Busy Books :)

Some of my favorite projects I've worked on have been the busy books aka quiet books.
They are so fun to make.  It's fun to plan out what pages you want to use, plan how to put
them together, gather up all your supplies and then just create it all :) I'm sure some
people out there can whip one of these babies out really quick but not me :D  Busy books
take a little while for me but they are worth it :) and the kids love them.  I've made four of them.
I made 2 in 2014 and 2 last year.  The first 2 I made were different from each other.  Last years
were exactly alike because I was trying to finish them before we went on holiday.
I found so many quiet book page ideas on pinterest :)  These are some of my favorite ones:
Imagine Our Life
Maybe Matilda
ANDNEXTCOMESL
PA Country Crafts
bubbles & bobbins
forty-two roads
The Montoya Family
KRĒ-ĀT
Shill O'POP
how does she?
Empty Bobbin

Their ideas are awesome :) My busy books are mostly all made of felt.  One of the first ones
I made was for one of our little nephews.  It was made of 8 pages and it had 14 activities.

This is our nephew Ryan's book :)

The mailbox one was an awesome activity :) I loved making that one.  Was fun

making the envelopes and letters :)  That page came from here.  Some of the 

other pages came from links that I gave you in this post and others I saw pictures

on google images.  I made changes to some of them and a couple of them I 

made my own.

The second book I made was for one of our nieces in Texas.  Her older sister, Kylie, loves 

the book but she doesn't get to play with it much because sharing isn't Stella's strong point :D

I'm thinking of making Kylie her own for her birthday in May.  She'll be 7, so these books 

work for big kids too! :D  

Stella's book had 8 pages and 11 activities.

This is Stella's book :)

The pages from this book came from the links I shared in this post too. The purse activity

was fun and I looked at this page to help me with the play make up.  I came up with 

a couple of these on my own.  I came up with the animal sounds activity.  I'm sure there

is someone out there who's made a page like this but I didn't look for it and didn't see any.

I was thinking on what else I could put in the book and since kids like animals I thought

a matching game would be fun.  The shopping activity was another one.  I saw some of

those but my wife and I came up with our own version :)   

Last year I made 2 books and they were exactly alike.  Those books had 8 pages and 

14 activities.  Some of the activities came from the links I shared in this post. Some of

them have changes I made.  The frozen page I made up :D I got inspiration from a couple

on google images but I made it my own.  The Elsa doll pattern came from here. 

Here is one of the books :)

 

 

 

 

So far these are my only busy books but got another one getting planned in my brain and a

couple others I want to make for Christmas time :D  They are so much fun to make I

do recommend it.

Finished Doll Diaper Bags

Today I finally finished the doll diaper bags yay :)  I made the last bits to add which were the bibs.

Here they are :)

I used the template on this page Crafty Cupboard.  She's got a nice tutorial on there.  I used snap buttons on them and I made 2 flower appliques and a star one with my handy BIGkick machine.  I'm done with these 3 presents and now I'll start the next group of gifts :D 

Here are the diaper bags all done :)  The contents are a changing mat, diaper, wipes, baby powder, bottle, baby food, toy, bib and an extra change of clothes :) 

Christmas Gifts Progress

Well as I said on my Christmas in July post, I was going to continue with my diaper bags today.  I made 3 wipes cases with 2 wipes in them, 3 changing mats and 3 baby bottles :)  I still need to embellish each thing with embroidered words and some appliques I'll make with my trusty BIGkick machine.  The baby bottles were fun to make and easier than I thought as well.  They are made of felt and stuffed with polyester stuffing.  I sewed a tube out of white felt and stuffed it.  I then cut out 2 circles out of white felt for the top and bottom of the tube and hand sewed them on.  I made a template for the nipple and cut it out of light brown felt.  I hand sewed that together and stuffed it.  After that I used my glue gun to glue the nipple to one end of the white tube.  I then cut a strip of pink felt and glued it around the top part of the white tube covering a bit of the tube and a bit of the nipple.  That's how I made my 3 bottles.

Tomorrow I will embellish the accessories I've made so far :)  I still need to make 3 bibs, sew the dresses and bloomers I cut out, make a baby toy of some sort and decide what else to put in my diaper bags :)

Some other dollies

I wanted to share some other dolls that I've made.  After the first 2 dolls I made a few more using the same pattern that I found here sarahs-dolls.  I made a superboy, a schoolgirl, a pirate, some little boy and girl dolls and a little girl doll in a Christmas dress.

Here are some of them.

