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When Brielle turned one, I realized many of the toys she had enjoyed were no longer entertaining when we were out or in the car. I wanted to find something that was easy to take on the go and keep her busy so I decided to make her a quiet book!
A quiet book is typically a sewn felt or fabric based book that includes interactive elements on the different pages. Printable templates can easily be found but with a graphic design background, I decided to make my own! I focused on an “Under the Sea” theme creating pages to encourage counting, color recognition, and spelling. They included flip the flap elements, zippers, and velcroed pieces for building and rearranging. While all the design elements seen here and the free printable templates available for you to download are my own designs, some items were inspired by pages seen across the Pinterest world.
Title page: This is of course Brielle’s book so the front cover explains this as such. I used my Singer Dual Point Disappearing Ink Marking Pen
I hope we use this page to practice spelling the letters in her name aloud with the rainbow block letter shapes below it.
Swimming Fish: To create a scene of swimming fish, I used colorful shoelace cords connected between two felt seaweed pieces.
Brielle can slide the fish back and forth across the strings. The funniest part I find about this page is that she calls the fish “crackers” as they look like the goldfish crackers that daddy likes to eat. DOWNLOAD MY SWIMMING FISH TEMPLATE.
Lift the Flap Shells: Brielle loves all her lift the flap style books (this one, Fisher-Price Little People Farm
I hand embroidered some clam shells and used them to cover up shiny buttons as pearls inside. DOWNLOAD MY LIFT THE FLAP CLAM TEMPLATE.
Brielle used her book on the plane ride to Disney and at the hotel during down time between parks and eating adventures!
Check out my follow up post with more page examples!
Sharing With:
Posed Perfection, Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons, Craft Dictator, Live Laugh Rowe, All Things with Purpose, Too Much Time, Sowdering About, Cherished Bliss, DIY Dreamer, The Happy Housie, Home Stories A to Z,
Tara, this book is absolutely darling! I love the underwater theme! This is such a sweet keepsake for your daughter. My kiddos had a quiet book that they loved when they were little, but yours is just so creative and vibrant… perfect for those developing brains. Thanks so much for sharing at my Creative Ways Link Party last week. I’ll be featuring this post at tonight’s party. Hope to see you there!
Blessings,
Nici
Awe! Thanks so much for the kind words and the feature, Nici! I will surely be checking in to play in the party again! :)
Hi! Your ocean busy book idea is brilliant~! I would like to make one for my 19 months son too. May I know when your little girl was 19 months, did she enjoy this book? Can I also have the dimension of the book? Thank you!
Hi, I’m a Grammie and I think my grandson would love this book. Goodness, I love this book. You have done an amazing job with all the parts and pages and the beautiful design.
Janie
http://isabellaswhimsy.wordpress.com
Thanks Janie! Would love to see your version if you end up making one! :)
Janie, This Quiet Time book is fabulous! Spotted on Pinterest and have read all 3 blog posts…a lot of work. Your links are so helpful! I did repin giving blogpost credit. Thanks so very much!
Thanks for the comment! Glad you found them helpful!
Hi!
I love your quiet book, it’s so adorable! It really inspired me to do one.
I just finished a felt project (a cloud raining, to hang in a wall) and i’m already so excited to do a quiet book, as lovely as yours, to my 16 months old Raquel.
I’m steeling a lot of ideas of you, like the swimming fish page, the flap clamps, the counting octupus…the lovely snails..! I just can’t help, because it’s hard to think of something cuter than those pages :D
Regards
Filipa Baptista
I would like to share with you the final
Hi Filipa! Glad to hear these pages are inspiring to you! Yes, please send me an email with some pictures of your final one or tag me on social media!
* final result ;)