'My creative space' Busy Book Pages (+ a tutorial)

Well it's been about a year since I last made some busy book pages so I've enjoyed making a few new ones this week to try and take my mind off the whole house selling process. Doing a bit of sewing for me is a bit like having a glass of wine- it does chill me out a bit! So here are my latest pages...

Marble Run

I saw this idea on pinterest a while ago-I  loved the idea of moving the marble between the layers of fabric to get to the end of the maze. Great for fine motor skills perhaps as well. My 3 year old especially loves this one. It was pretty easy to make too! Here's a quick tutorial...

You'll need 

* some fabric and/or felt

* a trick marker pen (also called an air dry pen as the ink eventually fades)- I got mine from Bernina

 ruler

* scrap pieces of felt for the red and blue arrows

* a marble

Cut out 2 squares of fabric (mine are about 25 cm each). I used felt for one piece so it wasn't too floppy, and a piece of this cool marbles fabric from Flowerpress Design.

Put wrong sides together and sew around, leaving a gap on one side to turn right sides out. Clip the corners without cutting the stitching!

Turn right sides out, poke out the corners with a chopstick and iron (don't iron on the felt side if using felt!)

Using your trick marker draw on the maze pattern, then sew over all the lines. Stitch a small arrow triangle at each end of the maze. Pop your marble into the gap where you turned the maze right sides out, then top stitch all the way around the maze to close the gap. 

And here are the other pages I made..

Linky chain

Another cool idea I saw on pinterest- strips of felt with velcro at both ends that you make a chain with. The red and grey strips are sewn onto the page and then you link up with the other strips. 

And every good busy book needs a fishing page...here's my version...

Under the Sea

The sea creatures are made out of felt with a paper clip between the layers of felt. The fishing rod is made with a piece of dowel and an eyelet screw at the top. I tied and glued on some embroidery thread at the top with a magnet at the other end and covered the magnet with a worm cut out of felt.

 

The fish bowl page to put the sea creatures into when you catch them (and a pocket for the fishing rod). So far these are the favourite pages from the ones I've made- kids sure do love a pretend fishing rod and magnet fish don't they, it feels like very other week Stella is bringing one home from her daycare!

 

And because the marble maze was fun to make and I had just enough marble fabric left I made another one to giveaway so leave a comment and I'll put you in the draw! 

Win Me!

To see more creative spaces, check out 'My Creative Space' hosted by Kootoyoo at Kidspot here

 Megan x

Christmas busy book pages

When I was teaching there were quite a few of us that made two lists on the board with "Must do's" and "Can do's"- generally on a Friday with tasks and activities that the children needed to get done and a few things they could do when finished.  I think I need to write one of those lists as I am really good at doing things on my "can do" list- crafting, making stuff, more crafting but not so good on the 'must do's"- cleaning, cooking and other jobs- as I'm sure a lot of you crafters can relate! I have quite a few things on my 'must do' list at the moment but instead of doing some of them last night I decided I really wanted to make some more busy book pages. My hubby actually asked when I was going to be finished with the busy book but I honestly can't imagine finishing it- I think of pages I would like to make all the time!  So here are my latest pages...

Page 1: Decorate the christmas tree with little felt ornaments and thread the ric-rac through the loops to make a garland 

Page 2: a zip pocket to store the felt decorations and four 'lift the flap' presents with pictures underneath (from the Maisy fabric I also used for my roll-up busy book). 

Right, better go and do a few 'must do's' now before Jack wakes up!

Megan x

My creative space: a roll up busy book

 

Isn't it great having crafty friends to get cool ideas from? My friend Krista gave me this idea to make a roll up busy book as she was making a neat panel style book for a little girl to play with in the car. So I thought I would make something similar for a 1 year old but make it so it can be laid out on the floor to play with and then rolled up when finished with. And other than cutting out the 8 squares for the book the whole thing only took just over an hour to sew together- I did do pretty simple pages though! I sewed the front four panels together and then the back four panels together, then placed the 2 panels right side to right side and sewed around the whole book leaving a small gap for turning right side out (and popping in a little yellow flap), then top stitched around it.

For the first page I appliqued some animal print fabric and added a felt flap...

A clip for the second page...

Some cute Maisy fabric for the third page with some beads to play with...

 
and some taggie ribbons for the last page (don't you love the Hungry Caterpillar fabric!)

Here are the fabrics I chose for the back- two from Roz of Squiltz thank you again Roz :)

And here it is all rolled up - I stitched velcro dots underneath the little flap to keep the book shut.

So if you are keen to make a busy book but are a little daunted about making heaps of pages then this is a great option! 

For more creative spaces, head on over here. 

Megan x