Creative Mommy's Creative Book

For the past two months, baby boy has been really into buckles and is always saying "I do it" or "I help". This made me think of making him a quiet book full of buckles, clasps, and snaps. I did some pinterest-ing to get some ideas and came across some really cute ideas.

I made the entire book out of felt and was planning to sew it but read that sewing felt is challenging but that hot glue works great. So I made the entire book out of felt, snaps, velcro, zippers, and hot glue! It turned out super cute if you ask me.

I didn't really like the idea of calling it a quiet book because my goal was not to keep my kids occupied and quiet. My goal was to encourage baby boy's mind and improve his fine motor skills with lot's of different closures. I opted not to call it a quiet book:

I found a great blog that actually had some free patterns to use with some super cute pages. This first page was made using one of her patterns. Check out Serving pink lemonade for other ideas! I love this page because the petals velcro to the page but can also be stored in the flower pot! Baby boy counted to 5 all on his own this morning so I'm hoping he shows some interest in this page soon!

The button page was free hand. Both kids have a hard time with this page as the buttons are very small. If I did it again I'd definitely get bigger buttons!

This is another favorite of mine and the pattern for the doll was also taken from Serving pink lemonade. Baby girl loves changing the clothes on this little girl. They all velcro on and she has pants, skirts, shirts, and dresses in an assortment of colors. The pink and purple boxes are a "dresser" for the girls clothes to be stored in when she isn't wearing them.

No book would be complete without a zipper page! Both kids enjoy zipping the zippers up and down over and over.

The overalls page was impromptu. I came up with this idea while looking for different clasps and buckles at the store. Jon actually gave me a pair of jeans to cut up to make the overalls but it didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. So far not much interest in this page from the kids.

The original buckle that started the idea of the whole book. I wanted to make a dog and use the buckle as his collar but every time I tried to cut a dog out of felt he looked like a blob of poop so I gave up and just made a basic page. It seems to be serving it's purpose as baby girl has spent quite some time on this page. Kids don't always need flare!

This is yet another page from Serving pink lemonade. The tennis racket strings help practice weaving. I knew this page was too advanced for my kids but I like the idea of having something they can grow into.

Before I wrote this post I thought I had come up with the majority of the pages but as I write this I realize I used a lot of ideas from Serving pink lemonade as this is another one from her page. She has the pattern available for free for the barn. The barn doors open but honestly the barn isn't too exciting.

But inside the barn are FARM animals and not just any farm animals but finger puppets. I didn't think my kids would like this page much because they are scared of puppets right now but the first day I showed them the book this was the only page they cared about. They took those finger puppets out, asked me to help them put each one on their little fingers and they ran around the house making the animals talk in a secret language! The animals even had an entire conversation with Maggie - I got a video of it and it's hilarious!

The finger puppets were such a big hit that I will likely be making more in the near future. I'm surprised they haven't fought over them since there are 3 but every time the book comes out, the cow goes to baby boy and baby girl gets the pig and chick. Every single time.

This was another page idea from Serving pink lemonade but she didn't have a pattern for it. When I free handed the tree I was pretty confident it wasn't going to turn out and I'd have to find another idea but this is my favorite page in the whole book!

You can change the seasons on the tree! The grass is a pocket that holds fall leaves, flowers for spring, summer leaves, and nothing for the winter! All of them snap onto the tree. The kids enjoy this page but need a lot of help with the snaps right now. I think another week or two and they'll have it down.

I love how the book turned out and it makes my heart smile so big when the kids pull it down off the shelf to play with it - mostly the finger puppets! The only downside to making it yourself and having so many pieces: You get paranoid when the kids are running around the house that some of the pieces are going to get lost! Such is life as a mom of twins!