As many of you have already heard, Eddie is a menace when it comes to sitting through sacrament meeting. I am sure most kids his age are, but from my observation, he is worse than most of the kids in our ward. For months, I have been considering making a Eddie a quiet book for church as a way to keep him entertained without having anything to chuck at the people sitting behind us. I have done a lot of research on different kinds of quiet books. I found one that we could purchase, but thought that many of the pages were too advanced for Eddie. So after church a few weeks ago when we took Eddie out of sacrament meeting a record 6 times, I decided it was time to do something. That is when I found this amazing idea:
A Pot Holder Quiet Book.
The next day, Eddie and I made a stop at the dollar store and bought some fabulous holiday pot holders and some felt. I got right to work. I wanted to make pages that Eddie could have fun with at his current stage of development. So I did some more research and made a list of potential page ideas.
Eddie likes numbers (especially twos and nines), so I decided to start with counting.
First, I cut numbers 1-9 out of black felt and stitched each number onto a square of red felt. I sewed a second red square to the back of the first to hide my stitches.
Next, I sewed all sorts of little doo-dads onto squares of black felt. Each section corresponds to the number that will cover it -- two lady bugs under the 2, five baseballs under the 5, etc. Then I sewed the black felt onto a piece of blue cotton fabric that was large enough to cover my potholder.
Next, I sewed the blue fabric with attached doo-dads onto the potholder. The fabric covers the lame design on the front of the potholder, so it really doesn't matter how ugly the pot holders are. You only end up seeing the trim and the back. Since I was using white thread, I didn't use the sewing machine because I didn't want the stitches to show on the back side. If you have the right color of thread, you won't have this problem. Just turn the edges under and stitch all the way around.
Last, I sewed the number flaps on top of the corresponding doo-dads. Voila! The counting page is complete.
The next page I decided to do is shape matching.
First, I cut shapes out of green and white felt. Then, I pinned the shapes to my red fabric and stitched with white around the outside of the shapes to create an outline of each shape on the red fabric.
Next, I cut out the shapes again so I could create a double-layer. I sewed a small piece of velcro onto the back, then sewed the layers together so the stitches are hidden between layers. Last, I sewed velcro into the center of each shape outline on the red fabric.
Now all I need to do is sew my red fabric onto my pot holder and this page will be done.
Care, who writes the
Obsessively Stitching blog deserves all the credit for this idea. She has tons of cute crafty ideas, so be sure to check it out. I plan to make more pages in the quiet book as I come up with ideas. The book will be bound with some sort of ring through the loops on the pot holder, so I will be able to expand it as Eddie learns to do new things. If you have any ideas for future pages that a kid like Eddie might enjoy, please leave a comment!
