My "Pinspired" Quiet Book

I love Pinterest- I remember the day I stumbled upon it over a year ago while I was still teaching.  I immediately showed it to my students and shouted "It's the dream website!"  As a computer teacher, I was always saying I wish there was a way to save pictures without having to copy and paste them to a word document.  THIS IS THE DREAM!  Now as a stay at home mom, it's even more of a dream because it gives me tons of ideas of things to do whilst at home.  I have a friend who just wrote a hilarious post on her take of Pinterest, but my take is that it gives me a gillion ideas for me to be a more productive mom- especially since I moved from a ginormous metroplex to a tiny town where I have lots of extra time (and no chick-fil-a to meet friends at 3 times a week).

I've done lots of random things- from the endless lists of activities for toddlers, some home decor stuff and a number of failed recipes but my biggest project from Pinterest was a Quiet Book for my son.  I spend about 2 weeks worth of naps to complete it but he seems to like it- especially the buckle and the finger puppets.  I used this blog for most of my ideas because her pages were really clean and simple.  I also added a few things specific to what Brooks likes (sports).  Since it consumed about 20 hours of my life I "felt" like I needed to show it off.

Here is the cover- shout out to myself for making SIX button holes with my sewing machine!  I mustered up all my sewing skills from 6th grade home economics, read part of the manual and managed to figure it out.  

This page has velcro paint splotches which he can move around and take off (and eventually will be lost somewhere in our house or car).

 This page is obviously to help little guy start to learn his numbers and counting.  He just looks at it and shouts "Ball, Ball, Star" over and over while trying to rip them off the page.

 A little shape practice, again attached with velcro and the hope that they don't all get lost.

 A velcro puzzle- he doesn't care for his page.  It's one of my least favorite also; however, I was proud of myself for cutting the shapes out so they fit almost perfectly together.

 He is super into buckles, I should have done 4 buckles.  I would have had I known he would hook the buckle then drag the book to me so I can unhook it and he can buckle it again.  Side note- He buckles ALL of Caleb's stuff- bouncer, high chair, swing, carseat- whenever I go to put Caleb in anything I have to unhook them first.  It may be worth my time to spend an afternoon teaching him how to unhook them.

 The farm with 3 finger puppet animals.  Hands down, favorite page. Brooks says they are "broken" when he can't get them on his fingers.

 Color matching with snaps.  These snaps need to get broken in a bit, they are tough to take off and snap back on.

 Number matching- the numbers are attached to the string (so they wouldn't get lost).  I think he will like this page more later but right now he tries to pull the balls off and just tells me what they are "boot-ball", "rocker-ball", "bat-ball", and "basketball".

 This is a far off, but easy to make so I stuck it in there.

 I thought this page was cute, snaps to change the seasons (leaves and flowers are stuffed in the grass).

If I were to ever make one of these books again, I think it would turn out much nicer since there was definitely a learning curve with both the cover and a few of the pages.  It was fun to make because I like crafty stuff like this.  Again- Thanks to the lady at Pink Lemonade for templates and directions!