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.

A teepee for Lilah-Mai

I come from a big loud family in Texas.  I have 4 sisters and 24 nieces and nephews in Texas, plus, God willing, will have a new nephew or niece at the beginning of 2016.  I also have a niece here in the UK.  I'm very blessed I think :)  When I first came to live here in the UK in 2011 it was a very big change, as my wife has a small family.
In 2011 it was us, her parents, brother, sister and her fiance so it was weirdly quiet and a bit lonely, especially when my wifey was at work :D  So in 2013 when my wife's sister Emily had Lilah-Mai I was in heaven :) finally a little child to spoil here in the UK :)  I started making her things when she was still in Emily's tummy. I made her a blanket and a red sparkly tutu :D

Beautiful girl <3

I've continued making her crafty things that I'd like to share on here.  The latest things I made for her were a bit of a challenge for me.  I wanted to throw it out the window at one point, but I didn't give up.  When Lilah wasn't even walking yet I decided I wanted to make her a teepee to play in.  Emily had also said she would like one for Lilah, so I finally made her one.  I decided to make a quilt for the teepee to sit on as well.  I finished it last week and it's now in her room at her house :)

Here it is!

I used bamboo poles for the frame and cotton print fabric to make 3 of the panels.  The door panel was made from white cotton fabric and a piece of cream colored fabric.  I used felt and embroidery thread to make the applique with her initial and bias tape to sew around the door opening and for the ties. 

My teepee was meant to have 5 panels, but I honestly don't know what happened :D I think it came out ok though.  The quilt was fun to make too.  I'm a hoarder so I have a lot of fabric scraps.  If you ask my wife she will agree :D  I made 84 5x5 squares, all of them different and made a nice sized quilt to go with Lilah's teepee :) 

Here it is!

If anyone wants to make a teepee of their own there are so many awesome tutorials out there.  I found loads of them.  The ones I looked at the most when making mine were The DIY Mommy, her teepee is lovely and she's got a pattern there and good instructions.  I also liked and then we saved, her page also has very nice clear instructions and pictures to follow.  My favorite was strawberry swing.  I wanted my teepee to have 5 panels like this one :)  It's a very good tutorial. Quite a few tutorials linked to this site - Smile and Wave - saying it was a good tutorial to follow with very clear instructions and it is.  I also read this one when making my teepee. The thing with me is that I'm a visual learner so the tutorials with pictures work best for me :)

So happy teepee making for anyone who wants to give it a go :)