Quiet Book

This project has been on my to do list for a loooong time. So I'm proud to say that I've finally finished our family quiet book! Now that my son is a busy toddler, this is the perfect addition to our Church bag. I have to keep hiding it from him because he's already obsessed with it, so I think it's a winner. A few of the pages are better suited to older children, but I figure he'll grow into it.

Most of the pages are inspired by pictures of other quiet books I've seen around the web. I didn't use any templates, so I ended up free-handing everything using felt. The assembly for a majority of the pages is fairly self-explanatory, but feel free to get in touch with me if you want more details on any of them. 

Peek-a-Boo Grass
This page is great for even young toddlers. Peek through the grass and find fun surprises! I hid a ladybug, a snail, a mushroom, a four leaf clover, and an earthworm on mine. 

Shoe Tying
Currently this page is a bit beyond my 2 year old. But for older kids, you can tie and untie or lace and unlace the shoes. 

Blast Off!
This page is perfect for a little kid with a big imagination. The rocket is tethered to a ribbon, but otherwise free to fly around space! Tiny astronauts will love it. 

Feed the Crocodile
I think this may be my very favorite page. The crocodile's zipper mouth opens and closes so you can feed him googly-eyed fish. And the sign behind the croc is open at the top, doubling as a storage pouch for the fish when you're not using it. 

Orange Picking
​Use this orange orchard to help small hands practice buttoning. The oranges button on and off the tree and can be stored in the basket after you pick them. One issue that I have found with this page is that the oranges can stretch out or rip if your kiddo is too rough with them (or not coordinated enough to understand buttons yet), so you may want to reinforce them a bit with a second layer of felt. 

Kite Puzzle
The puzzle pieces fasten on the page with velcro to make a cute, summery kite. The puzzle is pretty simplistic, so you can even rearrange the order of the pieces without doing it "wrong."

Counting Ladder
I love the fun 3D elements of this page. I decided to make my ladder from 1 to 10, with a corresponding number of beads on each rung. I also thought it would be fun to organize the beads by color to help practice colors as well. The beads slide back and forth on the rungs. 

Make a Monster
This page is currently my son's favorite. This fuzzy monster needs a face and you get to be the one to accessorize it! There are several different options for eyes, noses, mouths, and other fun accessories like hats that you can mix and match. The storage pocket at the bottom of the page keeps all the pieces safe when you're not using them. 

Find the Shapes
Each flap has a different shape hidden underneath, so this is perfect for little ones learning shape names. You can choose whichever shapes you'd like. I went with a circle, star, square, heart, oval, and rectangle. I wish I'd though to add a triangle, but it still works. I also used a different color for each shape, so it's another fun way to practice colors. 

Shy Turtle
This page took a bit of creative engineering, but I love how it came out. (Shout out to my awesome husband for helping me figure out the logistics!) This little turtle hides his head in his shell when you pull on his tail. 

Butterfly Garden
It's not terribly different from the rocket ship page, but this is currently one of my son's favorites. The butterfly can flutter from flower to flower to find nectar. 

Worm in the Apple
The apple has a ribbon worm in it that you can pull back and forth through the holes. I wish that I had made the ribbon a bit longer, but I didn't plan well for the extra length I would need to tie the ends 3 times each (so that the knot would be big enough). Just an FYI, in case you make one of your own. 

After finishing my pages and sewing them together front and back, I hole punched them and added eyelets to reinforce the holes, in hopes of making the book more durable. I used binder rings to keep all the pages together and so that I could add or remove pages as needed in the future. 

And there you have it! There was definitely a bit of a learning curve, since I'm not the greatest sewer, but I'm still pretty proud of how it turned out. 

Have you ever made a quiet book? What tips or tricks do you have? Do you have a favorite page? I'd love to hear from you! Find me in the comment section below or on social media.