Parents, have you ever heard of a Quiet Book? Also known as a Busy Book? It is a cloth book filled with fun activities that your child can play with… quietly!
My baby girl LOVES her quiet book!
BRILLIANT isn’t it? From making different Mr. Potato Head combinations to counting cupcake sprinkles to buttoning buttons to building sandcastles, quiet books help children hone their fine motor skills, review educational concepts, and encourages creative thinking all while keeping your child busy and quiet.
Um. Yes, please. (Go HERE to make your own!)
I’m not of the “children should be seen and not heard” camp by any means, but there are just times when you need them to be quiet– at a church service, or on an airplane. Sometimes, you just want something handy to keep them busy– waiting at the doctor’s office, or when you’re visiting with a friend that has no kids and no toys and you don’t want to truck a whole bag of playthings for your little one. THIS BOOK IS GENIUS! I seriously can’t believe I’ve never heard of it before!
It all started when I was at a friend’s place and spotted a homemade felt book lying on the floor. I flipped it open to have a look-see, and inside was a felt xylophone, with removable pieces velcroed down in the colors of the rainbow. How cute!! I turned to another page and saw a colorful felt page with surprise animals hiding underneath rectangular flaps. So much fun for a little one!
I wanted one.
I asked her where she got it, and was a little brokenhearted when she said she and some other friends mass-produced pages and swapped them to make the book. I was brokenhearted because I missed the boat! But I figured Etsy would be all over this, so I went home to see how much these bad boys were going for. And then I got some serious sticker shock: $200 for a 12-page book?! FOR SERIOUSLY?! There were individual pages going for $6-30, and even though I’m not a craftsy person, I couldn’t help but think… I could make that!
So I did.
Sort of.
I decided to suck it up and put on my organizer hat (which I am decent at, but usually do not enjoy*), and sent out an email to a few mommas who I thought might be interested. Some forwarded the message to some of their momma friends, and within a day, I had 14 commits. Wow.
Wow #1: That is a lot of pages to make.
Wow #2: …WE’RE GOING TO GET 14 UNIQUE QUIET BOOK PAGES! SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!
I was super stoked! I reached out to Christy D., the original coordinator, got as much info as I could on how she organized it, and then got the ball rolling with my own group. Fast forward two months and… WE FINISHED! WE MADE 14 QUIET BOOKS!! AND THEY’RE AMAAAAAAZING!!!!
Here’s a detailed look at each beautiful page! I have no patterns for you, but you can find similar pages and patterns on Pinterest and/or Etsy. I will share how I made my felt chain links in a future post, since that was the one I did :].
*Can I just say that organizing this group of mommas was THE BEST ever?! They were so responsive, so responsible, so encouraging, and did such a beautiful job!! Everyone helped one another out, pooled resources, and wrote encouraging responses in email. I didn’t even know all of them (some were friends of friends) when we started, but I sure hope our paths cross again!
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I divided my 14 pages into two books: one for babies (0-2yrs), and one for toddlers (2+). Since they’re bound with a book ring, I can easily swap pages in and out.
I present to you my Baby Quiet Book:
Front Cover
I just sewed down some cute fabric and stitched some lines across for a quilted look. Kinda messy. That’s how I craft =P
Cars and Stoplights
The stoplights are velcro, and my girl loves to rip them off and put them back on. The car slides up and down along the white ribbon. She is still learning that it’s not a rip-off item!
Ocean Scene with Sliding Fish
Check out the detail on those sliding fish, and the detail on that stitching around each fish and through the coral and plants! It’s a beautiful page, but I’m not letting her play with it until she understands the concept of sliding–not yanking!
Sensory Jellyfish
My friend made this as part of our daughter’s 1st birthday present! Isn’t it gorgeous? Our girl loves to flip back to this page frequently to tickle (“Ticko ticko!”) the tentacles. It’s the cutest thing in the world!
Mitten with Snowball
I think these were meant to be mittens for outdoor snow play (comes with a white snowball hidden inside the mitten). Being a baker, I decided to pair it with the Apple Pie page so it looks more like a baking mitt 🙂 Babies can slip their hands in and out of these cute mittens!
Apple Pie Weaving
Also, not sure why I put this in the baby book instead of toddler, cause I’m pretty sure she won’t be weaving anytime soon… but at least it matches with the baking mitt! Not to worry: thanks to the book ring binding, I can easily move this page over to the toddler book anytime (along with the Hungry Alligator, which it is back-to-back attached to).
Hungry Alligator
I really wanted a zipper in the quiet book somewhere, so I’m really glad someone made a zipper page! Isn’t this adorbs? Babies can unzip the alligator’s mouth and put the fish into the ocean!
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head
Felt potato heads! I love it! There are so many combinations for this! Each of the pieces had Velcro glued onto it, which was just enough to make it stick to the felt. Also, the potato head itself is a pocket, so you can store Mr. Potato Head’s pieces in there while playing with Mrs. Potato Head’s pieces! Craftwise, this page requires a lot of cutting, but works well for the person who doesn’t sew!
