Quiet Book

Sometime last year (I don't actually remember when ... I just know both of our boys were over a year old at the time), my friend, Emily, approached me with the idea to make a quiet book. Her thought was that we would go in on the project together - each making half of the pages, twice. Genius, right? We may have been a bit over eager as we decided to make the book about 22 pages long (including the covers). I was so gung-ho about it in the beginning but then it got put on the back burner since I had no work space, and then I got pregnant (if anyone is bothered that I milk this pregnant excuse, I dare you to get pregnant with a toddler and then I double dare you to not use it too! anyway...) and, well, you get the idea.

But recently, I jumped back on the wagon! My craft room is a disaster - but that is why I have a craft room. It's so I can make a mess and simply close the door. :) Sometimes, given how it used to be (at the apartment, I would pull everything out, make a mess, and then leave it seeing as I would need the mess again the next day), I think Eric appreciates my craft room even more than I do.

I mentioned to a friend of mine the other day that I am working on a quiet book for Aaron and she said that, if I ever felt the urge to make another one, she would pay me to make one for her little girl. I simply chuckled nervously and changed the subject. I didn't have the heart to tell her she couldn't afford me. Seriously, I would charge like $200 for this puppy! Given all the resources, time (oh goodness, so much time), frustration (felt stretches, no matter what you do, therefore nothing comes out straight *sigh*) and love that goes into making one of these, $200 is actually a fair price. Luckily, if I ever do decide to do this again, I made patterns for each page with detailed instructions (I am opening an etsy shop to sell the patterns. Contact me if you are interested!). But really, I don't plan on making another one anytime soon...

Here are some pictures of the pages I made! If you want to see the ones Emily made, go here! They are absolutely adorable!

Here is a shot of all the pages done by me

Here are the spring/summer, fall/winter pages. The flowers button on and off (notice the adorable blanket stitch on the flowers and fish), the fish are a matching game, you can dress the snow man, and the leaves are velcro.

Here is the clock, Mr. Potato Head (again, cute blanket stitch!), and a page with matching shapes and weaving.

  

 This page was fun - it is a road with a car attached for them to drive at church. No more hunting down the cars Aaron loses under the pew!

 The dryer page won't be on my etsy shop because I used someone else's pattern for it. The dryer opens and has clear vinyl on the center. The boys can then pair the socks :) 

And I am rather proud of my barn page. You can braid the horse's tail, there is a rooster hiding under a flap in the top, and there are 3 finger puppets.

 Each page had sooooo many moving pieces and parts to it ... it is no wonder it took so long! Now I just need to serge the pages together and bind them :) I look forward to giving this to Aaron for his birthday!