Awesome Quiet Busy Book Ideas

Quiet Busy Books are great gifts for pre-schoolers. The books themselves can be made out of many things pillowcases, to felt and other fabrics. The idea behind these books is learning through activity. The books are all made up of many parts. Parents and grandparents are encouraged, to use these books with the child to build bonds through stories and learning. I have made a number of these books as gifts for friends and family. They are time consuming, if you just start out so allow a long time to complete your book. If you want to know more about a Quiet Busy Book then read on.

Table of Contents

What Is A Quiet Busy Book?

It is made from any strong durable fabric, felt, upholstery fabric or even pillow cases.
The book contains various additions like buttons, bows, ribbon, string, and any other items that challenge, and encourage learning.
The idea is to have a soft fabric book, sewn together ( some people hot glue it together) to make a floor play book, or a smaller sit on the lap book.
The contents can really be anything from colours, numbers, alphabet, shapes, closing and opening, picking up and putting down, matching etc

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What do you need to start your book?

I usually decide on how many pages my quiet busy book is going to have. I then draw the page layout on a piece of paper, number the pages as that will be how they fit in my final book. I then write the idea I have for the page, on the page, this gives me an idea of what the contents are going to look like. I reinforce each page with iron on vilene, this makes sewing on it easier. You will need some bias binding to join the pages, and some nice child orientated cotton fabric, as an inner cover for your quiet busy book. I made my own bias binding from the fabric I lined the cover with. You can see what works the best for you. There is no right or wrong, this is just how I do it. You Tube has a lot of people who make this a business and they have lots of good ideas and tips and tricks to produce them quickly.

Prepare your ideas as per above.
Decide on the overall size of your quiet busy book. A large book will be a floor book, an A4 size will be a lap book.
Source your main fabric for the books pages. I usually use sheeting. I purchase a white flat sheet to cut into pieces. I have also used calico curtain lining and that also works very well.
Time to think of a sturdy fabric for the cover. I have used curtaining and upholstery fabric off cuts. The curtaining fabric still needs re in forcing so you can sew on it. The furnishing upholstery fabric does not need anything to make it firmer.
Cut your pages as double single sided pages, just as you drew them out. ( see my images)
Cut the cover about 2cm all the way around bigger that your double width (2 pages) page.
You will need a sewing machine if you are going to sew it together, hand sewing thread and needles, various items to use inside the book, velcro is essential, zips and buttons help with closures.

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Some of the quiet busy book covers I have made, all are different and all were made with upholstery fabric.

Essential elements in a quiet busy book.

Lot of bright colours in fabrics, buttons, felt etc
Secure small parts well and always put a note on the inside of the cover to take care, small parts.
Choose activities suitable for the child’s age. Very young, then include sensual pages with fur, felt, fabric, sequins, rough leather, smooth vinyl ect. Older children enjoy matching games, counting, buttons and zips. All children like finger puppets and songs. I have used nursery rhymes, songs, fairy tales to create finger puppet stories.
Teaching children to observe and find, associate shape and colour, count and follow paths like string puzzles, build puzzles or pictures, and just have fun doing it, makes these quiet busy books the best gift ever.

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Where to find ideas and pictures you can use for your quiet busy book.

I use colouring in book images which you can find in colouring in books or download off the internet.

Go to your search engine, type in colouring pages and select images. It will bring up a whole lot of pictures which you can click on and download free or even just right click on the image and select save as.
Packets of bright colourful themed buttons are available online, and are very pretty and colourful. Just do a search for childrens buttons on Amazon.
Foam sheets or cut outs, Ribbons and Washy tape can provide colour and add to the pages of the quiet busy book.
Felt is an absolute must, there are a lot of felt ideas on You Tube. One of my favourite people to follow for ideas is DIY Busy Books, she is focused on making separate pages which you choose to put in your book. She provides free templates as well as costs on making.
Try include things you think are important for the child to learn, colours, shapes, numbers and maybe alphabet.
Matching is also important for the older little ones, their quite busy books should be suited to their age.
I spy is wonderful, you simply sew a large circle of vinyl clear plastic (I use the plastic cover my pillows came in) and fill it with interesting foamies ( purchase in craft and pound stores) and buttons, beads, sequins and even letters and numbers.

What is the best way to put the quiet busy book together?

Hand sew using strong thread ( I use three strands of embroider thread) and achor it all very well as children play with them.
Double up the felt to make it strong and durable. Buy a soft wool mix felt as it feels nice and is easy to sew.
Use machine sewing to sew on the velcro (DO NOT USE SELF STICKING… It does not stick and you can’t sew through it easily)
Plan page by page, leave space around the edge of the page as it will be sewn onto it’s backing partner with bias tape. Freely change your ideas as you often find things that are nicer to use for your project.
I sew my cover first, I use colourful thread and sometimes even the embroidery stitches on my machine with multi coloured Gutermann thread. The size of the cover governs the sizes of my pages.
Each piece of fabric you cut for pages should do 2 pages, once you have cut your fabric apply some medium iron on vilene to the back of each piece. Then fold it in half for your two pages and press the centre line. do a running stich down this line so you know where the center line is.
When working on a page, remember that if it is a right hand side page you need to leave a bit of space to the right centre for folding and other pages when it id thicker ten to make it hard to open completely flat. On the left hand side page leave a bit of space on the left near the centre line for the same reason.
Once you have completed all your pages, put two pieces back to back, so you have a piece with two pages on the front and one with two pages on at the back of it. Wrong sides together pin and attach bias binding around the page. To sew the bias binding on I usually open it up and sew it on first the flip the rest over the edge and use a fancy stitch on my machine to sew it down. I tend to sew the long edges first, always start on the same side so you don’t pull the pages like a trapezium. The sew the binding on the side edges of your quiet busy book pages in the same way.
Time then to layer your pages and sew then into your quiet busy book cover. Lie your first page into your book, make sure the page you want as the first page and last page are both face down on the cover. Pin or clip securely and sew at least two rows of straight stitching down the center line. I usually use a stitch length 3 as it sews through the layers easily. Check each page for turning as you sew.
Repeat the above process for your other pages the last page should have the center pages of your book at the top. Once this is sewn your quiet busy book should be all together and complete.

Feel free to make the special book a special bag. I know from what I have seen that these books get used by more that the child it was originally made for as they last and last.