I have been dying to make Abby a quiet book for a while now – a fabric book with lots of different textures and activities to help her with her motor skills and imagination. I’ve been collecting ideas on Pinterest FOREVER. (This site and this site are two that I took some pages/tips from.)

So three days before her birthday, with my mom’s help, I finally started working on one, with the goal of having it ready for her birthday.

I don’t recommend following my last minute timeline to complete one of these. We got it done, but it was a loooooong project. Most of the examples I found online took people a couple of weeks to complete..so cramming it into three days was a little…intense.

My mantra during the process was: “It doesn’t have to be perfect.” I WANTED it to be perfectly stitched and designed and completed, but time was not on my side…which is kinda the story of my crafty tendencies. By the end of the book, I’d started sewing a lot less and hot glueing a lot more than I’d planned. The pages are a bit too big (about 11″x11″) and the cover is a bit too small.

But we survived! And it’s pretty cute, even if I did cut a few corners. I hope she enjoys it!

The ice cream page has Velcro on the back of the ice cream scoops. She loves ripping the scoops off and putting them back on.

This page isn’t quite done…I’m planning to make felt farm animal finger puppets, but they aren’t done yet. The barn doors open and there’s a pocket to hold them. And the next page is a scene for her to use with the animals.

Next is the dress up page. She has Velcro so she can be dressed up using the clothes that are stored on the next page.

Next two pages are my faves…Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head! Again, used Velcro for their features.

Next is the apple tree…no tricks here because I ran out of time. Wanted to use buttons to attach the apples, but no time. Also no tricks on the stop light page…just good practice with colors. The last page has a shoelace to play/practice with.

And that’s it! O look at her book now and it looks so simple, but the thing was hard work. We used interfacing between the pages for some stiffness and support, and batting for the cover to give it some puff. She’ll have to grow into some of the pages, but that’s good. It should entertain her for a while (hopefully!).