The Quiet Book.

So this has been about five and a half months in the making. I probably wouldn't have started a project this big if it weren't for my good friend Christa telling me she wanted to start one. I was scared of a big project at first but she showed me how fun it is to have something continuous that I can always go back to and work on in the evenings or my free afternoons, etc.. It mainly took so much time because I wouldn't touch it for a week or two, then find a renewed interest in each page. I probably won't ever make another one so I wanted to make a good one. Christa and I also happened to stumble upon this one blog called imagineourlife.com that had the cutest. most detailed pages, which is where we got many of our ideas. The patterns are free, you just print them out on normal paper (for personal use of course, I think you have to pay if you wanted to use them to sell). Anyways, here are some detailed pics if you are interested...

The cover turned out okay. I'm kind of a perfectionist so there are a few things about it that I wish were different but I'm still not a pro with my machine yet so it was the best I could do.. Just don't look too closely, hehe.. OH and I have to thank my friend Hollijo for the idea. I was never a huge fan of the metal rings idea and this worked nicely and was simple enough to improvise on my own. 

The first page was just a simple baseball page. I wanted to have variety in the book and not just girly stuff. The mit is open at the bottom to put your hand it like a mit. The baseball is velcro, attached by a ribbon just in case and to add a little more detail:

The sandcastle is one from Imagine Our Life. This was one of my absolute favorites from the site that I knew I had to do. It was pretty detailed but I think it is super fun. The felt pieces just lay on the sand and can be arranged however you want. Then they go back in the bucket when you are done. :) Ivy doesn't quite understand it yet but she loves all the pieces and the little bead details:

I just love these beachy beads. And Ivy loves the peekaboo crab:

The weather page was sort of my creation. I saw one on pinterest that was a felt magnet board just for play and I thought it would make a cute page with velcro. The rocket page was i.o.l. It took a couple tries to get it right but I love it so much! the rocket pulls the zipper open to reveal the afterburners. and Thanks to Christa for all your help on this particular one! Tricky but worth it, lol:

The sock page! My first page that I made and therefore not perfect. at all. haha..  The socks stay in the dryer and when you match them, they attach with magnets. It is so fun. I would say this is Ivy's favorite page right now. She loves matching the colors and then putting the socks in and out of the dryer:

The flower page was kind of my creation. I found the pattern through pinterest and just found the big buttons and picked out the flowers, added the details. This one is a little tricky for Ivy but she will grow into it. The fish page is i.o.l. It's a counting page and this is another of Ivy's favs right now..

I knew I wanted an ice cream page of some sort and the girl on the i.o.l. website had made an ice cream parlor page with tiny parts and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that one. Then she came out with a much more simple banana split page with bigger ice cream parts so I kinda just created this one out of a combination of the two ideas. Banana split page, and added some cones and extra ice cream pieces. The little sprinkle jar is made with vinyl and the beads sewn inside of it. 

I'll be honest, this page took forever because of the details but I really like it. Again, it's not one that Ivy fully understands yet but she will. And she loves all the sparkly parts to it. She also likes the spoons and pretends to eat with them, lol:

I wanted to have animals in my book but couldn't really find a barn that I liked on pinterest or on i.o.l. so I kinda just found a basic pattern to print out and added some fun details. The animals are finger puppets and Ivy loves to play with them and make their noises and sing Old Mcdonald. I'm really glad I threw this one in there..

Hooray!! I am so glad it is finally done. And so is Ivy! it has already gotten much use out of it with church and flying to Houston. It came in very handy on the plane. And I'm glad I made some more difficult pages that she can grow into. I'm hoping it will last a looong time.