Quiet Time Felt Books - Part 1

 

 

I remember having felt books as a kid and I wanted to share the fun with my boys. These special books have been so helpful at church, in the car, at dentist appointments and almost any other time I needed the boys to be quiet and sit still.

 

I was inspired by so many different blogs for the quiet-time books I made. It is so nice having Pinterest and blogs available to feed our creativity and help us find ideas when we have a project in mind! Many ideas came from: Sweet Mama Duck, Mama Duck again, Fieltrunguis, The Crafting Chicks, Scott & Lonica, The Thornock Family, A Back to Basics Lifestyle, Cathie & Steve, Homemade by Jill has some great templates, you can also get patterns off Etsy if you would like.

I loved making these however they are very time consuming so be prepared…

Step 1: Pick your cover fabric and pages. I made my books with 12 pages in each and that is plenty in my opinion. If you were to do more than that your books will be getting very thick. For the pages you need 6 pieces of flannel cut at 10-inches by 20-inches each. For the cover you will need two pieces at 23-inches by 12-inches.  For the binder and button flap you will need 12-inches by 6-inches, there will be more details on this later.

Step 2: Stock up on felt! I used a lot of the solid colored sheets to accomplish my books (I found a nice pack of assorted felt on Amazon). Now I will go through each page with you…

The Clock: I used two different sized bowls to trace around to make the circles. Then I used a piece of chalk to draw the numbers and cut them out. I laminated two blue arrow for the hands (I thought that laminated arms would spin best on the felt without getting stuck) and used a brad as the fastener.  I sewed the large circles together and hot glued the numbers on.

 

You will find in this book I also added verses to each page. If you would also like to do this, print the verses you would like to use on each page and laminate them. I then cut out a square opening and sewed the verse underneath.  It is a little tricky because the laminated paper will slide a bit while you sew if you don’t hold it firm enough.

 

The Cupcakes and Oven: This is one of my favorites! Cut a piece of grey felt to look like a cookie sheet and write the numbers 1-9 on it with a permanent marker. The oven can be whatever color you would like it to be. It is comprised of a large rectangle, a pentagon and a skinny rectangle. I used brads for the knobs and small ovals of white felt for the burners. The window of the oven is some clear plastic tablecloth material I got at Joann Fabrics. You will need some little pieces of Velcro to close the oven.
 

 The Cupcakes: I used 3 different kinds of bottoms with all white frosting. I free handed the numbers again (but I have seen many felt stickers at different dollars stores especially Loopy Dollar, and I used some of these on pages to come). I used a sewing machine to make the lines on the bottoms and then I hand-stitched on the frosting with a bright yellow. I used hot glue to attach the numbers and the gems (found a huge bucket of these cute little bling-things at Hobby Lobby).

The Dress-Up Snowman: Cut out a snowman from white felt (I found some sparkle white that was a lot of fun for this page). Sew on the snowman’s arms then his body and nose. I attached some fun sparkle snowflake stickers and his googly eyes with hot glue. Then cut out the snow bank and sew a decorative line across the top. Next put the snow bank on the bottom of your page and sew to attach it on 3 sides, leaving the top open like a pocket to store the dress-up items in.  Have fun making different things for your snowman to wear. I made some mittens, a top-hat, vest, scarf, Santa hat, a broom and candy cane for him to hold and some coal buttons.

Peek-a-boo Page: This one I just looked at this page and tried to copy it I did most of the sewing on the page on the machine. The smile, nose and mittens were done by hand.

 

 

Game Page: I used 36 - 1 1/5 inch squares for my game; feel free to layout your game a bit differently. I added hand-stitched fruit to this page to jazz it up a little and sandals as the game pieces. (I found a package of felt sandals at Hobby Lobby and used them on another page to come too) I added some of the ruff Velcro to the backs of the sandals so they would stick better to the felt. The spinner I got in a game I bought at a thrift store for super cheap.  I hot glued Velcro onto the back of the spinner and sewed some pieces in the page so if you want to remove the spinner from the game, you can. This game works on colors and numbers and has been a popular page with our 3 year old.

 

Beacuse there are so many pages between the 3 books I have made I will post these in several different parts! Hope you enjoy making these special books for your little ones!