Jenn Tries...

I've self diagnosed myself with project ADD. Bascially midway through any project I get distracted and start working on new project. Its terrible, but I'm trying to work on that. So here I am back again with the latest update to my activity book. And for this page I decided to go with N is for Number.  At first I was going to make a telephone, but I couldn't quite get my blueprint to make the base of the telephone right. So just when I needed a knew idea this little beauty popped up in my Pinterest feed: (Photo from  Serving Pink Lemonade ) I knew instantly this was the page I was looking for. And below is how I decided to make it for my own book. Here's What You Need: Felt (whatever colors you like) Needle and Embroidery Thread Sewing Machine and Thread Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks Velcro (Either strip or dots) Scissors Marker Here's How You Do It: Step 1: Setting Up The Flower To start this project figure out how big you want y...

All right here we are again with the next page in my Activity book! This time I went with the letter B and decided it was time for a page to help with fine motor skills. So I went with a B is for Button theme.  Originally I inspired by this page here: (Photo Credit:  The Montoya Family ) And I thought it would be nice to put button holes in the shapes and have them button into place. That way shapes could be learned and matched up. My downfall was that I've grown weary of always sealing up my edges with a blanket stitch, so I tried to sew the sides together and then flip it right side out and slip stitch the rest together. I ended up with some wonky looking shapes. And only my heart ended up looking like it should have. So I went back to Pinterest and began looking at various quiet books. Eventually I found this page right here: (Photo Credit: MjsFeltCreations ) I thought it was really charming and an interesting way to use buttons without being a lite...

For this month's monthly project I found a a nifty idea from The Imagination Tree  that turns a basic cylinder container into toys for babies and toddlers.  I really love this idea of taking everyday containers and making toys of them. Especially since baby Lion is at the age where Gerber snacks are his favorite things, so I have plenty of extra cylinder containers laying around.  So here is my take on it. You could easily make all four in a weekend. Or you could spread it out and make one every weekend for a month. Either way its a great toy for your kids without spending a lot of money. For All Four Toys Here's What You Need: 1 Cylinder Container Spray Adhesive Fabric Box Cutter/ Exacto Knife Hot Glue Gun/ Fabric Glue Here's How You Make Them: Ribbon Pull Toy Extra Supplies Needed: Ribbon Here's How You Do it: The first thing you do is mark and  cut out squares all over your container, making sure that for every h...

All right I'm back again with the next update to my activity book!  This time I decided to go with C is for color. For this page I took a little inspiration from this quiet book page here:  (You can buy this page here:  HannasQuietBooks ) But you know I always like to put my own spin on everything so here's how I made my own Activity Book Color page Here's What You Need: Neutral Colored Felt Rainbow Colored Felt Scraps Extra Jumbo Craft Sticks-Colored 7-7/8" 24/Pkg , $3.80 Needle and Embroidery Thread Acrylic Paint Sealer Here's How You Do It: Step 1: Figure Out Where Your Sticks Should Go Normally I would say make a blueprint, but this page doesn't really need one. So really the first step is to play around with your craft sticks on your main felt square until you find a pattern or order that you like. Then trace around the the end you want to make a pocket for. I lined mine up in rainbow order and then decided to put the pockets ...

All Right! Here I am again with my second installment to my Activity Book! I decided to skip a lot of the alphabet and work on my letter R page. For the letter R I went the word Reef. I just like how bright the ocean is and how there's a lot of movement with fish. And I just thought it would make a really neat activity page for the book. (Plus my boy is a surfer so I had to make a page for him!) Here's What You Need: Fish Buttons (I used these ones here ) Various Colors of Felt Buttons Scrap Fabric Embroidery needle and thread Scissors Here's How You Do It: As always my first step is to make a brief blueprint of what you want. Since I decided on a reef theme, I also went ahead and took a quick look at reef pictures. Here's the reef picture that inspired my the most (Photo from Inhabitat.com ) And here's my rough blueprint: The next step is to start building your reef. I traced out a rough outline of rocks onto some leftover Minky f...

I've been seeing a lot of various Quiet Books on Pinterest lately. At first I thought it was a neat idea, but I don't really take the boys anywhere that I need something to entertain them for a while. Then I saw the idea presented as an Activity book and all my creative juices started to flow. And now that my mom is about an hour and half away from I tend to visit her at least once a month and it would definitely be useful to entertain Blue (and eventually Lion). So here's my start to my Alphabet Activity Book. One page at a time; Two pages a month (Because I'm a busy working mom and that's all I can handle right now) First letter up is Letter A. Here's What you Need: Light Blue Felt  Green Felt  Light Green  Brown Felt  Apple Buttons Embrodery Thread Ribbon Here's How You Do It: 1. Using some scrap paper, make a rough sketch of what you want your page to look like. (Here's my very rough sketch) 2. Cut the brown felt int...