When a treasure chest was requested on the Facebook page, all kinds of ideas started popping into my mind. Maybe I went a bit overboard, but I’m not one to craft something halfway!

This page engages a lot of skills: tying a ribbon (on the map), unlocking a lock (on the chest) and pulling things in/out (the bottle and treasure.)

To make this page I used:
Aqua blue background felt (two 9″ squares), tan felt cut to look like sand, felt (in natural, light brown, brown, dark brown, light blue, burgundy, green, tan, gray, black and white), clear vinyl, gold trim, ribbons, sew-on gems/pearls, a luggage lock and embroidery floss.

     

Background:
Very simple – just cut out some tan felt in gentle slopes to make the sandy ground. Make sure the pages line up, though! I actually just pinned my “Sand” in place at the beginning and sewed the other elements down over top. At the end, I went back and stitched down the “sand” wherever it wasn’t caught under something else. That saved me a lot of time because I was hand-stitching on the couch.

Message in a Bottle:
To make a “message”, cut two skinny rectangles out of white felt. Make sure they are narrower than the neck of your bottle. Write the word you want on one of them (preferably in a pattern pen), then embroider it. I wrote Jax’s name, but you could write “help!” I used stem stitch and dark brown floss. Cut a piece of ribbon about twice the length of your bottle and sew the two cork pieces onto one end (sandwich the ribbon.) Sew the matching circles onto the other end of the ribbon in the same way.

Pin the light blue bottle piece in place, then sew the top and bottom down. Sandwich the ribbon, cork side up, in between that and the clear vinyl bottle piece. Sew the sides and part of the bottom on a machine (it’s tough the hand-sew vinyl) according to the pattern, letting the ribbon go through the top and bottom holes.

With the cork down in place, make note of where you want your message to be. Pull the ribbon up and sandwich the message pieces around the ribbon. Pin and test that the message fits through the bottle neck (trim if needed.) Sew the message pieces in place, making sure to catch the ribbon on both sides so it doesn’t slide.

Map:
Transfer the map path to the top piece of the map, or pin the pattern down and stitch through the paper. (If you do this, as I did, you’ll need to cut away the paper afterwards and pull bits out of the stitching. Annoying, but my stitches came out very even.) Sew down each map element using the photos as a guide. The boat mast is sewn in dark brown stitching. The skull’s eyes/nose are stitched on in black since they were so tiny. I stitched some blue-green waves around the boat and sharks to show water. Once everything is on the map, sew the front to the back.

Roll up the map and figure out where you want it on the page. Take a length of ribbon and lay it under the rolled up map so that it will be centered behind where the map is. Stitch the ribbon to the page with a couple stitches to the center. Unroll the map and lay it so the center of the ribbon is 1″ from the right edge of the map. Sew the map to the page in a straight line 1″ from the edge. You should be able to roll it up from the left afterwards and tie it with the ribbon.

Flag:
Sew one skull & crossbones to each flag piece if you want a two-sided flag. I actually only put it on the front. The eyes on this one are little bits of felt I cut out and stitched down. Sew the two sides together along the top, right and bottom. Pin it on the page and sew down the flag pole over top.

Treasure Chest:
Sew the dark brown inner chest piece down to the page. To make the pocket, embellish the pocket piece with gold trim. I used a 1/4″ ribbon with an 1/8″ trim on either side to make two vertical bands. I sewed a loop of ribbon that the lock will hang on and pinned it hanging down from the center top of the pocket piece. I sewed gold ribbon along the top, holding the loop in place. Sew the pocket piece down to the page along the left, bottom and right.

Embellish the top piece of the chest lid in the same way as the pocket, but have the ribbon along the bottom instead of the top. The lid’s ribbon loop should also hang down. Sew the front and back of the chest lid together then sew it to the page along the top, starting where it starts to curve.

This part is optional/changeable. I used sew-on gems and a few plastic pearls to add some spilled treasure around the chest. If you are concerned about choking hazards, omit them or cut out little felt shapes instead. I triple-stitched mine on and Jax does not play with his quiet book alone.

