Touchy Feel Book

As promised I will now show you the full workings of the little book I put together for my hubby and little girl for their joint birthday celebrations. Here is the book:

The front, Wall-ah!

To get the wording on the material, I used freezer paper, glued it to a regular sized paper that would fit in my printer, then I ironed on the material to the freezer paper to hold it in place, and then printed away. . .

Because I decided to make it a soft flannel book, the ink smeared a little as it came out, but non- fuzzy type material shouldn't smear, if you decide to try something like this.

Then I sewed it into making a little cover for the book. Then the inside was a blank board book that I got from THIS website, I LOVE LOVE these books! And I think it is about time for me to order some more, I just can't enough of them!


Now for the inside, I have been feeling a little lazy today, so I am sorry for the pictures being the wrong direction, I just wasn't in the mood to rotate them, sorry!

In case you can't read it, or don't want to look sideways, it reads as follows:
"Are you my daddy? Your neck is too tall, you stand on four legs and you have spots all over...No, you must be a giraffe!" And then I super glued foam spotted squares.

 "Are you my daddy? Your arms are too short, you have big ears and a little tail behind you...No, you must be a mouse." Then I put foam on the ear and tail.

 "Are you my daddy? Your face is too round, you have a big belly, and your nose is a snout...No, you must be a pig!" I put foam on the nose of the pig.

"Are you my Daddy? You are too long and skinny, you have a long silly tongue and no arms or legs...No, you must be a snake! Then I put foam for the snake's tongue.

"Are you my daddy? You're ears are too pointy, your face is too long, and you have a long flowing tail just like my hair...No, you must be a horse! Then I glued soft yarn for the tails.

"Are you my daddy? Your teeth are too large, your feet are too stumpy, and your mouth too big...No, you must be a hippopotamus!" Then I put foam for the mouth.

"Are you my Daddy? Your back is too pokie, you walk on all four legs and you are just too little...No, you must be a porcupine! For this one I made little flaps of tap on the needle area of the porcupine, to give it texture, I wasn't sure how else to add "touchy feely" to this page :)

"Are you my Daddy? Your nails are too scratchy, your outsides are too soft, and you have long whiskers on your face...No, you must be a cat! Then I glued some soft fuzzy fur onto the cats.

"Are you my Daddy? No! You are too much like my Mommy!"

"That's my DADDY! His love is just right, and his hugs so tight. His loving hare is always near, he brings me peace, not fear. No Daddy matches me better than mine, yep, that's right,

That's my Daddy!"

And they both love it! I love making specialized personal books for my family! So much fun!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Next week I will show more details of how I made Addie's pillow pet from a regular teddy bear (and if you look closely, it is actually the bear in the background of this last picture!) And if I have time then next week I might also share all our Christmas decoration goodies! I love this time of year, it's SO fun to go crazy with the decorations! :)

Until next time!!

-Whitney

Birthday Blis!

My handsome hubby had his birthday for the year, so here are some goods I put together for him on this blessed occasion. Since my little girl's birthday is exactly a month apart from my hubby, and we were greatly honored to have the presence of his parents for the weekend too, we did a party for the both of them!

 Michael's parents brought his childhood Legos as an early treat so we can play with them now, and then Addie can join us when she isn't in the "put EVERYTHING in her mouth" stage. So with a little bit of a Lego theme, I made Lego shaped cakes! I know, I know they look horrible, and well...just WEIRD looking, but like they say, practice makes perfect, and I still need lots of practice in the cake realm! I heard that marsh mellows work really great for the top, but I didn't feel like running to the store at the time, so I just used some extra part of the cake, so they turned out super weird, I know. Then to accommodate my mother-in-law's health, and trying to not give my little girl too much sugar, too early in her life, I use the carrot cake recipe and sugar free cream cheese frosting recipe from THIS website. The only added "sweetener" was from applesauce and apple juice, and it turned out pretty yummy if I don't say so myself! :)

 Then my poor hubby had to work on his actual birthday, so I made him these fun little "time passer" cards. I made a card for every hour that he would be at work, and at that hour he could read another card, on the back I put cheesy birthday jokes or facts, or something I adore about him. It was a fun way to let him know I am still thinking about him on his special day, even if it had to be spent mostly at work.

 And of course I mustin forget the decorations! And we had to get a helium balloon for Addie, EVERY TIME we go to the store and she sees those floating up above she will laugh or smile or try and reach for them, so it was very fitting to get!

 Then for a fun, memory capturing present, I put together the hand picture. The easiest sentimental present I've ever made. I just got my little girls hand and put mine on top of our scanner, and pressed "copy" and wall-ah! Any easy picture that captured my little girl's hand, the hardest part was making sure she didn't move too much. I saw this brilliant idea in my pinetrest scanning one day and couldn't resist trying it out, and this was probably my husband's favorite gift by far!

 Then I got him some olive oil for giving blessings, he was getting low on his supply.

 The poor guy keeps trying to wear shorts to bed for pajamas, and it is FREEZING at night, so I got him some long PJ pants!

