the Grabers: 6/25/23

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

A Busy Book

In between all our trips, I've been busy putting together a Busy Book for Tenley (and Kaia too).

These were originally called Quiet Books because they were used by children in church to keep them quiet during the sermons.

I was making this book for the times Tenley would be coming with her parents to visit us. It is an 8 hour drive so this is to keep her BUSY and not bored in the car! At least for part of the way!

I had made one for Claire back in 2015. You can see the post here about that.

I made Claire's in a different format with heavier material. When I was making it, it could be turned inside out and just edged.

But I had made Tenley's book from cotton with iron-on fusing. So it had to be sewed differently, edged with binding. I wasn't sure how to do that so my friend Donata came to help me. She's made many quiet books! She made binding from fabric I had and showed me how to sew it on!

Donata also finished out the final part of putting it all together as she has a super duper sewing machine and she is a super duper sewer!! THANK YOU!!!💖

There are many different ways to make quiet/busy books and so many, many different ideas on-line! They take many hours to sew (in my case, months, as I was so often on the road) but so much fun to do!! If you don't like to do crafts, many people do sell them too. Not so cheap, whether you make it yourself or purchase from someone.

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With Tenley living in Colorado and having parents who are all about hiking and climbing mountains, I decided to do the theme of Tenley and Kaia going to the mountains!

The sun is up! Time to get up!

Peek-a-boo!

Who lives at this house?

These pictures are laminated and have velcro on them. They can be switched out as the girls grow bigger.

Fill up the car with gas before leaving town!

Who lives in the woods?

I made finger puppets.

You can order really nice ones on-line, but I chose to make them myself.

I'm not the finest seamstress so please don't compare my work to others!

These are foam sticker dolls that you can get at a craft store. I pealed off the liner and used craft glue to stick to another piece of foam and cut it out. These dolls can go in and out of the sleeping bags.