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.

Fabric Doll House Number 1 Done :)

Today I finished my first doll house so 1 down 1 to go :D  I put the rest of the little house together and put a little strap with a snap button to close it.  Here are some pictures of the finished product :)

Here is the little house all finished.

This is how it looks when you open it up. There is the little doll watching tv :D

Here she is taking a cake out of the oven :D

Sitting at the table ready to eat cake :)

Now shes ready for a bath :D

You fold the part with the dining room and bathroom over and there is her bedroom.

Here she is taking her pjs out of the wardrobe.

Cozy in bed :)

Next day it is time for a picnic :)

This little house was very fun to make and I hope it will make my nieces happy little girls at Christmas time :) for links on the examples of take along fabric doll houses I liked see this post, take-along-fabric-doll-house.

© Copyright 2015 by Sew Adorable Dolls. All rights reserved

Progress On My Bag Houses :)

Today is Lilah-Mai day here as all Fridays are :D  So the day was spent in her lovely company.

After miss Lilah went home we had a nice pizza dinner then i got to working on cutting things out for the bag houses.  Tomorrow I'll do some sewing and glue gunning and hopefully have at least half of one of the houses done :) 

 My progress :)

We will see how I get on tomorrow.

The Car Caddy :)

Another project I worked on last year for my nephews were car caddies.  I made 3 of these and they were very very fun to make :) I googled car play mats to get ideas of what I could add to my car caddies and found a lot of very creative ideas :)  I liked the look of the car caddy on this page, The Imagination Station.  She's got a very good tutorial on there with pictures.  I made my own pattern for mine.  I made them into pouches with handles and personalised them with my nephews' names.  I made each with a different fabric and the play mat itself was done in felt.  I lost my pictures so only have pictures of one of them to show you.

This is how my car caddy looked when it was closed :)  It had a velcro fastener and the letters for my nephew's name were made out of felt with my handy dandy BIGkick machine. 

This is how it looked when it was half way opened. There are 3 velcro fasteners to keep it neatly closed.

This is the caddy when I was making it.  I hadn't yet added the street lines and hadn't finished adding the different buildings or the flap where the cars would be stored.

This is how the car caddy looked when I was finished.  The mat on the playing side was all done in felt.  It's a big piece of green felt for the background, black for the streets and other different colors for the buildings.  The street lines were made with yellow embroidery thread.  I also embellished the mat with little felt trees and street lights.

I made a police station which was sewn on the mat with the bottom left unsewn so the car could be put in.  The McDonald's  building is a drive thru :D  I sewed it on the mat on the top and bottom left the sides open so the cars could drive thru :)

There was a garage also with a gas and air pump and a car wash that was also a drive thru :)  

The school, hospital, fire station and HEB grocery shop all had the bottoms open so the cars could be driven in.

This is the flap where the cars are stored.  I decided to make it look like little houses where the cars live :D  The top of the houses was left open so the cars could drive out.

They were very fun to make and the boys liked them a lot.  A very good Christmas present idea :)

I'll share more of last years presents in another post and will also share my new project for the next set of Christmas presents for this year :)

© Copyright 2014-2015 by Sew Adorable Dolls. All rights reserved.

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 :) 

Continuing with Christmas in July

I continued today working on my doll diaper bags :) I made 3 baby food bottles with 3 spoons and 3 little toys.

These are the 3 baby food bottles with the spoons.  They are made from 3 plastic cylinders with glued on felt and little fruit appliques.  The spoons are just felt with the stiff interfacing which I now know the name for.  It is called Pelmet Vilene.  

The little toys I decided to make were felt animals :) I decided on a duck, bear and bunny.  I found the bear template here, the bunny here and for the duck I used this picture.  They fit on the palm of my hand and are hand sewn which is why the stitches are a bit messy. Hand sewing is not my forte :D I love the duck best of all :)

Tomorrow, if I don't feel too sick, I'll make the bibs and might start sewing the dresses and bloomers.