Daily Archives: March 24, 2012

Sandcastle Quiet Book Page

Do you want to make and sell items from this pattern? Commercial licenses are available!

Sandcastle Quiet Book Page

Our latest quiet book page is another beach themed one for our upcoming vacation. Jax is thrilled with it and couldn’t wait to try it out. It is a very simple page featuring sandcastle parts you can build into any structure you’d like, then store away in the bucket.

Here is what I used for this page: the pattern, natural-colored background felt, felt (in natural, tan, brown, medium green, lime green, white, aqua, pink, hot pink, violet, orange and yellow), a scrap of white tulle, white mini ric-rac and seaside buttons (from the craft store – left over from my iSpy page.)

Bucket: Sew the two layers of your handle together. Lay the bucket pieces onto the background and decide how you’d like it to be. I wanted mine to be buried in the sand at an angle. Pin the bottom layer of the bucket to the page, and sew it down across the top. Cut out a scrap of natural felt to be the sand the bucket is buried in and pin it to the top layer of the bucket. Sew across the top of the sand piece to attach it to the bucket front. Pin the bucket front and handle to the page, layering the right side of the handle under all bucket layers. Sew the left side of the handle to the bucket front layer. Sew through both bucket layers down the sides, then sew around the sand on the bottom, making a large pocket that goes from the top of the bucket to the bottom of the sand.

Ocean: Cut a wavy aqua piece of felt to fit in the upper left corner of the left page. Sew it down. Cut a strip of white tulle and a length of white mini ric-rac long enough to follow the ocean’s edge. Pin it down to the edge, twisting it randomly along the way. Sew small stitches through both the tulle and the ric-rac – just enough to hold it down but not totally smush it. Add shell and starfish buttons if you’d like.

Sandcastle: Cut small brown rectangle to use as windows, and sew them to the fronts of the castle segments. Decorate all the fronts. For the starfish, I sewed it down then added a star burst of straight stitches in the center. For the shell, I stitched a spiral. For the door, I only sewed it down across the bottom, and I added a little crab button underneath. I added some leftover shell buttons to some pieces. Sew all your flags together. Layer them between the roof pieces when you sew the two sides together. Sew all fronts to backs, then you are done!

Jax wouldn’t let me put this page away after I showed it to him. He wanted to keep playing with it, and started making castles for his little wooden farm animals. I’d say this page was a success!

Link-o-rama!

Happy spring!

How do you normally deal with clothes shopping for your little ones? Last fall I started doing one main shopping purchase for Jax’s wardrobe, then I filled in the holes with any clearance or thrift store finds I come across. We did Old Navy for his autumn clothes while they had a $6 sale on long sleeve shirts. This spring I did a Target.com order to get him some 2T shirts and shorts. The shirts were all $4 – $7, the hoodie $12 and the adjustable-waist cargo shorts were $9 each. At the store, we added the orange hat and green clogs.

I like to choose a basic color pallet for him each season to make the bulk of my purchases go together. This spring I chose bright colors (especially orange, yellow and green) and gray and denim for neutrals. Jax is starting to have opinions on his clothes and he loves the really bright ones. He is in love big time with the yellow robot shirt and green shoes. He really likes the sew turtle polo as well – my love of sea turtles is rubbing off on him!

I still need to find him some comfy sandals in gray, and some thrift store jeans to cut off into more shorts (store bought jean shorts are so pricey!) Don’t even get me started on my wardrobe (or lack there of)… I need a money tree before I could hope to fix that situation!

Here are some links we’ve come across recently:

  • 10 ways to dye Easter eggs. When did you start dying eggs with your toddler? Is 2 too young?
  • Here are 12 DIY jewelry organizer ideas…
  • Abacuses in the nursery. I recently bough a large one for $1.75 at the thrift store. I was only going to paint the frame red, but now I might paint the beads after seeing these!
  • Here’s a little trick for staying clean as popsicle season approaches!
  • I love this DIY suitcase dollhouse. You could also make the rooms into a quiet book.
  • Here’s how you make your own fabric buttons without a kit.

My next quiet book page is all done and waiting for me to get sewing machine time today so I can sew the page together and take pictures. Keep an eye out for a post later today!