Toddler Felt BookPatti - 30. Januar 2018
A long time ago, I saw a little video on Facebook of a quiet book for toddlers. I fell in love with it, and since Miri is getting old enough to enjoy them, I decided to make one for her as a Christmas present. Some of the pages I copied directly from the video, and others I created from other ideas that I found online.
I opted for a simple cover (i.e., no names or removable pieces).
This tile puzzle is super cute, but way too hard for a toddler. Also, in the future I will sew all the pieces together rather than gluing them. When the puzzle was cut into squares, little corners of the pieces that didn't get as much glue started coming off. To hold the pieces on the background, I sewed a square of the scratchy side of velcro. The felt sticks well enough without the opposite side of the velcro.
This might be my favorite page! The little animals are finger puppets and have a little pocket "stall" inside the barn. This is definitely Miri's favorite page too - she loves trying to put the puppets on her fingers.
I love the idea of a doll house, but the doll and clothes turned out to be harder to make than I anticipated. I may yet make another doll with better clothes.
This puzzle is also too difficult for a toddler. Eventually, I will put little cards with squares filled in that she will have to match.
Miri loves helping with laundry, and I was happy that she immediately recognized that this was a washing machine with socks. She even put the doll's clothes in the washing machine once! The idea for this page is learning to match socks, but it also teaches coordination with the clothespins. Miri has not figured the clothespins out yet, but it probably won't take long.
Until Miri is old enough to count the chips on the cookies, this page is just about putting cookies into pockets. She has a hard time with the number pockets, but she likes to put the cookies in the cookie jar.
This page teaches buttons. I may have made them a little hard for her age, but she likes the "flowees!"
So far, Miri just pulls the lace out of the shoe, but eventually it will be good practice in tying bows. The lace holes were made with eyelets, and I love how they turned out.
To bind the book together, I first sewed units of two pages together (back to back) then trimmed around the edges. Then I punched two holes in each unit. My husband set in the large eyelets because I tried four times and couldn't get it to work. I then connected the pages with two clasp rings I happened to have lying around.
Overall, I enjoyed this project. It took many hours, and there are lots of rough edges, but I am hopeful that Miri will enjoy it for many more hours than I spent making it.