My quiet book!

[WARNING: this post is solely for me to remember the making of this book. It may be boring to most. If so, just look at the pictures :)]

I have been wanting to post this for a while, but had to wait until Stephanie and I gave Kristen hers. Now that we gave it to her on Christmas Eve, I can post about it!

This is the Quiet Book that Stephanie and i made over the period of about 6 months! We did some research about our favorite quiet books and made a list of all of our favorite pages. Then we divided out the pages and started to work! We made 3 of each page- one for Steph and I and one for Kristen. Each page took a large amount of time and a lot of Tylenol. Some pages were easier than others, but some took hours and hours just for one page!!!

I really wanted to get this huge project done before Reese came so Emma could have something to do during church to keep her busy. Well, I was able to finish the middle of November with my pages and then Steph and I got together to sew the pages together (she had had her pages done for a while). It was SOOOO exhilarating finishing those last steps together! We discussed what our price would be if anyone ever asked if we'd make them one and we both agreed that no amount of money would be worth it :). Steph did go to the Primary Children's Festival of Trees and found a book similar to ours that sold for $1400! See what I mean? Hours and hours and hours of headaches can't have a price tag on it :). Granted that is a charity event, but still! It gives you an idea of the amount of work.

Now that it is finished, it is totally worth it! Emma has played with it for 4 Sunday's in a row and has not gotten tired of any of it. Last Sunday, she played with the note pad and mail box for at least 30-40 minutes alone! I am very, VERY happy to have it done, but am happy that Steph and I tag teamed it. I knew I could count on Steph to do an amazing job and put forth just as much time and effort as I did. Now we have a wonderful book that will hopefully keep our children entertained for years to come!

Now for the book!



All of my pages:



All of Steph's pages:



The beauties all together:



These 4 pages definitely took the longest and gave me a run for my money. I learned a lot of things (mostly the hard way).

My machine would NOT do button holes no matter how many times I read and re-read the instructions. So I had to go over to Steph's and use her machine. Then after hand-sewing a blanket stitch around the flowers on my page, I didn't for the other ones...WAY too time consuming! But I think this page turned out cute. I love the bright colors.



The shapes page seemed like it'd be really easy! Nope, after trying the snap fastener (the easy way), the snaps were extremely hard to get on and off. So I went to go buy smaller ones, but all they had in the tiny snaps were hand-sew snaps. So here I go again...doing it by hand. It wasn't hard, just took lots of time.



This car/road page I was really excited about! My mom had one like it in her quiet book and I always loved that page. All of the pieces took so long to sew on to the page, so eventually I just started hot-gluing :). I love how it turned out though!



This is one that I started first but finished last. I wanted it to look just the way I pictured in my head. It ended up being more difficult than I thought (surprise, surprise :)), but I love the little finger puppets.



One of my very favorite pages is the fishing one Steph did. It has a fishing pole and each fish has velcro on it so you can "catch" the fish. Not to mention, it turned out darling!

For the most part the book was enjoyable to make. Am I happy I am finished? DEFINITELY! But the best part about projects is seeing the finished product. Thank you Steph for putting forth SO much work too! It was fun to do it with you!