Quiet Book Week - Lehi's Vision {Template}

This is another story some of you may not be familiar with as it's found in the Book of Mormon.


Here's the super quick, summarized version. Lehi is a prophet who has a dream/vision.  In this dream he sees a tree with fruit on it, he takes the fruit and eats it and it's delicious and he wants his family to eat it as well.  He searches for them and sees them coming to him, finding their way by clinging to an iron rod.  Also in the distance is a large and spacious building where people are mocking them for eating this fruit.  The fruit represents the love of God and the iron rod represents the word of God, meaning the scriptures will lead you to God.  This is a ridiculously simplified version and you really should go read the entire account.

For the page I included Lehi holding some fruit and his son, Nephi on the iron rod.  In the distance you can see the large and spacious building.

The fruit is stuffed with batting and snaps off the tree.  Lehi slides along the iron rod that's simply made out of ribbon.  I wouldn't have minded using a more iron rod coloured ribbon but I didn't have anything and wasn't willing to purchase it for such a small amount.

One thing I wish I had done differently was to add three snaps to the tree so the fruit could either be in Lehi's hand or on the tree.  Also the iron rod could have been placed up a little higher, Nephi's legs are always hanging out of the book (I think Nephi's hair looks like a slice of bread, not something I think needs changing it just makes me chuckle).


Here's your daily template

If you've missed the previous pages you can check them out using the links below
Tips for Working with Felt 
Noah's Ark
David & Goliath
Ammon Protects the Sheep
Put on the Armour of God

And don't worry, at the end of the series I'll give you a file with all the titles and references.

So tomorrow we'll break for What Catie Wore Wednesday and then on Thursday I'll show you the last page, my favourite, Jonah and the Whale. 

Quiet Book Week - Put on the Armour of God {Template}

Are you enjoying Quiet Book Week?  I'm loving sharing my pages with you.  This next one is one of my favourites, sadly Catie is a little young to enjoy it but I'm hoping she'll show an interest soon.

Here's my little dressed up man.

Without his armour he looks like this, the different pieces fit inside a pocket on the left.

 

This page is two activities in one, you can dress up the little knight like a paper doll or you can match the shapes of his armour to the outline.  I embroidered around each piece and then added the name of what each represents.

There are lots of places in the scriptures where you can find the reference to the Armour of God but I've chosen to use the one found in the Doctrine & Covenants.  If you're not familiar with this book, it is a companion to the Book of Mormon and contains modern revelation given to Joseph Smith during the 1800's.  If you would prefer a bible reference it can also be found in Ephesians chapter 6, I'll include that reference in the file I give you at the end of the week.

One last note, on his armour pieces I stuffed his shield and his little skirt with a little batting.  Some of his pieces I used a sewing machine for but most of them were too tiny so I hand stitched them.

Here's your template for today

Tomorrow is Lehi's Vision and then on Thursday we'll finish up with Jonah & the Whale.


If you've missed the previous pages you can check them out using the links below
Tips for Working with Felt 
Noah's Ark
David & Goliath
Ammon Protects the Sheep

Quiet Book Week - Ammon Protects the Sheep {Template}

This page is the one that started the idea of a scripture book.  I was talking to a friend and we started to think how funny it would be to have a quiet book page where the bad guys arms pull off.  We then proceeded to think of the most violent scripture stories we could think of to add and chuckled.  This is the only one that made it into the book.

Some of you may not be familiar with this story, let me summarize it for you.


Ammon is a prophet serving a mission and in his travels he meets King Lamoni and rather than try to preach to him he asks to serve him instead.  King Lamoni says you bet and sends him out to protect his sheep who keep getting stolen.  While watching the sheep bad guys come and try to steal them, the other servants run away but Ammon says no way.  He's there to protect the sheep so he stays and fights the bad guys and when they attack he ends up cutting off their arms.  King Lamoni is so impressed he asks about Ammon's message and is later converted.


