How to Make a Quiet Book: Counting Flowers
About Leslie:I am Leslie, I have a blog called, creatively, peterandleslie.blogspot.com. Peter, being my husband. Our son, John, is 18 months and we are expecting another baby in April.
I was excited to participate in the quiet book swap because it is such a cute idea. But also because I've been wanting to learn and grow in craftiness (like, arts and crafts, not deception!). I have a sewing machine which I have used but, until recently, was not very comfortable with. I thought that doing this would give me a goal and force me to overcome at least part of the learning curve that I had been using as an excuse for not doing more sewing projects. I'm definitely glad I did it because I do feel much more comfortable with my machine. I can thread it now without having to read the step-by-step instructions each time! I'm by no means an expert (I even attempted to sew on the velcro sticky dots which is a no no!) but I've got the confidence to try more projects. Not to mention, I've got 18 other adorable pages coming my way!
I will say that a good motto for doing something like this is: "Don't forget: it's for 18 month-olds." Meaning, details like perfectly straight seems will not necessarily be appreciated by the target audience. So, have fun!
How to Make a Counting Flowers
Quiet Book Page
Materials:
- 2.5 yards Pellon Peltex 70 ultra firm stabilizer
- Pages of stiffened felt: orange (2), light blue (2), yellow (1), green (1)
- Sticky velcro dots from Hobby Lobby 75/pack (2) and 15/pack (1)
- Miscellaneous: thread, sharpies
Serving Pink Lemonade - I used the template from this blog, deviating very little. I modified her instructions in that I didn't fuse the felt pieces onto the pellon; I only sewed them. I don't know if fusing would add stability or some other benefit. With 20 pages to make, I was going for the most streamlined process I could manage! I also wrote the numbers onto the flower petals rather than fusing on felt numbers. Again, with 20 pages, I thought that cutting out the numbers for all those petals (160 in all!) would be prohibitively time consuming.
Assembly:
- Cut the Pellon into 20 8.5 X10 sheets.
- Trace the individual template pieces (flower petals, stem, flower pot and flower center) onto the stiffened felt and cut out.
- Sew flower pot, stem and center of flower onto Pellon. The flower pot functions as a pocket, so leave the top open only sewing around the sides and bottom.
- Trace flower petals around flower center with sharpie.
- Apply velcro sticky dots to each flower petal (soft side of velcro) and within each traced flower petal (rough side of velcro).
- Write numbers 1-8 on each petal 6. Voila! Finis!
I didn't document the assembly process but here is a picture of the finished product where you can see all the components.
Overall, you can't go very wrong with this (I don't think! I'm open to feedback from the other quiet book swappers who might have critiques of my page!). But it would be ideal to use sew-on velcro as the stick-on kind will not hold up very well long-term. I intend to reinforce mine by hand stitching each one on. Had I had more time (much more time!) and resources, I would have used the sew-on velcro. But as it was, that would have been too time consuming and more expensive than the sticky dots.
Since I live out of town, I didn't get to go to the swap in person but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's work. Here's to (hopefully) many quiet minutes of quiet, well-behaved children exploring their quiet books!
Up Next: ABCs
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