Treasure:
I didn’t include a pattern for this. If you have some play gold coins and necklaces, you could just put those in. You could also cut out circles of gold felt to make your own coins. I made my treasure all one piece for now. I used gold glitter foam and cut out a rough shape of a pile of gold and a crown. Leaving the sticky back paper on, I stitched some on jewels and bits of Mardi Gras beads I cut up from the dollar store. Then I peeled of the backing (ripping it around my stitching) and stuck it to the back of another piece of glitter foam (with the backing off.) I cut around the second piece of foam to match and was done! The glitter sticks a bit when you pull it out of the chest due to the roughness of the glitter, but it works fine.

The lock I have is not the one I want to use permanently. It’s just one I already had. I’d like to find a gold tone one. Once I have the one I will use for real, I’ll sew a ribbon to the edge of the page and attach the key. Jax is too young for the lock still, anyway.

Hope you enjoy this pattern! You could certainly use bits and pieces of it since there is a lot of elements. If you sew this page, I’d love to see it! Leave a comment here or post a photo on the Facebook page!

This dump truck was designed to go along with the forklift page I created by request. Since I wrote “Up & Down” on the forklift, I wanted to do another set of opposites on the matching page. A dump truck with “In & Out” sounded perfect!

To make this page I used: green background felt, felt (in brown textured, light blue, gray, gold and black), 3 buttons, 1 grommet, 1 snap, ribbons and embroidery floss.

I started by free-hand cutting out the ground. I set the page beside the forklift while I cut so the ground matched up. I sewed it down when it was done. I then pinned down all the truck parts except the dumpster. That way I knew everything was centered correctly on the page before I began to sew.

I sewed the steering wheel down with it layered on top of the light blue window. Then I layered the gold truck cab over top and sewed it down. I never had to sew the light blue at all. Next I sewed the gray truck bed/bumper down.

The wheels on this page don’t turn because I wanted to have that curving part on them (sorry, I don’t know car parts!) I pinned the wheels down then attached then with a button in the center. I then sewed the gold curves down over the top. The bottom of the wheel is loose, but doesn’t turn.

My next step was to cut out two sides of a dirt pile shape. I free-handed it and just made sure it was narrower than the dumpster. With one end of an ~8″ ribbon sticking out of one side, I sewed the halves together. I then sewed the dumpster into a pocket with the other end of the ribbon caught it the upper left corner. I marked on the pattern where I sewed the dumpster with a dashed line.

To attach the dumpster, I added a grommet in the lower left corner, a snap in the upper right (put the other half where it lines up on the page) and sewed a button through the grommet hole. To keep the dumpster from spinning all the way around, I sewed a scrap of ribbon to the back and attached it to the page. You can see it peaking out in the photos.

       

The final step was sewing the lettering. I actually just sewed right through the pattern paper then cut it away. Nice and quick! I used stem stitch.

This page goes with the forklift page I made by special request. Stop by the Facebook page if you’d like to make a suggestion. For more quiet book pages click here.

This quiet book page is a special request. If you have a request, leave comment on my Facebook page and I’ll see what I can do.

     

I knew nothing about forklifts when I started this page, so I had to look at a lot of pictures and figure out how to simplify it down. The basic mechanism on this page is a strip of felt matching the background that a sleeve of clear vinyl slides up and down on. The vinyl gave me a place to sew down the forklift platform and some snaps to attach the pallet and boxes. I added spinning wheels, numbers and the words “Up & Down” to add to the educational elements.

Here is what I used: a 9″ square dark green felt background, felt (in dark green, brown pebble texture, gold, light blue, tan, natural, gray and black, clear vinyl, green ribbon, sew-on snaps, two grommets, two buttons and embroidery thread. I sewed this page by hand, with the exception of sewing it down to the actual page.

I started by pinning everything down to get placement (don’t pin into vinyl – it leaves holes) then sewed down the light blue window the gray steering wheel and the brown ground (cut that out freehand.) Take your strip of felt that matches your background (dark green in my case) and sew the gray bar along the left side. Pin it in place on the page then sew down the gold cab of the forklift. It will overlap the bottom of the gray bar. You can then sew down the bottom of the background strip.