This story comes from the Book of Mormon, which is a companion to the Bible but written for those on the American continent.  You can real the full account here in Alma 17-19.


The arms of the bad guys pull off and re-attach with snaps (in case it's not clear those are clubs beside the bad guys).

And come on, how cute are those sheep?


Here's a close up of the unhappy, arm-less bad guys.

Here's your template download for today

I would suggest for the snaps you use those kind that pound on.  At the time I only had the sew on kind but I think the pound on are a lot more durable.




If you've missed the previous pages you can check them out using the links below
Tips for Working with Felt
Noah's Ark
David & Goliath


And remember, I'll give you the text template for the scripture references at the end of the series.

See you back here on Monday where we'll Put on the Armour of God.

Quiet Book Week - David & Goliath {Template}

Today we're checking out David and Goliath.  This page is pretty easy with very few moving parts.

The rock is attached to the slingshot with braided embroidery floss so you can swing it around and get that big bad Goliath right in the head (his angry teeth are my favourite). 

Click the icon for a template of your pieces. 

Cut them out and layer them appropriately.
I used embroidery floss to make his shoes look laced and I added stuffing to Goliath's shield and to David's rock.


You can read a few tips for working with felt here.
And check out yesterday's post, Noah's Ark.


Tomorrow we'll look at Ammon protecting the sheep (if that story isn't familiar don't worry, I'll explain tomorrow).

What Catie Wore Wednesday #38

I finally did something I should have done ages ago, I increased the size of this column so I can post extra large landscape photos.  Enjoy the change.


Thursday

She's doing her favourite activity here, looking for "Wok" aka, rocks.


Cherry Blue T - Superstore
Skirt - Old Navy
Sparkly Shoes - Target


Friday

Cousin Gwen came to visit and they watched tv together in cute dollar store chairs.


Polka dot dress - Carters
White Lace Capri's - H&M


Saturday

Brown T - Annabanana
Plaid Capri's - JC Penny


And this photo was just too cute to not share.

This is one little girl that really likes to colour.


Sunday

I love this dress so much.  It's from my Auntie Betty, not sure the store.  The white t is from H&M.


And a photo of her latest wound.

We were walking into church and she walked right into the corner of the open door.  The heavy metal door.  She was not happy and it looks far worse in person, today it's started to be nice and yellow.


Tuesday

It's possible this is the worst photo of Catie I've ever shared.  I promise she's not drugged.

The shirt is another from Auntie Betty.
The shorts are from H&M and the shoes are from Old Navy.


She's clutching a handful of Woks!



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Quiet Book Week - Noah's Ark {Template}

This page is one of my favourite's and it's definitely Catie's favourite (though Jonah is quickly climbing the charts). I'll admit it's a time consuming one but the little animals are so worth it.

Here's what the page looks like when you flip to it.

And with the door open. 

I used an adhesive velcro dot to keep the door closed.  I was worried the adhesive wouldn't be strong enough but it hasn't given us any troubles and it gets played with a lot. 

The polka dot on top is just ribbon that I cut to fit and sewed on.  The door to the ark is three layers of felt because I wanted it to be stiff, then I sewed the lines to give it texture (this page gives your book some serious bulk).

Here's a shot of the animals alone. 

I hand stitched the turtles and all the other small details (faces, pink of ears, hearts, giraffe spots and even the lions) but I was able to use my sewing machine for the giraffes and hippos.  Make sure you do all the details on the front of the animal before you sew on the back piece so you don't have messy stitching back there.  They're all stuffed with a little batting to give them some dimension (only the turtles shells are stuffed, not their bodies).

If you click the icon below you can download the template for this page.

Using the template cut out your pieces and sew them together using my tips from yesterday. 

To add the scripture reference at the top I used the computer to come up with a font and size I liked and then I printed it nice and dark.  Then I took my paper and placed it underneath my white square, I gently traced over the words with a pencil and then stitched them on.  I have a file with all the references I used and I'll give that to you to download at the end of the series.

