How to Make a Quiet Book

Quiet book, busy book, activity book...There are a few different names for these fun little pages. They all are pretty much the same, though. You make a very fat book of heavy muslin pages (or Pellon or felt) that have useful things for kids to do on each page. They learn to use zippers, buckles, buttons and snaps. They learn to count and they practice their alphabet. They learn to open the "mailbox" and read their name on their mail. They learn to match colors and shapes. The whole time, they are having fun and (except for maybe the zipper noise...) are being pretty quietly entertained.

I have a feeling the books started as a desperate mother's attempt to keep a child quiet in church during long services and I know a lot of people still use them for that. I'm thinking to use mine as a way to keep someone feeling jolly during appointments or car rides.

Now, you're probably thinking there is no way you can learn how to make a busy book. You're not a seamstress to the stars or an incredibly crafty person. All that stuff sounds too complicated!

Well, first off, you don't actually HAVE to sew. Hot glue, craft glue and felt can get you a long way. Just skip page ideas that do need sewing, like buttons.

Feeling better? No? Then maybe you need to check out your kids' coloring books and some of the simpler templates other people who make busy books use.

Still feeling overwhelmed? My secret weapon is a Sizzix die cut machine. It cuts the shapes out of felt and all you have to do is glue two together. You can even cut the shapes out of interfacing and glue interfacing between the shapes to make them super sturdy.

The felt wheel on my train is a Sizzix circle and the letters were pre-cut from the store. I just sewed two sets together to make them sturdier and sewed a third set to the page so he'd know where to place them.

My pages are 12x12 pieces of canvas. I liked the weight of two pages sewn back to back. They don't buckle all up under all the pieces on them. I prefer binding the pages together with a serger, but if you don't have one of these handy gadgets, you can easily bind them with a nice blanket stitch, zigzag them together with a sewing machine, or even glue them together.

The key to having your pages look neat is to attach everything to each page before you sew them together. That way, all that messy stitching on the back is completely hidden.

Some people like to bind the pages by sewing them all together along the one edge. I am going to make two buttonholes on one edge and put bookbinding rings on mine. That way, I can add and subtract pages whenever I want.

I am a wrinkly sewer, I guess. I needed to press more frequently. You can see some of my pages are a bit wrinkly, but the little guys won't mind.

It is a good idea to add a zippered pencil pouch or something similar to your book. My cupcake page and my under the sea page have a ton of little parts to decorate the pages with. My mustache disguise page has pretty many parts, too. Putting them in the pouch means not stopping to pick them up every few steps!

I've been crazy busy lately with Christmas card portraits and whatnot, so I haven't had a lot of time to work on new quiet book pages. When things slow down, I want to make:

• Pizza page - velcro felt pizza wedges that can be lifted on and off, extra toppings...
• Dog with a collar - I saw this page in someone else's book. Such a cute way to teach kids to buckle things.
• Snowman - Winter Mr. Potato Head type thing.
• Mustaches - I have all the little felt mustache options cut out. I just have to make the face. Remember that game with the magnetic bits and the way you could drag them onto the face to make crazy mustaches? It was the inspiration for this page.
• Pumpkin - A fall Mr. Potato Head.
• Easter egg - A lot of felt flowers and dots and some rick rack to stick on the egg to decorate it.
• Hidden egg game - A "yard" with lift the flap type bushes and rocks that you can hide little felt eggs behind.
• Lamb collar - An Easter version of the dog collar page.
• Wheel barrow - Button on wheels and flowers to stick inside it.
• Weather page - Clouds, sun, rain and wind with velcro backs that can be put in the sky to show the weather for that day.