To make the wheels, cut them out just outside of the circle template using pinking shears. Insert a grommet into each wheel and sew a button to the page through the grommet hole. The wheels will be able to spin around but will be held in place by the buttons.

To make the sleeve for the forklift mechanism, start by sewing the gold forklift platform to one piece of clear vinyl. See the pattern and photos for placement. Sew down some snaps for the pallet and boxes to attach to. Sew a loop of ribbon to the top center and another to the bottom center. Place the second piece of vinyl behind the first and sew them together along the sides only. Slide the sleeve onto the background strip then sew down the top of the strip to keep it in place. You should be ale to slide it up and down to look like the forklift is lifting.

For each of the crates, I freehand stitched the numbers to the front and a snap to the back, then sewed the two sides together. For the pallet I sewed a line across the front to add dimension, sewed a snap to the back, then sewed the two sides together. I added more snaps to the ground to give the crates and pallet somewhere to go when they aren’t on the forklift. (I ended up using 1.5 small snap sets per crate and 1.5 medium snaps for the pallet.)

The final embellishment was the words embroidered at the top. To transfer the writing, I pinned my pattern down and basted over each latter with one strand of thread. I left 2″ tails at the end of each letter instead of knotting. I then cut the paper away from each letter and puled off the remaining bits. This left me with a basted pattern to stitch over using stem stitch. When I was done, I pulled out the basting threads, clipping them wherever they were caught in the embroidery.

I am currently working on a dump truck that will be the other side of the two page spread. I think they’ll be really cute together!

Let me know i you use this pattern. I’d love to see your version!

I finally have another quiet book page done! First there was vacation, then working to make up lost hours, Thanksgiving and a bad cold. And there went November!

There’s nothing super original or crazy about this page, but it was one I wanted to include. “Mail” was one of Jax’s first words thanks to the mail song on Blue’s Clues. I have to give a shout out to Handmade By Jill, as her mail page was the first I came across.

     

Here is what I used: a 9″ x 9″ sky blue felt background, felt (in light gray, dark gray, red, brown, white, and assorted colors for the envelopes), ribbons and ric-rac, buttons, 1 grommet, Velcro and thread to match.

To make the page: I stared by sewing the two sides of the red flag together. I installed a grommet at the end – the same kind I use on the finished pages. I then sewed the lettering down onto the side of the mailbox. Placing the flag where I wanted it, I sewed on a button through the grommet hole. This lets the flag move just like on a real mailbox. To make the mailbox door, I sewed the two sides together with a loop of ribbon at the top. You could use elastic as well. I sewed the brown stake to the page, followed by the dark gray mailbox interior (the dashed line on the pattern shows where I sewed a decorative line to add dimension to the inside). I sewed the top, back and bottom of the outside of the mailbox down leaving the front open to put the letters in. To finish the page, I sewed down the bottom of the mailbox door and attached a button above it.

The mail is a blast to make! Get out your ribbon and ric-rac stash and  have some fun! I used my sewing machine for them and had to rush. Please excuse the shoddy stitching in my example – I was actually nursing at the same time!

     

     

To make the envelope: Fold the envelop flap over and stitch beside the fold to set it in place (felt doesn’t fold well on its own.) Sew a piece of Velcro on the inside of the flap and decorate the outside with a scrap of ribbon or felt. Fold the envelope body up to find where the other half of the Velcro should be, the sew it on. Cut a little rectangle of white felt with your pinking shears. Sew it on as the stamp with a scrap of ribbon or felt. I used ribbon and folded under each end. Cut some ribbon or ric-rac and position it where the address would be. Sew it down. Fold the envelope back up and sew around the sides and bottom. All done!

To mail a letter: Sew ribbons or ric-rac down on the bottom half of the white felt rectangle. Fold the whole thing in half and sew along all four sides and trim it to neaten it up. I just did two ribbons on each, but you could go crazy!

  

I hope the pattern is helpful! This page came out very cute thanks to the mail. I had to stop myself after 5 letters because the mailbox was getting too full! If you use this pattern, I’d love to see your end result. I hope you’ll share it with me!