Sandcastles on the Beach
How cute is this? I love the details from the stitching along the water’s edge to the little starfish to the double-backed pages. The person who made this included two sandcastle sets in case any got lost. You’d think people would try to do what was “easiest” or “quickest,” but clearly the group of ladies here gave their all– even with children/babies at home (or in the belly)!
…And that was just the baby version, folks.
Here are the pages for my toddler book!
Chain Links
This was the page I made. I liked how kids would be able to get some ROYGBV practice in while also developing fine motor skills as they fastened the snaps. I also included black and white strips for parents who wanted to teach their kids how to use colors (black, white, red, green, “gold”) to teach the Gospel message. More on that in another post!
Counting Flower
Kids can practice counting with these flowers! The intricate numbers were cut out from a friend’s Cricut machine, and inside the flower pot is a second set of blue petals… just for variety. So thoughtful!
Lace-up Football
We had the option to choose a lace-up football or ballet slippers. I know we have a girl, but I couldn’t help but choose the football, because my own childhood was filled with a lot of football (and zero ballet). And I loved it that way. This is a fun way to practice tying laces! Plus, the football fabric is a super soft suede that even I love to rub!
Breezy Clothesline
This cute page allows kids to take clothes down from the line and put it into the white basket. I love the colors and multimedia!
Fancy pants!
Oh my goodness. That giraffe print. Could it be any cuter?! I also love the stitching detail throughout. The person who made it also told us we could switch the buckle to the other side, to develop both the right and left hands! Great idea!
Balloon Buttons
This was Part I of my “party pages” :). Not only are the buttons hand-sewn down, but the buttonhole is edged all professional-like and everything! Great page for button practice!
Last, but not least… drumroll please…
Counting Cupcakes
Your child counts the number of sprinkles on the (removable Velcro) frosting and matches it up with the number written on the cupcake liner! This page literally took my breath away. Why? Because, guys, each of those “sprinkles” is actually a button that has been HAND-SEWN ON. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9) x 14 = 630 BUTTONS!! And I thought my chain links were a lot of work!! C. definitely takes the (cup)cake on this one (ha ha!)!
Amazing, right? Don’t you wish you had one? (Sorry to make you covet…) I’m afraid mine is priceless, though, so you’ll just have to make your own. Not the organizational type? NOT TO WORRY! I got your back! I’ve set up a post detailing How to Make a Quiet Book with a Group of Friends, and will post it for you soon, including email templates and resources you can use to head up your own group quiet book project! I just ask that you link my site and share the Cuppacocoa love :).
I am going to send this post to all the ladies involved in the project, so please show some love below in the comments! Which quiet book page(s) did you like the most? Which details do you love? Which one(s) would your child (or… you? ;)) enjoy playing with? Do you think you’ll ever make one?
Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!!
38 responses to “I Can’t Keep Quiet About My Quiet Book!”
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This is brilliant! I absolutely love it and can’t wait to make one for each of my two grandkids – a boy and a girl. Thank you so much for all your wonderful articles, thoughts and projects!
This is brilliant! I can’t wait to make these for my two grandchildren – a boy and a girl. I love your blog!
Thanks, Claudie! How lucky for your grandkids!! Thanks for reading my blog! 🙂
This is astoundingly well crafted, you and your friends must be so proud!
One small comment though: I really enjoy your blog and what you share, but cringe at the use of “momma” as an adjective or a noun, especially coming from such an otherwise eloquent writer as yourself. I’m sure you use the word with affection, but it sounds so belittling to me. What’s wrong with “mother”? I would never dream of telling you how to write, but just wanted to voice this small peeve. Thank you for reading!
Hi Camille,
Yes, we were very pleased with the final products :). Thank you!
I totally understand the cringy feeling at certain words. The word “preggo” bugged me for the longest time! I don’t really have a reason for it, other than how I associate it strongly with pasta sauce… haha :). Sorry you had to cringe so much while reading my post on mama and mommas. I personally can’t think of what would be belittling about it– when those soft words come out of my baby girl’s mouth, it is sweeter than music and I swell with affection. Maybe it’s just in my circle of friends, but I feel like we often use “momma” to refer to one another with a sense of united camaraderie, whereas “mother” feels formal and stiff to me, like the characters I read about in novels taking place in the 1950’s. Funny how words feel different to different people! Anyway I’ll probably think of you every time I write momma on my blog from now on, and I hope you can read past it and cringe a little less :).
JoEllen
I love all of these pages, and they’re such great ideas for activities! Much better than the buckles/buttons and zippers (only) that I normally see in quiet books. I also adore that you went with the football and not the ballet slippers. 🙂
Thanks, Dakota! I can throw a perfect spiral, but have no idea what a pirouette is (I even had to look up how to spell that word… haha :)).
WOW those pages look so wonderful! I used to have one as a kid as well (store-bought, I think). The button-balloon pages and zipper-related pages were some personal favourites. Noe is so lucky to have a handmade quiet book! 🙂
Thanks, Rosanne! I love those pages, too! 🙂