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.