DIY: How to Sew a Quiet Book

What is a quiet book? A quiet book is a soft book typically made of fabric or felt full of interactive activities to help babies/toddlers learn and keep them preoccupied. I’m not sure whether it’s called a quiet book because the book is made of soft/quiet materials or if it makes your child stay quiet because they’re engaged… but either way, they are fun to make and to play with!

I had never heard of a quiet book until my sister tagged me in a Facebook video about one as a “subtle” hint to make for her then 1 year old daughter, my niece! So I had it in the back of my mind to make one for her and then ended up CRAM crafting the week before xmas to make it! I actually made this quiet book a whole YEAR ago, but it’s never too late to post about it! I’m really happy with how it all turned out!

This blog post will:

·        Go through my process of how I went about figuring out how to make a quiet book

·        Walk through how I created the individual pages and bound the book together, step-by-step. I’ll also include any helpful links as additional reference material!

DIY: Wall Art Christmas Tree

A video posted by Stephanie Woo (@fromwootoyou) on Dec 13, 2015 at 7:21pm PST

I was inspired to make this cute space-saving Christmas tree when I came across a version of it on Brit+Co.’s Snapchat channel, which by the way, is awesome and I can’t wait for it to come back on December 18! I didn't have any colorful paper on hand to use (aside from primary colored construction paper), but saw some holiday themed tissue paper for a whopping $2.99 at TJ Maxx so decided to give it a whirl and I think it turned out great!

DIY: Embroidered Cards

I know it's a little after Christmas, but I thought I'd share with you a quick tutorial on ways to sew your own cards! I embroidered some Christmas cards and one New Years card this year (inspired by Next to Nicx), but you could totally embroider cards for all occasions. I had this glorious plan to sew like 10 cards this year and I thought it was going to take no time, but the first one took me... pause... about 8 hours to complete
>.< ahh! (the one pictured above) I ended up giving it to my sister and her husband so I hope they frame it and keep it forever! So I quickly nixed that idea to make 10 cards and with such an elaborate design, figured out quicker ways to do it, and simplified it so each card afterwards ended up taking me about 30 min. each. Phew!

I don't have as many detailed photos as I usually do for my tutorials, but it's easy enough!

DIY: Bay Leaf Wreath

This easy DIY project was inspired by Make It and Love It and only took about 2 hours! It's very festive and perfect for this holiday season. I think what spurred this project along was mainly due to the crazy glue gun! This was the first time I used a glue gun for a project and that thing just spews out hot glue so I was working really fast so as not to waste a lot of the glue on the table. I'm happy with how it turned out!

Here is what you need to get started:

Materials:
- 1 packet of moss
- Bay leaves (I used 4 of those mini bags)
- Foam roll
- Fake berries
- Hot glue gun
- Newspaper (for the table)
- Wire cutters (not pictured)

Tip: When shopping for the bay leaves, I found that the regular spice aisle in grocery stores had bottles of bay leaves that were around $4/bottle for only 6 or 7 leaves! I went to Food Lion and went to the Hispanic food aisle and found mini bags of bay leaves for $0.50 each and most of the leaves were intact!