Felt Book Project

I've been wanting to make a felt book, sometimes called quiet books or bored books, for a while, and my niece's 2nd birthday seemed like the best opportunity to try one out. I wanted to go for some different aspects that I knew she would like, especially things she could interact and play with.

I wanted dolls to be a major focus, as she is really girly and likes to play with dolls. I made these felt dolls using the pattern from an amazing Brazilian website that has free patterns. Click here to view the pattern.

I made my own little dresses using felt and decorated them with beads and with small felt shapes. I put a tiny square of velcro on the dolls body in order to have the dresses stay more securely. I happened to just have the mini clothespins in my junk drawer, and was happy to find a good reason to use them.

Using this same pattern, I made a bed time doll, with interchangable nightgown, and a "mermaid doll" who lives under the sea.

Inside the pink castle is a removable mermaid doll I made using this pattern, from http://www.simplesimonandco.com/ Although their pattern is for a skirt applique, I used it to make a cute mermaid doll. Then, I added fish and strings with movable beads and pearls to play with.

This did not photograph as well, but I made removable ballerina dolls using another pattern from the Brazilian site. Untying the ribbon releases the dolls for play, and the felt birds are removable as well. I used glitter tulle for the skirt and hair bows for the dolls. 

I also wanted this book to have some educational value. I was inspired to make some counting cupcakes from this picture that I saw on a blog post. My cupcakes came out a little different, but still really cute. Each cupcake has a number with a corresponding number of bead "sprinkles" on top. 

 Using this pattern, I made ice cream cones with changeable scoop colors, and I also added buttons, felt shapes and wiggle eyes that could be used to decorate the ice cream scoops. 

Using patterns from Homemadebyjill.blogspot.com, I made a tree with interchangeable leaves. The pattern is here. 

I changed things up by adding seasonal pockets with different color leaves. The spring pocket (with flower applique) has pink leaves like a cherry tree. The fall pocket (with the jack'o'lantern) has autumnal colored leaves and the winter pocket has snowflakes that can be placed around the empty branches.

I pretty much stuck to the pattern for this barn, only adding a felt owl sticker in the barn that I found at Michaels. The pattern is by homemadebyjill.blogspot.com and can be found HERE.

This cute little barn opens up to finger puppets. I think this would be an awesome way to learn animals and animal sounds and I think I will be singing Old Macdonald when we look at this page. 

The crown here is a felt applique bought at the craft store. The butterflies were made using this template, but the flowers I purchased as precut felt shapes. I just made the cloud shape and then added ribbon so the butterflies could "fly" up and down the page. 

I wanted to do so much more with the apple page (I was planning on making worms but ran out of time, choosing instead to thread some yarn in and out of the apples using wood beads to act as the worm instead. This page also has a removable Snow White doll I made using this pattern, again from this fabulous Brazilian site. I made the apples using the template from this pattern for apple notebook huggers from www.dosmallthingswithlove.com

All in all I would say that my felt book experiment was pretty successful. I hope my niece enjoys it and I know that I enjoyed making it and will venture into making more books like these in the future.
I used the pages from an old Golden book that was falling apart to make my own gift wrap, which I think was a nice crafty touch.