Tomorrow will be What Catie Wore Wednesday as usual but Thursday we'll see David and Goliath, and Goliath is pretty fierce so you better come check him out.

Quiet Book Week!

While sitting in church a couple weeks ago and watching Catie play with her quiet book I realized I hadn't ever blogged the scripture pages I made for her.  I put her book together just after she was born and I blogged about the original 10 pages but then I decided to make some scripture pages.  Initially the plan was to make a separate book but I soon lost interest in felt and it became clear that it wasn't going to happen so instead I finished them up and put them in her current book.  It's now huge but adorable so we lug it to church every week anyway.  There are 6 new pages so I thought we'd do a page a day until you've seen them all (taking a break for What Catie Wore Wednesday).  Also, I've made up templates for each of the pages so you can print them off and make your own (I really hope someone is interested and I didn't kid myself into thinking they're awesome).


Before we start on the actual pages though today I wanted to show my favorite trick when working with felt, there are super crappy pictures to go along with it so hopefully you'll get what I'm saying.




Often with felt you need to sandwich two layers together to give some strength and stability, so what do you do?  You cut out two shapes the same size and sew them together.  But in the end the two pieces always end up shifting so they're not exactly the same size anymore.  I always ended up trimming my edges so my end result was smaller than the beginning and it didn't look as clean and I wanted it to.  Also, if your piece is intricate it's difficult to move the flimsy felt around the sewing machine and you end up with messy looking lines.


For these crummy pictures we're going to use a little naked man who will eventually become Jonah.  So start by cutting out your shape, in this example we'll be using his body and hair.

Since Jonah is going to be 3D (not sewn to the page), you want the back of him to look as nice as the front so go ahead and stitch his cute little face on.  It's much easier if you wait to put his hair on until later so imagine him hairless. 

Once that's done take your little Jonah body and lay it over some more flesh covered felt.  Cut out a chunk that goes all around his body, not cutting too close to the outline.

Stitch all the way around Jonah (still imagining him hairless).  Once that's done you can cut away the excess and you're left with two neat, lined up edges and on the back you don't see any of the stitching from the face (He definitely has one leg fatter than the other hey?  Guess he needs to do some toning, good thing his clothes hide it).

Once his body is done do the same with his hair.  Cut out the front hair piece and stitch it on but only stitch the hairline.  The back piece will need to be sewn along the top edge as well so you can sew those two pieces at the same time.  The back of the hair won't frame his face of course so cut out the bottom of the hair to look the way you want and leave the rest a big square, like so.   See how the front hair is stitched on at the hairline and the back is just cut along the bottom.

Line the bottom hairline where you want it and stitch your two layers of hair on and then trim off the brown excess like you did with the body.  Make sure when you're sewing the bottom hair line on that you're only stitching through one layer of felt, you don't want to see brown threads running across his face.


When you're done this is what the back of Jonah looks like.

 Like I said, this is my favorite trick with felt but I do have a few more tips to share.


You can see that for the above pieces I hand stitched everything, it's so small I find it just as easy to sew it by hand then to use the sewing machine, I use that for bigger pieces but you can use the machine for everything if you want.  When using a sewing machine on felt increase your stitch size just a little, it gives a slightly better look to the end product.


Also, as tedious as it seems make sure you always match your thread colour to your felt colour.  It will look much more professional if you take the time to switch, even if it means re-threading your sewing machine 12 times.

One last point, quite books are a ton of work!  They're worth it though when you get to watch your kids be entertained by something you made.

So there you go, an introduction to Quiet Book Week.  Come back tomorrow and see Noah's Ark, it's real cute. 


*Update* 
I should have mentioned that my pages are all made out of white cotton and the size of each is 12" x 12".  In hind site I would have made them a little smaller, I find the size awkward.  If you want to make that change though my templates will be too big and you'll have to shrink them. 

One last tip, quiet books are all about layers.  Take this photo for example.

