A Book for You, to Play and To Do!

Last weekend we celebrated our most favourite little girl's 2nd birthday!!  We cannot believe it is nearly 2 years since she travelled all the way to England for our wedding, when she was just a tiny 8 week old, our most special youngest guest :-)  And now here she is, a fun loving busy 2 year old!  We love hanging out with her (and her parents :-P)  and there's always lots to do, books to be read, things to be shown/played with etc so I knew I wanted to make a gift for her that went along with some of the things she has already learnt or is learning or would enjoy.

My original idea was to make some stuffed felt letters and numbers (I might still make these Krista!), but then when the ideas got whirring, I knew this was the correct choice.

A BOOK!  Not just the alphabet or numbers, but more!

I began by writing a list of all the different ideas I had for pages, and well, that list got long...really long!  I had to pick my very favourites (this time around anyway!).  After a lot of research on types of books, how to bind them, what materials to use etc this is what I came up with:

I used a 'Mini' Avery purple binder (5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches) which had a 1 inch width.  I chose this for a few reasons... 1, you can't go wrong with purple in my opinion.... 2, it had a plastic covering to the binder which means it is 'wipe clean', and I could also add a front cover to it! 

I added a Martha Stewart zippered pouch to the back (also in this cute mini size!), thinking about the future, for missing pieces, or for a quick tidy up :-)

And then for the pages, I chopped up some white card stock to match the mini half letter size pages, and punched 3 holes in them.  I stuck down the no-tear clear hole reinforcers for bonus protection from toddler grabs!

I didn't glue the felt on right away, but did cut out sheets of coloured felt that would later stick right on to the white card stock (which was mainly for strength anyway)...

All prepped and ready to get to work on the pages!  I have a lot of final product photos, and a few of the individual pieces as I went along, so I will just show you each page as it appears in the book!  

Can you Count?

Created using brightly coloured star beads threaded abacus style onto thin purple ribbon.

Fiddly cutting out of numbers 1-10 in purple felt, and then lots of hot glueing to firstly attach the ribbons (triple counting the beads as I went along to make sure there were no errors!), and then 2 yellow ribbons to seal the edges.

Beads being prepared... this was the first page in the book and also the first page I started on.  It was right here that I realised my initial 20 page ideas were probably not going to happen!

The text boxes were one of the final things I added to each page (you'll see more as you go along!).  I used this great font 'Little Miss Prissy' and created a simple fun shaped text box in word.  I thought this was a nice kid friendly font, but one that still had all the letters in proportion to one another and then, more hot glue stuck the card stock down :-)

Match the Shapes

Guess what you have to try and do here!  That's right... match up the shapes to the outlines!  

This is the point that I realised I had to work with each felt page BEFORE glueing down to the card.  This allowed me to sew on it, draw on it, attach velcro etc before sticking it down!

5 shapes cut out firstly on card stock in various colours to use not only as a template, but also a backing to the felt.  Then came the felt cutting... before being traced on the opposite page in permanent marker.  

In the middle of each shape outline I then attached velcro (hook side) to the felt using my sewing machine.  The sturdier the better I thought!

I glued each felt shape to the matching card, and then with adhesive velcro this time attached the loop side to the back of each.

Next step was to use a sheet of felt and machine sew it down (as if it were being hemmed so there was a folded outside edge) on the two sides, and the bottom edge.  Voila, a pocket for the shapes to be matched!

Pretend to Play!

That's right, I'm a music teacher so of course there had to be a musical page!  For this one, I racked my brain about how I could make a musical page without using actual sounds.  Was this falling into the 'quiet book' category, in which case making sounds might not be for the best!

What I went for was a 'pretend to play' page using felt pictures of a few instruments and encouraged the mimicking of playing, both in actions and/or sounds.  Her mommy plays the guitar, and she loves to play the piano at her grandparents house so these were already instruments she knows ♫

A close up of some of the instruments as I went along.  I hand stitched the names of the instruments on each one, as she gets older I hope she'll not only see the instrument but learn the words too :-)  The piano was my FAVOURITE of course, but also the trickiest to create.  Especially the keyboard part, which I used thick embroidery thread for the black keys, and then thin regular thread for the definition of the white keys. 

What shall I wear today?

That's what this little girl needs to decide!  My 'dress a girl' page was on the original list, and was always going to be a part of this book...no doubt about it!

I used to love paper dolls, do you remember?  With those little fold down tabs?  That's the kind of play thing I wanted to create here :-)

The left hand page was a felt closet (done with a few simple measurements of the space I had available, and some folding before sewing down onto the yellow felt page.  I used 2 buttons to imitate door handles, and doubled the inside door edges for a little more details.

On the right hand side is the girl, felt body and hair with a small bit of hand embroidery for the eyes and mouth, she is wearing underwear, and with 2 velcro pads for top half and bottom half clothing!

For this lucky girl I made:  1 dress, 1 skirt, 1 pair of jeans, 1 t-shirt, 1 soccer shirt, 1 pair of shorts and a swimming costume (I still can't get the hang of saying swimsuit here!).

I used fabrics I had already in my stash, embellished a few pieces with some embroidery - the heart on the white shirt, the purple polka dots, and purple ribbon belt, the anchor for a water theme, and the pocket and zip detail on the jeans.

How to attach the clothes to the closet was something I had to think long and hard about... I had attached each item of clothing to card stock (just like the shapes) with a square of velcro on the back so I had to definitely include the opposite velcro side to the closet somehow, somewhere.  I thought about individual pieces, as well as a pocket/pouch as I had done with the shapes but in the end (and I apologise you can't really see it in the picture) I did 2 strips of velcro machine sewn to the closet horizontally 

across - just like your clothes rails :-)

I think on the day we gave our birthday gift, this was the favourite page so far!!  This little girl was dressed up in all the different outfits, went swimming, played soccer and I think tried on everything in one combination or another, yey ♥


The weather today is...

Well today was pouring rain.  Absolutely soaking wet all day.  As was the day I made this page.  However, for the 2nd birthday party at the farm it was glorious sunshine which was perfect!

I guess I am lucky in that I am making this in a country that really does see all weathers...when it's hot, it's really hot, but there are real snow days too!  As well as some rain, and milder days.  All the seasons for Canada!

I think you get the idea by now - I used a combination of card stock... felt pieces (including a fiddly snowflake!), hot glue and then velcro to attach to the opposite velcro pieces sewn onto 4 points of the right hand page.

The text for this page was the largest of them all so that there was room for the decision to be made as to which circle of weather would fit finishing off the sentence 'The weather today is... ***'.  Let's hope tomorrow is sunnier :-)

I hope that there have been enough details here in this post to inspire you to create a book like this for a little one in your lives :-)  I had SO much fun making the book, creating the pages - thinking about specific ideas, creating fun learning experiences in a custom made book! 

The hardest part of the book was maybe punching the holes!  Felt does not want to be maimed!  Scissors and cutting = fine... Hole punching in any way = not fine.  In the end I used a meat thermometer and a potato skewer before making the hole slightly wider with thin scissors (weird, yes I know!) but that worked a treat, so go with what works for you... Or if you have a better idea for me, please let me know!!

Once the book was all made and done I kind of didn't want to give it away :-D  But I did, I promise!  She played with it through the day we were there with them all.  So far the dress up page, and the shape matching were favourites, and I also saw some awesome pretend playing of instruments ♫  Yey!  

Happy book making everyone!  Have a  great week :-)