Daniel's Busy Book

 

Here's a closer look at the Busy Book

 I made for nearly 2 year-old Daniel.

Carabiner clasp

Cover

Pages 1 and 2

Learn to tie a soccer shoe.

Blue car

Open the door.

The wheels go round and round
while the hubcaps hold the tires to the page.

Metallic bumper and shiny fabric headlight
Shank button hubcap with fused felt tire:
the tires have 1/8" holes that allow the buttons' shanks
to be sewn to the page without stopping the tires
from rotating.

On Page 3, learn to buckle a collar
and clip a leash.

Puppy has soft, floppy felt ears
and a tongue ready to lick.

Woven ribbon Page 4
has lots of patterns and textures.

Hiding under the ribbon?

Several stars

Pages 5 and 6
Flags of Daniel's countries
are felt with embroidered details.
Play with the shapes.

American flag is a rectangle
with a smaller rectangle to stick in place.

The Brazilian flag is a rectangle
with a diamond and a circle.

All the shapes stick on with Velcro.

Each flag is a pocket
to store its shapes.

Pieces aren't attached to the flag pages.
If I had a do-over, I'd connect the shapes to the page
with ribbon or string.
Even with pockets for storage,
chances are shapes will be lost in time.
 

Page 7
Balloons
for button practice and color matching

Balloons are on 'strings'
of narrow white ribbon sewn to the page.

Each balloon is fused felt with a button hole
that's big enough to make for easy buttoning.

Page 8
An airplane to fly high in the sky

The airplane moves along a ribbon
that's joined by a slit on the back of the plane.

Page 9
Zip!

A little felt vest with pockets and a zipper

Page 10
Bugs in a Jar
(with embroidered ants crawling all across the page)



The jar is heavyweight vinyl,
and keeps all the button bugs, ribbon grass,
and googly eyes safe from little hands (and mouths).

All bugs and grass are tacked in place with thread;
googly eyes are secured with glue.
Then, a wide, long zig-zag stitch assures the vinyl 'jar' won't tear.

The lid of this jar is a pocket
that holds a plastic magnifying card.

Look how big the bugs can be!

The back page is an abacus
for counting and colors.

Pony beads slide on rat tail cording
that's stitched very securely to the page.
Cover the utilitarian stitches with a ribbon frame
and write numbers with a fine Sharpie marking pen.

I signed Daniel's book,



and gave it to our special boy for Christmas.

Note:  I did lots of research online for ideas for Daniel's Busy Book.  I'm not intentionally leaving off credit for any of the general ideas used in the book.  Honestly, I don't remember where I found the ideas, but there are scores of posts that can be accessed through a web search for "Busy Book."  Here's a really creative site . 

I sourced copyright free Clip Art images and sized  them for patterns.

Feel free to copy my work!

Felt, fabrics, ribbons, buttons, beads, zipper, and fusible webs are from Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and WalMart.

Dog's collar is actually a kitty collar from The Dollar Store.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Santa was busy this year!  Since St. Nick has always been fascinated with toys to keep little hands and minds occupied, he recruited me to make a Busy Board for Little Man.  You may have a child or grandchild who needs one of these, so I compiled my process and a few things I learned along the way in a bit of a tutorial.  Here's how it happened.

Google helped with lots of pictures to spark the planning process.  After deciding on the general size of the board, I started hunting and gathering all the fun hardware.  (You may have drawers and bins full of hardware that would be great to use.  All the better!)  After finding every gizmo, I marked the 18" x 13" size of the board on a large sheet of graph paper.  Then I played with the placement of each item. 

~18" x 13" sheet of graph paper
with all the gizmos

After final editing, I traced each shape onto the graph paper, marking the placement of any screws.

small hinges, barrel bolt, d-ring

more d-rings, roller caster, cup hook, slide bolt

screw eye, 3" cabinet handle, crimped dog chain with hex bolts,
O-rings

stainless ruler, cup hook, screen door hook and screw eye

metal address plate, cleat

metal address plate

"sill cock" or what I call a water spigot

lock with 2 keys, hasp

Everything that could possibly be a choking hazard has been permanently affixed to the board.

O-rings, hex nuts, dog chain, keys have been installed so that they move, yet cannot be removed.

The lock can be removed and attached to any number of screw eyes, rings, chains, lanyards;

either key will 'reach' anywhere on the board.

porcelain knob permanently secures one of the key rings

 

I asked my woodworking friend John if he could cut the board and pre-drill the necessary holes.  So in October, when Steve and I chose a piece of cabinet grade plywood, we delivered it (along with the graph paper template) to John in his garage.  After he cut the board to size and sanded the edges, John taped the graph paper template in place and carefully drilled each pilot hole.  He counter-sank the screws for the porcelain knob and the 3" cabinet pull.  Great job, my friend!

Good idea to stain and seal the board before attaching all the hardware.  I went on a quest to locate non-toxic alternatives.  Websites like this were really helpful.  I picked an acrylic paint with the "AP Non-Toxic" seal on the label, diluted it with water, and washed the board to allow the wood grain to show.  A diligent rub with fine steel wool took all the wood fuzz off the project once the stain dried.

Here's what the AP Non-Toxic seal looks like.

I found Outdoor Acrylic Plaid brand paints that were safe.
Diluting the paint with water to make a wash
allowed the wood grain to show.

Then, at the suggestion of another website I started looking for beeswax as a non-toxic sealer.  After many fits and starts, purchases and returns, my Ace Hardware man led me to a card of beeswax.  I nearly hugged him!  Definitely told him he was my hero, anyway.  John suggested I apply the wax with steel wool for a smooth final finish.

the holy grail of sealers, finally found at Ace Hardware
"Ace is the place!" as they say.

Final construction took just a little time after Thanksgiving--a couple of hours.  The beeswax also helped lubricate all the screws for easier installation of the hardware.

After mounting each piece of hardware, it was time to turn Steve loose with a dremmel tool to grind some of the longer screws down flush with the back of the board.  The last thing to do was cover the back of the board with pieces of textured colored craft foam glued in place with Green Guard Certified Liquid Nails Adhesive.  This Busy Board can be laid on a table or hung on a wall with its blue lanyard looped through the 2 d-rings on top.

*a glimpse of the blue lanyard attached to the d-rings for convenient hanging
and
*craft foam backing will stabilize the Busy Board on a table
or keep marks off the wall if it's hung

 So here's how it turned out on Christmas Eve . . .

BTW:  Melissa and Doug make a cute Busy Board--smaller, more colorful, and maybe less expensive than this, but this one is full of big people hardware and hopefully will spark hours of safe imaginative play.

Thanks, Santa!  Your helpers had a blast with this project!