Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book Page Idea - Drive to School

Quiet Books for Toddlers are truly genius ideas and are sure to be well worth your time! I created a no-sew version for my daughter that you can find here. Below is one of my page ideas. For other ideas, scroll to the list at the bottom of the post!

Drive to School Page

The idea for the Drive to School page was inspired by a Car/Truck page I found at the blogs Teacher Mode and Intentional By Grace. In my version, your child can drive a car or a school bus from the house to school. I also included a little laminated "pocket" to tuck the vehicles in when they aren't in use so the don't get lost. You could also use a Matchbox-size car or something similar to have a more 3-D effect.

Other Quiet Book Page Ideas:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Go Team!

Match Shapes

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book Page Idea - Match Shapes

Quiet Books for Toddlers are truly genius ideas and are sure to be well worth your time! I created a no-sew version for my daughter that you can find here. Below is one of my page ideas. For other ideas, scroll to the list at the bottom of the post!

Match Shapes Page

I got the idea for this page from the blogs Playing House, Intentional By Grace and Teacher Mode. What I made a point to do for each shape is that the pieces are identical in shape only, so that should be the easiest way to match them up. I labeled the shapes as well, which is irrelevant for my 2-year-old, but will come in handy when she's older.

Other Quiet Book Page Ideas:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Drive to School

Go Team!

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book

We have a bad habit of not getting around to taking a family vacation until it's really cold just about everywhere. And I like a WARM weather vacation. Which means we have to travel pretty far to find warm temperatures. We have gotten in the "habit" (I love this habit) of going to Hawaii for the past three years, starting with my Babymoon for Bugga. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Hawaii, every part of it. But getting there via long airplane flights, while crossing over several time zones with my toddler, can be worse than a root canal.

This time I was determined to stress about the flight as little as possible. I typically travel with a certain collection of things to entertain my daughter during the flight, hope that we don't run out of ideas - and this time was no different. I did some searching and came across the idea of making a Quiet Book. I was not in the mood to lug out the sewing machine right before my trip, so I looked for some no-sew ideas that could be made faster. I took a couple ideas from various blogs, and then made them my own. I was also then inspired to create some other various pages that I thought my daughter would enjoy.

Below are the general directions for how to create your No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book, with links to separate posts about each of the pages I created so you can see them in detail if you want.

This ended up being a fun treat for Bugga on the plane, and it bought us about 30 minutes of entertainment. Now that we are back from our trip, I plan on keeping this book in the nursery to only be brought out when I am home alone with Bugga and my newborn (3 weeks to go!) and I need some toddler quiet time.

No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book

Materials Needed:

• 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" Mini Binder
• Various craft paper in a variety of colors and patterns
• Laminating machine and laminating sheets
• glue dots
• paper trimmer
• scissors
• Velcro dots
• hole punch
• computer/printer/printer paper as needed

Instructions:

1. Pick a page to start with. The nice thing about the 3-ring Mini Binder is that you can always add and remove pages, so you can tailor your books to different children, focus on seasons for holiday-related pages, etc.
2. Determine if you need one or two pages for each page's theme.
3. Cut one or two background pages depending on Step 2 using the paper trimmer. Trim them to 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" using the craft paper. Cut out colored shapes, letters, decorations, people, etc. - whatever is relevant to your theme. If you do not have the right color paper, or want a specific design, a quick internet search for free images can provide you with great icons that you can then print and cut out for your pages. You can also use a basic drawing software program to create your own.
4. Separate pieces between those that are part of the scene/background, and those that will be the interactive components.
5. For the pieces that are part of the scene/background, put together the scene using the glue dots. Once finished, laminate the pages(s).
6. For the pieces that will be interactive (separate from the background) laminate them and then cut out each piece with scissors, careful to leave a slight amount of clear laminate around the edges of each piece.
7. Attach Velcro dots to the back of each interactive piece. Place matching Velcro dots on the background scene where applicable. You might need more scene Velcro dots than you have interactive pieces based on your design. Be careful to use the same type of Velcro across the scene so all the interactive pieces can be used all over the page.
8. Align the page with the three rings in the binder to mark where the holes should be. Use a hole puncher to add 3 holes to the top/bottom of the pages as applicable. Place the page into the binder.
9. Create the rest of your pages. Don't forget a cover page that can slip into the binder plastic (no laminating necessary).
10. Extra step: I added Velcro to the back outside corners of each page when in the binder to attach the back of each page to the back of the next. This keeps my kiddo from landing on a bunch of backside pages that have no activities. The Velcro allows you to constantly change around the order of the pages, no problem!

Looking for some ideas on what to do for each page? Here are mine:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Match Shapes

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Drive to School

Go Team!

Activity: Winter Playdough Development Fun! (With Printables!)

I have been swamped lately with all the crafts I am doing for both Bugga's Big Girl Room and the nursery for #2 (posts to come, I promise!), but in the midst of it all (and while currently 35 weeks pregnant), I am hosting a playdate this coming week for our little group of kiddos. I racked my brain to come up with something easy, and landed on PLAYDOUGH!!!! Who doesn't love playdough? Even the little ones can have fun squishing it in their hands!

I have a great recipe for homemade playdough that Bugga and I have used ALL THE TIME and lasts forever. I will post that soon too.

This post is about activities you can do WITH the playdough!

Now obviously, the kiddos are free to build whatever they want with the dough. For the playdate specifically, I am not about to run out and buy (like I have the time anyway) all the play-do accessories they have in stores that "help" kids play. Instead, I plan on using playdough mats!

These are a GREAT idea! 

The problem I found is that I didn't like the ones I was finding on the web, so I just made my own! And I included the links below so you don't have to do the fruitless searching either! Now, so you are aware, these are winter-themed, since we are in Canada and it is currently dumping snow on us every weekend. I will likely have posts in the future with other themes.

