Quiet Book w/ Hello Kitty Page!

Okay, so a few months ago a talked about starting some quiet books for not only my boys, but for my adorable, youngest niece as well for Christmas. Little did I know, just exactly how how much work was put into one of these puppies! I was thinking, "Oh yea, no problem! I can work on it over time!" Well unless I plan for an entire year to complete one, I don't think I will be attempting to complete these for my boys just because of how disappointed I will be in myself when I cannot complete it. I kind of have this thing where if I don't ever finish something I start, I obsess until its complete! ... Okay so maybe I am OCD :/
My nieces birthday is just a couple of weeks after Christmas, so seeing as I had almost completed her quiet book I decided I would high tail it into gear and get it done for her 2nd birthday! I am so glad I did. Despite the frustration, pressure and craziness! I really wanted to post this before her birthday but didn't because I didn't want to ruin the surprise as my sister may or may not be reading my blog posts! Then I kind of forgot about it. And now its almost 2 months later... funny how that happens eh? Okay, so here it is!



First of off, I choose to create my quiet book using nothing but felt for all the pages. I did that because I didn't want to be bothered with sewing up hems and worrying about fraying but you can most certainly use ANY fabric you have laying around for this project!

For the outside of the book, I did use some extra fabric I have had for awhile. It is just some cotton, but it was too cute and girly to pass up! With two boys, I jump at anything this girly! ;)

For the outside cover of the quiet book, I sewed two large rectangles nice sides together. Before sewing, in between the 2 rectangles I sandwiched;
- 1 long strip of fabric with 3 metal rings on it, right down the middle of the rectangles. (These were inside the rectangles when I had sewn them!)
- 2 more smaller in length, pieces of fabric on either end to make handles. Each piece was tucked in on either side so I didn't sew up the fraying ends. (These were also inside of the two rectangles when I had sewn them!)
- 1 more thicker piece of fabric between one of the handles on just one end for the velcro closure.
All 4 of these strips were pieces of fabric that I had sewn, nice sides together, then turned them right side out again, just to make look pretty! Kind of like a tube. (I am hoping I can find my pictures for this part, it would explain it MUCH better!) Once all the pieces were tucked inside the rectangles, I sewed up all the edges except for a smaller corner, pulled it all out and viola! It actually starts looking like something ;) Sew the open part of the rectangle shut, add some velcro on the tab and the back of the book to hold closed and your done.




So this first page, consisted of just one page. PERFECT to personalize with her name, adding a pocket to hold the letters! I outlined her name with matching thread and hand stitched this part. So glad I did! :) I also added a button on the pocket to help her with dexterity.




The rainbow page on the right, was a last minute edition. The first page I ever made was the button on and off flowers page on the left, and I wanted something to match considering these pages would be side by side! (OCD!) So I had seen the rainbow quiet book page online, and decided to try it out. Word of advice? DONT! It was hell. Each colour of the rainbow is stuffed with a piece of pipe cleaner, hand stitched with the name of the colour, with a small piece of velcro on the back. It is a REALLY cool page, but was by far the most tedious! The whole rainbow piece comes out of the cloud pocket to play with and can be stuffed back inside neatly.





These pages were fun and super simple! The "monster" on the left was real easy, I just sewed in a zipper for his mouth, added his eyes and was done. I think it took me an hour max for this page! At first I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the matching page on the other side, all I knew was that I wanted the monster to be able to eat something! So then I added the shapes. I cut two pieces of felt for each shape, sewed one on the page and added velcro to the other shape. Pretty simple and best of all, I was satisfied with this page.




The apple tree page started out easy. Then I decided to add text. AND then I added snaps to the red buttons so she could "pick" the apples from the tree and put them in the little basket I had sewn. It became a little tedious. The page on the right was another afterthought, and it turned out really awesome! It was also super simple to put together, and only took me a couple of hours to complete. There are 3 little fingers puppets that she can take out and play with, and I also added a pocket to the inside of the barn so nothing would fall out!




This was the very last page of the quiet book and it turned out quite awesome! I also seen this idea somewhere online, so I picked up a pack of 3 small locks from Dolloarama, and hot glued some pretty purple ribbon to the lock, keys, and the same metal ring I used for the spine of the quiet book! I imagine any toddler having hours and hours of fun trying to lock and unlock this :)




This page I added to try and finish the book more quickly as I was running out of time and needed more pages, and what toddler doesn't like to draw?! I added a little hello kitty face just because she is obsessed!





AND last, but certainly not least, is mine & I sure hope hers favourite page! This was the first thing I thought of when I started dreaming up her quiet book. She LOVES Hello Kitty, and I knew I had to make a Hello Kitty page just for her! I did see another version of a Hello Kitty quiet book page online somewhere but for some reason I didn't like it, or maybe it was because it was too advanced for a 2 year old. Anyhow, I created this page where she can change Hello Kitty's hair bow! For this page, I found my favourite Hello Kitty colouring page online and printed out in the right size. Then I cut it out (minus her hair bow) and used that as a template. Then I used the bow as a template to make all the different colour bows!


After I was done completing each page, I used my machine to sew the pages back to back. (I suggest laying them out and figuring out your configuration BEFORE sewing them up!) Then I went out to Micheals and picked up some cute metal, flower hole thingys! YES, I realize there is a proper name for these but I completely forgot what you call them!!! As well as the little metal kit to pound them together :) I lined them all up so the pages would align, and added 2 per page. When I was finished, I ended up with 12 pages, and my sister can totally add more if she ever wanted to as I just used metal ring clips!




So, would I ever attempt this again? Probably not! In the beginning I was going to make 3 quiet books, one for my niece and one each for my boys! But I don't think it would be worth it. I am going to attempt a few DIY printable books for them as well as a travel tray that has some magnetic toys and scenery for our LONG drive to Oregon coming up this summer though! Seems much more manageable for me. Cause I only work outside of the home, run my design business on the side, chase after 3 year old twin boys and TRY to keep my sanity. No biggie ;)

Have you ever made a quiet book or ever dreamt of making one? I want to see!!!

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