.

Those little duck buttons were just so cute that I couldn't resist!

"April showers..." (wish I hadn't capitalized 'showers') was hand embroidered on a strip of aqua on the bottom. The tricky part was trying to match up "bring May flowers." It isn't perfect, but close enough.

Oh, and those little ladybug buttons were also irresistibly cute!

Under the buttons is a flowerpot appliqued with a machine blanket stitch. I wanted to do something different from the usual ric rac stem flowers I have made

HERE

and

HERE

and

HERE

.

One side of the flowers is from a Vintage Modern print...

...and the other is various scraps, including one from my great-grandmother's fabric and my daughter's first birthday outfit.

I like seeing all the little scraps of past projects in these quiet books.

You can see the rest of the pages for this quiet book as they are posted by clicking on the image below.

Winter Quiet Book

I made a quiet book for my youngest daughter sometime late last winter.

Just because.

I originally planned to make one for each season, but that hasn't happened. :)

It is much smaller than the other quiet books I have made because I wasn't going into as much detail. You can see my other quiet books HERE. It is totally doable to whip up a quiet book before Christmas if you are still looking for gift ideas- just do one page at a time! 

For this winter themed book, I really wanted a scrappy look and I decided to use a color scheme inspired by the movie Frozen. (You may have seen it or heard that "Let It Go" song before. I know I have- a few million times!) I dug through my scrap basket and pulled out anything in the colors I was after so I didn't buy anything to make this book.

The cover has the adorable little penguin appliqued on it- the white is actually made of satin. I did french knots for the eyes and sewed on a tiny bow. The snowflake buttons were left over from a costume I made (will blog about that eventually). 

I even did a fancy stitch to applique the white strip on the side. Oh, and I finally remembered to add a little strap to velcro it closed- another reason for the white (the velcro blends in).

Next up is the hot cocoa page. The cup makes a little pocket and I stuffed in some white pom poms to make pretend marshmallows. The inside of the cup has a brown fabric for the hot chocolate, too (it is the same stuff as the heel of the skate on the next page). I hand embroidered the snowflakes and steam likes to embellish it a little more. Oh, and the crochet lace was a fun touch, too!

I used more white satin on the ice skate page.  The satin ribbon was hard to sew through those layers for the laces, but I got it eventually- I just used an upholstery needle. Again, I embroidered a bunch of snowflakes on there to dress up the solid background. I also added white eyelet to the edge of the page to make it a little fancier and keep up the scrappy look.

These winter woodland pages are the most played with, but I both love and hate them. I love the birch trees and the little felt animals. But, the little birds snap on and off and my little girl needs help to do that, so I am CONSTANTLY and LOUDLY being bothered to help her with that. It kinda' defeats the purpose of a "quiet" book. I should have used velcro. 

Also, the pages are on backwards. I messed up when I sewed everything together and the fleece snowbanks didn't line up. I tried to fill it in a little, but it isn't as cute as it would have been.

I also did a snow globe page! It is adorable, but the little star sequins and mini pom pom snowballs don't have enough air in there to really move around easily. I wonder if there is a way to puff it out a little more. The clear plastic is cut from a bag that curtains came in. 

The fleece mitten page has a scrappy background, too. The mitten is a little small, so I had to make the wrist portion under the ribbon loose at the sides so that she can fit her hand in there. She really doesn't play with this page too much.

On the back cover I embroidered a really intricate snowflake and my initials and the year, but it doesn't stand out so well. But, I know it is there and it is pretty.

I really like the durability of fabric quiet books and they are great to take along to church, sporting events, doctor appointments, etc. Next time I will try to save my patterns and scan them to share. I hope this at least gives some inspiration to others!

Spring Quiet Book

Naomi's Quiet Book

Lily's Quiet Book

Grace's Quiet Book

Lily's Quiet Book ~ Paper Dolls Pages

I still have some of this paper doll fabric left (from HERE and HERE) and my girls love dressing up the dolls, so it was a given that I would include these pages. I made a few changes, though.

I thought the previous pages were a bit plain so I made it look like there is a floor by sewing a strip along the bottom. (It drives me crazy that they don't line up perfectly, but I broke a needle sewing the pages together and wasn't about to redo it.) I made the dresser in white instead of brown and moved it to the left. To the right of the dresser I added a felt dog. I think he is pretty cute!

Everything else is pretty much the same. The dresser is a storage pocket for all of the cute clothes and accessories.

That is it! You can see all of the pages in Lily's quiet book by clicking on the image below:

You can see my other quiet books by clicking HERE.

Lily's Quiet Book ~ Pie and Tea Party Pages

One of these pages is simple and the other... not so much.

The pie page is pretty easy. I made some HERE and HERE. I really like the gray background on this page, though. I am almost out of the blueberry fabric by now. I don't know if I can make any more of these.

The tea party has two very special guests. I saw many pictures of Lily with her stuffed lamb so I figured it must be a favorite. I really like how mine turned out.

The cat is made of sweater scraps from a sweater of mine that didn't fit well and I upcycled into a sweater dress for my youngest daughter.

I love the texture the animals add to the page. Lily's mom used to made stuffed animals to sell on etsy.

I also added a pennant banner/bunting at the top. Those are all scraps for a large one I am making for our own house to match some of the other items I made last year for Hannah's pink lemonade first birthday.

I made the table smaller than the last tea party page I made and was certain to curve the front of the table this time. 

There is still room for storage underneath...

They can have tea...

...or cookies.

The extra plate in the center is for Lily, of course. Her grandmother said that they like tea, so I hope they liked this page.