A while back I picked up a beat-up fabric book at the thrift store for 75 cents because it had a great 5.5″ circular mirror in it. I knew I wanted to cut that out and add it to Jax’s quiet book. Since he is a huge fan of brushing his teeth (he signs asking to do it, then hums the song I made up for him to brush to) I had to do a sink scene!

The toothpaste and brush are attached by a ribbon inside the cup. The toothpaste tube actually slides on its ribbon and makes a crinkly noise. The toothpaste swirl is at the end of the ribbon so you can put it on the toothbrush. I didn’t want it separate or it would get lost. The water in the sink is a bluish vinyl from my scrap stash layer over aqua felt and the running water is a bunch of blue and white ribbon scraps.

Here’s what I used: checkerboard printed felt background, kid-safe mirror cut from an old book, felt (in pink, aqua, sky blue, lavender, orange, red, blue, gray and white), ribbons and ric-rac, batting/stuffing, a crinkly cereal bar wrapper and embroidery thread to match.

My pattern doesn’t include the counter or sink shapes since everyone’s pages are different sizes. Depending on what size mirror you are able to rind, freehand it to what fits your layout best.

I did all the sewing by hand on this page (sewing machine time is rare in my house!) To start, I sewed down the counter, sink and mirror. I sewed the hot/cold stripes on the faucet knobs and sewed them down (you could make yours circles with buttons and have them turn if you want to get fancy!) I sewed the bottom 3/4 of the faucet on, then folded down the top. I folded a variety of ribbon scraps in half and stitched them into a bunch. I sewed them down under the fold of the faucet then stitched the edge down.

Next was the cup. I sewed down the inner cup piece. I made a smiley face on the tooth and sewed it to the cup front. I sewed the handle pieces together and pinned them in place. I took a long ribbon – long enough for both the toothpaste and toothbrush – and folded it in half. I stitched the mid-point down under where the cup would go. Then I just sewed the cup front on, leaving the top open to make the pocket.

On the toothpaste, I sewed the teeth and stars to the front piece. I cut a piece of crinkly wrapper (mine was a Trader Joe’s cereal bar) to fit in the tube and put it and one of the halves of the ribbon in between the two sides. I sewed along the sides of the tube and along the bottom, but left a gap in the bottom-middle so the ribbon could slide. At the top, I sewed the grey cap pieces to each side of the toothpaste tube, then sewed them into a tube around the ribbon. At the end of the ribbon, I sewed the two halves of the toothpaste. I may add a stripe of glitter paint to the toothpaste if I have a color that works.

For the toothbrush, the toothpaste bristles were sewn together then decorated with long stitches. I layered them between the two handle pieces along with some batting with the ribbon sandwiched at then and sewed it together.

Do you like it? Jax sure does! He keeps looking in the mirror and saying “Baby!”

If you use this pattern, leave me a comment with a link so I can check your version out!

I’ve been so super busy between work and starting Jax’s Halloween costume, plus starting to get ready for our California trip in two weeks. I’ve also sewn a bunch of his quiet book  pages into their final double-sided pages with grommets. So much to do! But today I got another page done at last!

I love the beads-on-a-string style counting pages that are common in quiet books, and when I came across these ocean life beads in the kids’ craft aisle of Joanns, I knew I had my theme.

It’s a pretty simple page in terms of cutting and sewing because the beads are so crazy.

Here’s what I used: aqua felt background, felt (in natural, lime, yellow, hot pink, blue, orange, purple and browns), blue ribbon, ocean beads and embroidery thread to match.

I started by sewing down the sand. My page is 9″ wide. If yours is different, you’ll need to adjust the sand pattern accordingly. You can totally just freehand it!

I sewed down all the numbers then went back with pale blue floss and did a stem stitch border around them to make them pop.

On the coral, I made large French knots randomly all over instead of sewing it down normally. For the plant, I stitch down the center of each leaf. I sewed down the starfish, then cut out some pebble shapes in tan and brown and sewed them on.

For the counting beads, I used 3 lengths of ribbon. I would sew down one end, add the beads and sew down the other end. I also sewed the ribbons into separate sections so they didn’t droop. I then cut out some bubble shapes and sewed them down over all the ribbon stitching.

All done! I think Jax is going to love this page because he gets so excited when he sees these beads.

What do you think? If you use this pattern, leave me a comment with a link so I can check your version out!