 Then also repaired his camel pack bag upon his request as a birthday gift,

 Along with repairing his messenger bag, he was excited to have them all ready for school soon!

 Then he got an atomic watch from his parents and. . .

 A fun little armor statue thing for the "Whole Armor of God" parable, also from his parents.

 Then my real work of birthday preparations was put to the test in making this little book, which I will share in more detail in my next post. This was sort of a joint present, a fun book that he can read to little Addie, and it is a "touchy feely" book, which she LOVES!

 Then for Addie's presents, we got her this fun bike/walking scooter thing, she loves being able to get around the house even more effectially than just wall and couch surfing!

 And of course I had to put all the presents in a big fun box, cuz boxes are always so fun to be in!

 Then Michael's parents got her this fun little doll house that makes sound effects for the door bell, telephone, bath tube, washing machine, and of course the toilet!

 Michael also got her this fun toy lion from work for free (yeah!), it makes fun sound effects too! Then I also made her a pillow pet, seen above, which I will also share details on in a near future post!

It was a great fun day, celebrating my two most favorite people in the whole world! I am so blessed to have such gems in my life!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Since I didn't post last week due to Thanksgiving busy-ness, I will post twice this week, lucky you! :)

Until next time!

ABC Book

As planned, I have finally finished my ABC book (months and months long past due!), but it isn't just any ABC book, it is also a family picture pocket book. I painted the letters for each page and then made clear pockets to slide pictures into it of family members that start with that letter of the Alphabet. I also backed the pictures with old cereal boxes cardboard for extra support and then contact papered them, so if my little girl so chooses to pull the pictures out of the pockets and chew on them (because at her stage EVERYTHING goes to the mouth), they will hopefully still stay mostly in tack!

This book will be a fun and multi-tasking sort of book for my girl to be familiar with the alphabet and different words that relate to certain words along with being familiar with our family members, especially since we live far away from most of them. I hoping it will help her not be totally in the dark at how many mounds of family she has and how wonderful they all are. So with this little intro, now to show you the final works, drum roll. . . . .

 For the blocks on the front cover, I printed these pictures onto regular material with my regular old printer, in the same way I printed words onto my quilted storage boxes in THIS venture. Then I sewed the cloth onto the book. I also put some extra quilting batter and cardboard from old cereal boxes in the cover to give it some nice firmness and the likes.

 For the buttons I cut them from an old pair of jeans

 Along with this pocket. I put the pocket on the back to store the extra pictures that wouldn't fit in all the picture pockets at the same time (cuz let me tell you, there are TONS of pictures, because we got TONs of family! :)

 See how they fit in there so nicely :) I also sewed on some Velcro to close it nicely and keep pictures from falling out.

 Then I made the pages, Red, Yellow, and Blue (yep the lovely primary colors, so she can work on colors too! This is a very multi tasker book!) I painted the letters with a stencil I made in the same way I made the wording on my lovely hubby's Father's day tie in THIS venture. And the pockets I glued on with liquid stick (because I tried to sew them on, it was a pain, because my machine's foot kept getting caught on the plastic, ugh. So yeah for easy liquid stick!)

 For my family's own privacy I am only showing examples from just our smaller family and . . .

 letters that don't have family members names for them. I am not sure what kind of name you could get with an "X", but I really wouldn't be surprised that there are many names that start with an X, just not in my family, so we get to use the Xylophone! :)

 Then for "Y" I put a little mirror, for "YOU!" isn't that cleaver!?

 And last but not least, I had to show pictures of my little girl enjoying the book. . .

She LOVES books, so she better love this one, because I put a TON of time into it! (the ironic thing with this picture is she is actually crying, she was ready for a nap when I tried to get these pictures, and she just wasn't in the mood to "enjoy" her new book, but she better enjoy it sometime, or else. . . . I will be very sad :(

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to come join me again next week for another fun post! It is amazing how much more time I have on my hands now that I am not posting near as much, so I have been working on lots of goodies. Next weeks post will be on these lovely storage boxes I put together for my girl's toys, and they are a little different than the quilted boxes, so come by and see how they all turned out!

Until next time!. . . .

Books Part IV

On this "we-flecting" Wednesday, I thought I would share some books that I made in the past little while.

The first book we made when we were engaged. I had to make a children's book for a class, so we put this together and made it in a way that we could share it with our children. The second book I made for Michael for Father's day last year while I was still pregnant with our little girl. I hope you can read them, and I hope you enjoy!

Sorry if you couldn't really read them because of my lacking picture taking skills. But hope you enjoyed. The second book I also made with poster board and cut it down to smaller book size and then both of them I covered with contact paper to give a more durable seal to last through our little kiddos. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and until next time!

Oh and P.s. my sister sent me some adorable pics of things that she made for her hubby for fathers day, I will try to put them up tomorrow, if not then maybe Friday. If you have any fun father day stuff you put together, I would love to see how it went for the man on his big day, and it would be fun to share here how it all went too! Anyway, until next time! Thanks for coming by!