The first thing you would sew on would be the tan house at the top of the ark because you want the ship to overlap it.  So you would sew on the tan house, then the brown ship, then the door of the ark.  Then you'd sew on the brown window.  The beak of the dove goes next and then the white of his body followed by his wing.  Lastly you'd sew on the leaf in his beak.  It helps to lay all your pieces where you want them before you sew any of them on.

Simiple Serendipity Winner

I know that technically I was supposed to end the SimpleSerendipity giveaway yesterday but since I had a post ready I bumped it to today, no harm done hey?


I used a random number generator and guess who won?


Janine!


I liked her comment, she said, "Those earrings are just what I'm looking for to jazz up my entirely lame work wardrobe! I'm so tired of plain gray trousers and neutral blouses."

So Janine, there's uh, a Canada Post strike on.  How about I get my butt in gear, finish your quilled letter and then we can get together and skip the shipping.  Sound good?

And for those of you that didn't win, you should go buy something, here's one more picture of the loveliness you can find.

These are the Simple Marie Blue earrings, happy shopping.

Face of the Day

I felt like yesterday I had an especially good hair and make-up day so I thought I'd share, if that bores you I can understand.

I used a dark shadow at the base of my eye and then a shimmery purple.  I followed it with really dark black liner and then some really crappy purple liner over that (it's not dramatic enough to be worn on it's own).  I applied a ton of mascara and called it good.

Thanks for indulging me.  Go ahead, make an extra effort on yourself today, it'll make you feel good.

What Catie Wore Wednesday #37

I don't actually write about Catie very often but this week I'm going to do a little so bear with me.


Catie's a very active little girl who learned to crawl before she learned to sit up.  Why sit when you can army crawl, and then really crawl and then walk until soon she ran just about everywhere she went.  I mention this because it makes me feel a little better about the fact that until very recently she didn't speak, at all.


Most kids learn Dada, and then Mama and then they grow they're vocabulary but Catie seems to be learning differently,  she'll say a word every once in a while (we heard Grandma once) but then we'll never hear it again.


When she was 19 months she finally decided to start communicating with words and she started with no.  It sounded like she had a cold and had a definite "d" in there, (dho) but it was clearly no.  A week or so later she added yes (yah, with a big head nod).  Her list is slowly growing and I wanted to document it here so I remember, so here is a very small list of words she says.
Thank you (usually she uses sign language but occasionally she'll use words instead)
Go (though it sounds more like Gah)
Fish (isss)
And Grandma West and I clearly heard her say once, "I don't like it"


It's so nice to have her finally be able to start to communicate with words, and while I know it will wear off I sure love hearing that no. Also, for a girl that doesn't speak she sure talks constantly, there is always a stream of words coming from her.  Brad and I joke that we just forgot to get an English speaking baby.  I look forward to the conversations I'll get to have with her one day but for now I'm just savouring the yes and no.


Okay, onto what she wore this week and as a rare bonus there's even a photo of me.



Thursday

Short sleeve white onesie - Carters
Flower T - Carter's (altered by me)
Jean Capris - Old Navy (cut off by me)
Pink flip flops - Old Navy


Saturday

Red T - Children's Place
Ruffle Skirt - Children's Place
Black ruched pants - Children's Place


Sunday

This dress and sweater was a girft from Grandma West and the photo really doesn't do it justice, it looked so cute on her.


White Sweater and Dress - JC Penny
Pink Sandals - Walmart


Monday

 White Onese - Carters
Striped Sweater - Superstore
Jean Mini skirt - Children's Place


For a girl that get's her picture taken so often you'd think she'd be great at posing but you'd be wrong.  I chase her with a camera until I get lucky but today I asked if she would stand up for Mommy so I could take a picture and she did, for 3 seconds.  Luckily I was quick.

Tuesday

A rare photo of me
White Onesie - Carter's
Plaid Dress - Second Hand but made by Ralph Lauren
I think the shoes really make this outfit and they're from Target (they're red and sparkly)






You can find me linked up at