Making a Quiet Book Part II

I'm making a quiet book for my little grandson..He's now three...I've got the cover done and on to the actual interactive pages themselves! I'm mainly sticking with Imagine Our Life pages....she's my favorite designer....As far as I know, she has done a whole series of quiet pages for the years 2012 and 2013. She has some AMAZING other quiet page activities that aren't necessarily a book. One is a laptop quiet activity book...ALL MADE OF FELT and FELT PIECES. She's a graphic designer, so her designs are just above and beyond the usual simple quiet page. Her pages are mostly hand sewn, I am machine sewing as much as possible to save time.....

Despite the machine sewing, each page takes HOURS to make....tracing patterns, cutting the felt, little hand stitches here and there, details to make the pages more "real"...Lots of attention to details in her patterns. 

My first page for Barron was a sandcastle page......

Each piece is separate from the other except for the roof which is attached to each piece. Each piece is double layered. The waves on the seashore are tulle and rick rack. Under the castle door is a little crab that I hand drew. She stitched hers.  Clever lady, that Stephanie is! The sandcastle page is actually a two page spread and the other side looks like this:

The bucket holds all the sandcastle pieces when you are not using them! I used a real skinny cotton rope handle for my bucket.

The next page I tackled was the mailbox page. I just love this one! 

I used stiff Peltex interfacing for the mailbox flag. It moves up and down. The mailbox can be closed with the elastic loop button closure. When you open it, "You've got mail!"

And each of the little felt letters opens like a real envelope. The pattern calls for velcro to stick and unstick, but I thought I would just leave the envelopes plain. I am going to stick a little note inside each letter for my little grandson from his grandma. Awwwwwwwwww........ I used real stamps and zigzagged stitched them down. I wanted to "date" this activity book so later on, he could remember what year his grandma made it for him!

My third activity page was from Imagine Our Life, and it's a nod to Starbucks as Barron and his mom LOVE to go to Starbucks. 

Although he can count to 20 and count individual items very well, this page will still be fun for him with the tea bag that comes in and out and snaps on the page, the strawberries can be added to the pink frappucino (there's velcro behind the ruffly ribbon "whipped cream". And under cup number 2, there are two coffee beans hiding in the cup cozy! Well, for Pete's sake! I just notice I forgot to blanket stick the right side of the cozy! 

Off to a great start....Next up is a pirate page with a treasure chest, an authentic looking pirate map and treasure booty AND a message to Barron in a bottle!

Thanks to Imagine Our Life, this is going to be a really really cool quiet book, if I do say so myself!

See you later....Gotta get back to my sewing!