Quiet Book with a Prayer Theme

Three Sundays ago my husband told me after church that what I was bringing in the church bags wasn't working for the kids.  I had been planning on making a quiet book, I had even bought all the supplies (or so I thought).  When he told me this, I knew that it was time to make the book. I had been brainstorming ideas for months before I sat down to make this.  Check out my Pinterest Quit Book board. And after all my preparation I still made 4 trips to the craft store.  All told it has taken me two weeks worth of nap times to make and roughly $40 (not including the price of things I already owned, like most of the felt). I hope the investment pays off in the end!

The cover is simple.  It ended up being larger than necessary, but I like it that way.  I still have intentions of adding handles. 

Like this post's title says, this is a (mostly) prayer themed quiet book.  If my kiddos are going to be playing with this through church than it should be gospel focused.  I chose prayer for my theme. All the words are written with a paint pen ($3.42 each), someone mentioned that paint pens can bleed or run. If you're worried I would do a test run before using.

1. Joseph Smith prayed in a grove.  I sewed clouds over clear vinyl.  Below is supposed to be an image of the first vision, but I will have to wait until April to get it. So instead is a picture of Mary and Jesus praying. The image can easily be exchanged out of the pocket, which is closed with Velcro.

2. Daniel prayed in the lion's den, and the Lord closed their mouths. The lion's mouth closes with a zipper. Inside is a tongue and teeth.

3. Jonah repented in the whale. The whale swallows Jonah (who is currently M.I.A.) and you can see him through the clear vinyl belly.

 4. Time to pray.  A clock. I put the hands on a grommet, using button holes for stability. I originally glued the numbers on.  But when they started falling off, I sewed them on.

5. Count your blessings. Simple, simple, simple.  I even let my oldest daughter help me and sort all the beads out for me.

 6 & 7. The Jews fasted and prayed for Esther.  Dress Esther. I expect these pages to be my 4 year-old's favorite pages. Esther is made with the doll pattern from the Still:Living blog.  I changed the doll a little, and traced the body to make dresses for the queen.  The queen has four hand-beaded dresses to wear when she meets the king.  I'm sure that when my son is old enough to play with the quiet book I will make him an "I hope they call me on a mission" page.  Until then, this is good enough.

 8. Faith is like a little seed. If planted, it will grow.  Is your basic button and flower page.
9. Notebook and crayon.

 10. Thread the bee through the flowers.  It's a unique idea from Imagineourlife.com. I'm not good at using patterns, so I just free handed the flowers.  You know, whatever... it turned out great though. It may be my 4 year-old's 2nd favorite page.

 We had a bee bead.  Here's a close-up of flower #9.

11. The Brother of Jared prayed and saw the finger of God. This page is your basic mitten page.  I traced my child's hand and then added an inch or so to the tracing, until she could fit her hand inside. It would have been cooler if the finger was free moving, maybe next time.

12. Build a house of prayer. I really (using my whinny voice) really wanted a SLC temple page. I had finished the book and was afraid I wouldn't be able to make one. But while strolling through pinterest quiet book boards I found enough inspiration to make one.  I used the temple from Mormon Share, it's a pdf. Traced onto wax paper and then cut out on the felt. I glued the temple onto some felt for backing. The page pictured is not yet complete. But the temple will be four pieces, like a puzzle, which is then built on Velcro. The grass is actually a pocket.

 This is my favorite page, so I hand embroidered some flowers and a tree.

 13. Alphabet. I used snaps to make an alphabet page. Yes, I know this is only half the alphabet. The other half is not yet all sewn together yet, so I didn't take a picture. I used snaps because I didn't want my child to spread the letters all over the bench (headache).  But snaps are the WORST! I would do the hand sewn snaps if I could do it all over again. If you do use the snaps, and you have the tool, and you've figured how to do it, I would put the snaps through the muslin and a second layer of felt (I did this on my second alphabet page). This provides stability for the snaps.  I tried to make up for the thin muslin on the first page by sewing the muslin to felt around the snaps, we'll see how that goes. For now I'm stuck with it.  This was by far my most expensive page. I bought a felt sticker alphabet and matted them on green felt, cut them out, and put on snaps.

There are some other pages still in the works. We bought some awesome buttons at the store that I cut a page out for, but my daughter would not give me permission to sew them permanently onto the page.  They were going to be attached with elastic so they could move freely. Too bad.  Maybe I'll sew a pocket at the top and place them in the pocket...?

This is still a work in progress.  A few pages are left to be invented and sewed.  But for now I'm going to focus my free time on scrapbooking my son's first year of life.  Happy crafting!

P.S. I'd like to give a special shout out and thanks to my mother-in-law.  She gifted me all her crafting stuff and has made many dreams possibilities with crafting!