Quiet Book: Mr. Potato Head

One of my crafting challenges that I've set for myself this year, aside from just getting back into crafting, is to create a quiet book for Ian. If you've never heard of a quiet book, it's essentially a book, usually made of felt, that has little activities, puzzles, and games for your toddler/preschooler to play with.  It's great for car rides and I think the original purpose was for kids to have something to keep them quiet at Church.

There are some amazing quiet book inspiration pages out there and I have a whole Pinterest page dedicated to it. You'll also find a lot of blogs with instructions or whose sole purpose is the quiet book.  I found one such blog that had fun templates like a Mr. Potato Head activity page.  I decided that seemed pretty simple and would be a good starting point.

You can get the templates to make your own Mr. Potato Head quiet book pages here.  Once I downloaded the templates, I cut out the various pieces to assemble my quiet book.  I ordered my felt from Etsy - I found they had the greatest selection of colors to choose from and reasonable prices.

I also have a very extensive collection of embroidery thread. This isn't even the full amount - I have a lot pulled aside for current embroidery projects.  I used a combination of hand-stitching with embroidery threads (especially on the small pieces) and my sewing machine on the large pieces.

I made a whole bucket of various pieces to attach to Mr. Potato Head.  They all get stored in the bucket and Ian can pull them out and piece them on to the potato in whatever way he chooses.

My goal is to create one quiet book page or set of pages for Ian a month until his second birthday. By then he should be about ready to really enjoy the quiet book and he'll have a whole set at that point. I've already completed some of the next pages so I'll share those shortly.

Holiday Crafting and Felt Ornaments

Holiday crafting is in full swing. My friend and I were invited to participate in a local holiday craft fair with a European theme. We were thrilled to have the opportunity but we needed to come up with some new items along those lines. I decided to try my hand at felt ornaments as I had a stash of the fabric and I've been wanting to dabble in it for a while now.

Can I say that I'm in love?

I know, dramatic. But seriously - stitching in felt is so awesome! It's smooth, easy to work with and manipulate, and it got my creative juices flowing. Once I got started, I couldn't stop! I made over 40 ornaments over the course of two weeks. Intense, yes, but it felt so nice to be crafting like that again.



I think our display ended up looking beautiful, and the craft fair was a lot of fun. There was tons of foot traffic and we met a lot of great people.



I'm really proud of all of the stuff that I made up for the fair, but I do need to get my Etsy shop updated with some of my newer baby items. I did get a chance to put some of my holiday ornaments and decorations in though, and readers of this blog get a holiday discount! Just use the code '10PERCENT' for 10% off of your purchase. I can ship pretty much immediately, so there's still time to get things for the holidays.  Here's the link: What's Up, Cupcake? Etsy Shop



Isabel made up some adorable onesies in fun holiday designs. She also had these new onesies with a crochet flower. The flower detatches to make for easy washing. How clever is that?? I need her to help me clean up my crochet skills. Her work is so delicate and intricate, and to be honest, I feel like mine can be a little sloppy.

Aside from ornament crafting, I have a few new baby lovie designs to stitch up. I'd love to get that done in the next few days so I can ship them out as well. I've already had some mommas asking for them in my online groups. And then, I'm hoping for some R&R. Spending time cuddling with my little guy and enjoying the winter weather with my family.



I hope you, lovely readers, are doing well, and enjoying this holiday season! I have some more yummy treats to share with you and I'm going to be cutting out my Zinnia skirt soon. It feels good to be at the sewing machine again!