All you need to do is print out the PDF files, laminate the pages, and tape them down to a table - let the fun begin!

Download the Snowflake Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowman Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowy Hill Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Tree Playdough Worksheet here.

Project: Chevron Canvas

I recently posted what I am using as inspiration for Bugga's toddler room. Since then, I have been busy with various projects, which I will start sharing with the internet world. To start things off, I am working on a set of painted canvas pieces for Bugga's wall. The first one is a Flower on a Chevron Canvas, and I love how it turned out:

Below I will share how I created the Chevron Canvas, and in a separate post I will detail how to create the flower.

Chevron Canvas

There are several ways to get a chevron pattern onto a canvas. If you can find a piece of fabric that already has the pattern on it, you can simply staple that around your canvas and be done with it. If you go the painting route (which I did), you also have to choose to use painter's tape, or freehand it. Personally, I knew I would get frustrated with the tape, so instead I used a flat-edged foam brush to make the lines straight.

Materials Needed:

• Blank white canvas
• Acrylic Paint in desired colors
• Pencil with white eraser
• Ruler

Instructions:

1. Determine how wide you want your stripes to be, and balance that with the dimensions of your canvas. For example, I wanted 1" wide stripes. My canvas was 12"x12" so it was pretty straightforward.
2. Measure along each side of the canvas, making marks for the width of your stripes. Make your pencil marks lightly so that they can be erased as needed later. Then connect your marks across to the opposite side of the canvas, resulting in a checkerboard pattern.
3. Connect the corners of the checkerboard squares to create your chevron pattern. Erase the pencil marks within the chevron stripes as well as possible.
4. Paint your stripes. The foam brush with the flat edge will make it easier to create a sharp line. If you are using more than one color, I recommend painting with one at a time, letting the paint dry between colors. **There is a chance you might run into the same problem I did: I wasn't planning on painting the white stripes, but my pencil marks were stubborn, so I had to do some white paint touch-ups.**

Now add a gorgeous flower to your canvas!

Also, see the full set of DIY canvas art I made for my toddler's new room!

Project: Felt Flower on Canvas

If you have seen my inspiration page for my daughter's toddler room, you can see I am very much into the chevron pattern right now. I've seen some beautiful felt flowers on chevron canvas on Pinterest and Etsy, and I thought it looked like something I could make myself. So I did, and it turned out great!

What I had to do though is come up with the how-to part myself, as I could not find anyone else's instructions ANYWHERE. So...here are very detailed instructions on how to create a felt flower to be displayed on canvas.

Felt Flower on Canvas

Materials:

• Canvas for mounting (see instructions here for a Chevron Canvas, Striped Canvas, and a Polka Dot Canvas)
• Felt in color of choice
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Paper
• Pencil

Instructions:

1. Create a template for the flower petals using a sheet of paper and pencil. For my design, I used a template shaped like a house, in three different sizes. (Click here for the template .pdf.)

2. Cut the templates out, and trace the templates onto your felt using a pencil. The mark of the pencil is likely to not be so dark on this type of material, but the scrape will leave a mark on the felt that will be easily noticeable as you are cutting out the petals. I cut out 10 petals of the largest size, 19 of the next size down, and 9 petals of the smallest size.

3. First I hot glued the 10 largest petals. I put some glue at the bottom center of each piece and folded it in half.

4. Once dry (doesn't take long - by the time you finish #10, #1 will be dry), pinch the spot where you put the glue, and fold back the outside edges of the petal. Hot glue the two edges of the other side of the petal to glue the petal to the canvas.

5. Glue 5 of the largest size petals onto your canvas in the pattern shown below.

6. Glue the other 5 of the remaining largest petals onto the canvas in between each of the first five petals.

7. Glue the 19 petals of the middle size the same way as in step #3, and then also pinch the glued spot, peel back the folded petal, and turn over, gluing the two outside edges of the petal.

8. Glue 7 of the middle size petals onto your flower, placing them closer into the center of the canvas as shown.

9. Glue another 7 between each of the first 7 middle size petals as shown below.

10. For the remaining 5 middle size petals, glue them down the same way, but upside down, and slightly closer into the center of the canvas. This will create a bit of a three-dimensional look that will help support the center of the flower.

11. For the smallest size petals, glue 5 of them like you did the larger sizes. Then place them even further in than the previous rows upside down, in between the lower petals where possible.

12. You will use the 4 remaining petals for the center of the flower. Fold two of the four petals and glue like the larger sizes. Snip a lower corner off of one of these two petals as shown in the picture.

13. Wrap the non-snipped glued petal around the snipped glued petal. Glue at the bottom.

14. Wrap the third petal around the two glued petals. Glue at the bottom.

15. Wrap the fourth petal around the three other petals. Glue at the bottom. Then glue the petal bunch into the center of the flower and you are done!

Let me know how yours turned out!

Can't get enough canvas art? Here are some others I just finished.

Project: Canvas Wall Display

I am making some pretty decent progress on Bugga's Toddler Room! (Check out where I started for her room inspiration.) I am very excited with each component I have completed so far. Today, I'm going to give a sneak-peek on the Canvas Art I will be displaying on one of her walls.

Here it is!

I painted four 12"x12" canvases in the room's main colors, and then decorated accordingly:

1.) A rhinestone monogram on white & purple stripes

2.) A pink felt flower on white & purple chevron stripes

3.) A pink felt Minnie Mouse (Bugga's a TAD obsessed with Minnie Mouse) head on purple with white polka dots

4.) A rhinestone star (after all, Bugga loves stars AND was born in Texas!) on white & purple stripes

I'm hoping to hang them this weekend, and then I can figure out where I want to hang the flower balls I made to match!