I think my favorite was the schoolgirl doll :)  I made some of these dolls about 3 years ago, some 2.  Most of these were sold on my FB page.  They were very fun to make, especially the pirate and the schoolgirl :) I loved making their outfits as well.  I used all kinds of fabrics and felt.  The hardest thing to make for me was the newspaper boy hat.  It came out ok though.  After I got the hang of making this type of doll I decided a jointed doll was my next project.  I'll share some of those in another post :)

Lilah's baby blankets

When Emily got pregnant I decided to make her baby a cot blanket.  She decided she wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise so I had to choose a unisex fabric.  I decided on an animal circus panel, so it wasn't hard to put together at all.  I started it when she still had some months to go before she had the baby.  I had to leave it unfinished until the baby was born because I wanted to embroider the baby's name on the blanket.  As we waited for the baby to come I sewed around the animal pictures on the blanket.  When Lilah-Mai finally came I was able to embroider her name on her blanket and we gave it to her for Christmas :)

You can see part of it here :)

Another blanket type thing I made for Lilah was a car seat blanket I made from this site imperfect homemaking.  She's got a great tutorial with pictures.  Emily chose the fabrics and it came out nice :)

Here it is! Lilah snug as a bug in a rug :) <3

The last blanket I have to show you was a very fun project to make.  I found this one here small town small budget.  She's got a great tutorial on there :) It's a good project to use up fabric and ribbon scraps :)  It's a blanket made with fabric and oil cloth and batting.  She made flaps on her blanket decorated with ribbon hoops for the baby to play with.  Under the flaps were family pictures and she made her blanket fold like a bag.  

I made mine with a cotton print fabric, pink polka dotted oil cloth and light pink fleece.  I made 11 flaps out of the fleece for my blanket.  Under each flap I put pictures of Lilah with her mum and dad and also with her pup, Marley.  I made some number stencils and cut numbers out of fabric to sew on each flap.  I also made some felt appliques with my handy dandy BIGkick die cut machine.  On each flap I put 3 ribbon loops made with different ribbons.  I put batting between the fabric and the oil cloth to make it cushiony and sewed bias tape all around to finish it off.  I did not make mine to close up into a bag though.

Here it is!

 

Awwwww, my gorgeous little baldy pants when she was a tiny baby still :) <3

Mini suitcase

A while back I found the most perfect project to make.  It was a doll house in a suitcase :) hart and sew.  It's amazing and I love the idea.  It was my inspiration to make my own flat doll house :)  I'll share that in another post.  A couple of weeks ago I was googling doll houses in suitcases and I found this quilted suitcase tutorial.  I liked it a lot for Lilah's doll stuff :)  It's a good tutorial with pictures.  Her little suitcase is lovely.  I made quite a few mistakes with mine.  I think it is mainly due to the fact I didn't have a pattern.  I work better with a pattern.  In the end I had to take out the zipper and added some flaps with velcro instead.  There is a suitcase pattern I want to purchase though.  It's this one the sidekick mini suitcase.  I want to try and make another one with this pattern to see how it goes.
To make Lilah's case I used cotton printed fabric, felt, velcro, bias tape and a very sturdy interfacing I do not know the name of, sorry.  I followed the instructions as best I could from quilted suitcase tutorial but added flaps to the sides and the front to put velcro instead of a zipper.  The end result was ok I think, seeing as it was my first ever time making a mini suitcase.

Here it is!

Lilah liked it and was calling it her bag :) I'm having a lot of fun creating stuff for this little princess.

A Cradle for Lilah

Yesterday I went cardboard hunting because I decided Lilah needed a cradle for her baby :) I'd seen a cardboard crib on google someone made a while back, so I decided to try and make one of my own.  I googled for a template for the cradle but only found posts of people showing the cribs they had made and some tutorials.  I liked this one Baby Cradle.  I didn't find a template so I made one of my own and set off making Lilah's doll cradle.
First I got my tools together :D  I got my cardboard, cutting mat, scissors, knife, glue gun & glue sticks, measuring tape, doll, template, pencil and sharpie.

Then I traced my headboard and footboard templates on the cardboard and cut 2 of each.  After they were cut I glued the 2 headboard pieces together and did the same with the footboard pieces.  This makes them stronger.  I then measured the doll to see how long and wide the bottom piece of the cradle had to be cut.  I measured it out and cut it 2 inches longer so I could cut out the tabs at each end that slot into the headboard and footboard pieces.  I cut 2 bottom pieces and glued them together to make that piece stronger as well.  I then cut 4 pieces the same length as the bottom piece and you cut them as high as you want your sides to be.  I glued 2 pieces together to make one side and did the same for the other side.  I then cut the slots out on the headboard and footboard. I forgot to take a picture of the cradle pieces when I had them cut out so I can't show you that.  

It was kind of like this :D sorry for my rubbish drawing.

These are the side bits 

 These are the headboard and the bottom bit.  You can see the slots where the tabs on the side bits go.

After you get the pieces all cut you can decorate the pieces.  You can spray paint it, paint it with acrylic paints, use decorative papers like I did or any way you choose. You then put it together by putting the tabs in the bottom and side pieces into the slots in the headboard and footboard.  

This is what mine looked like :)  

I then made it a pillow and a pad I made with some batting and a little blanket.

Here it is!

Lilah-Mai approved :)

This was very fun to make :)  Good luck to whoever makes one of their own.