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.

Continuing With My Take Along Doll House

Well today I continued working on my doll house.  I got the bedroom finished and part of the outside of the front of the house :)  Tomorrow I'll finish the rest of the front of the house then work on the back.  I have an idea for the back of the house just hoping it'll work out :D

This is what I got done today.

 This is the bedroom.  The wardrobe's doors open and it has a pocket inside for the little dolls clothes.  The little doll and its clothes are not done yet.  The doll will be able to get in the bed and I'm going to make it a teddy bear as well :) 

This is the front of the house.  I still have a few more things to add to this. 

  

Take Along Fabric Doll House

Today I worked on one of  my bag houses :)  Well they are actually called take along fabric doll houses or travel doll houses.  I made the living room, kitchen, bathroom and dining room.  It was a combination of machine sewing, hand sewing and glue gunning.  I think my favorite room so far is the kitchen.  I was able to embellish the kitchen a lot.  The fridge, cabinets and oven door open. you can put dishes in the sink and there is a bowl on the counter that you can put a spoon in.  There is food in the fridge that you can take out and the dishes in the cabinets can be taken out as well :)  Tomorrow I'm going to start on the bedroom and then work on the outside of the house :)
I love the idea of a take along house :)  It's kind of like the fabric house I made and showed in this post, Little Fabric Doll House.  I found a lot of inspiration for travel doll houses on google. Here are some of my favorite ones :)
Country Kitty - really lovely little travel doll house :)  
pinterest picture - this is a picture of a bedroom for a take along house
craftjuice - cute take along house :)

We will see how I get on tomorrow with what's left to do on the house :)

Here are some pictures of what i did today :)

These are the dining room and the bathroom.

These are the kitchen and the living room.

 A more detailed view of the kitchen :)

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 :)

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Doll Dress #3

Today was a coughing day for me :(  I thought I'd finish off my diaper bags but no.  I felt sickish so I had a little lay down and we also had some visitors.  I did finish the last little dress and bloomers set.  Tomorrow we go grocery shopping and if I don't feel too sick I'll finish off the diaper bags by making the bibs and putting some flower appliques, that I'll make with my lovely BIGkick machine, on the bags.  Then I'll start the next set of presents :D

Here is the little dress and bloomers set I made today.

Little Dresses

Today I worked on the dresses that I'm gonna put in the diaper bags.  I made 2 out of the 3 today.

Here they are :)

I have one more dress and bloomers set to go.  After that I'll sew the 3 bibs. I think after the bibs and the dresses and bloomers I'll be done with the doll diaper bags.  That will be 3 Christmas presents done :D I will share some of last years Christmas presents soon :)

  

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. 

Today's Progress

Today I woke up sick :( so I didn't do very much.  I decorated my wipes cases and the changing mats.  I also made a small baby powder bottle :)

These are the wipes cases I made.  They are made out of felt and the wipes are made from soft diaper material.  I ironed interfacing to the felt to make it stiffer and so the slit on them doesn't get bigger.

 The changing pads are made with cotton material and printed knit material.  They have fasteners made of felt and they close with velcro.

 The baby powder bottle was fun to make.  I got a small piece of Styrofoam, felt, glue gun, and the top part of an empty baby powder bottle.  I covered the Styrofoam square with felt using my glue gun.  After that I glued the baby powder cap on the top of the felt covered Styrofoam square.  I then cut strips of the felt to glue around the bottom of the cap and the top of the square to secure it more.  I cut an oval out of white felt to sew on the words baby powder and glued it on to the front of the square and I had a small baby powder bottle :)  

The flowers and hearts were done using my lovely BIGkick machine.  We will see how I get on tomorrow :)

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 :)

Christmas in July

Today I decided to start making Christmas presents.  Last year I made Christmas presents for most of our nephews and nieces in Texas :)  I decided to do the same this year :) I'll share pictures of the things I made last year.  I'll also post about the stuff I'm making this year :)

This is what I did today.  I cut out 3 doll dresses and bloomers I got from my Simplicity patterns and I also cut out 3 diaper bags.  I made up the diaper bag pattern myself.  

Only things I sewed up today were the 3 diaper bags.

They are not finished though.  I need to add some flower appliques and make the accessories.  I think I want to make a wipes container with a few wipes, a changing mat, bib, a little felt bear and I want to make a baby bottle.  I'm not sure if I can do it but I'm going to give it a go.  I'm also going to add a diaper not sure if I'll make it or put in an actual newborn diaper as I have a few of those to hand.  They will each also have one of the dresses I'm going to make.  I'll add the appliques tomorrow and start making some of the accessories :)  I'll share what I get done.