Blog Swap: Felt Interactive Book Tutorial from Sunny Vanilla

Hello my lovely readers!  The day of my blog swap with Jennifer from Sunny Vanilla is finally here!  Jennifer is here to share her Interactive Felt Book tutorial with you, and I'll be over on her blog sharing my tutorial for my A Bow and Whimsy Tank Top!
 

A Bow and Whimsy Tank Top

If you haven't met Jennifer, she sews and crafts some pretty lovely things and shares them over at Sunny Vanilla.  Here are just a few of my favorites:

1. Ruffled Tank  2. Spring Rosette Shirt  3. Vintage Skirt Refashion

  1.  Simple Skirt  2. Upcycled Napkin Rings

But she can introduce herself better than I can!  So take it away, Jennifer!

Hello, my name is Jennifer from Sunny Vanilla and I'm really excited about my blog swap today with Madison at Crafty Critique.  Just a bit about me, I am a lover of crafts and fabric and basically taught myself how to sew through inspirational books at the library and watching more youtube videos than I can count.  Outside of crafting and sewing, I am a mom to a 13-month old baby girl and a wife to a certain boy who stole my heart in high school.  I love dancing, travelling, singing terribly in the car, eating the tops of muffins, and screaming the fight song to my alma mater.  I hope you enjoy my interactive felt book tutorial.

There are two things I love about this project: it’s easy to put together {if you have older children, allow them to join in the project} and all of the materials needed are most likely things you already have in your house.

To get started with your interactive felt book, you will need four to five pieces of felt.  Felt is very inexpensive and will cost around $.29 for one sheet.

We’ll be making a 6” x 6” book, so measure your piece of felt and cut accordingly.

Once you have all of you pieces cut to size, find the center and mark it.

Take it to your sewing machine and sew a basic stitch right down the middle where you’ve marked it.  If you don’t own a sewing machine, don’t let this stop you.  You can hand stitch this as long as you have the right needle.  A quilting needle should do the trick.

Now you have a book!  

Because it’s an interactive, touch and feel book for my daughter, I wanted to create pages that would be fun for her to run her little tiny fingers over {it’s her new fav thing}.

The cover of the book is a small scrap of fabric cut into a heart.  

This is optional, but I used a tight zig zag stitch to go around the heart.

The first page is a button abacus.  I used large buttons on the top, medium in the middle, and small on the bottom.  It’s great for counting, learning colors, and sizes.

I used a piece of 4" embroidery floss for the buttons to slide on.  I then attached it to either side with a button and Fabri-tac.  I would recommend sewing the buttons in {in addition to the glue} to make sure it holds firm.

For the second page, I used a bird from one of the fabrics I have stashed away.  I used some yarn for the legs, a little tulle for the “feathers”, and I placed a piece of ribbon under the bird for the perch.

The gumball machine is made from a plastic sandwich bag and some scraps of pink fabric.  The “gumballs” are from the leftover pieces of felt I had from making the book.  To make the gumball machine, simply cut the baggie into an oval shape and sew the two sides.  Fill with “gumballs.”

For the ballerina page, I printed one of the paper dolls from McCall’s vintage paper dolls found here.  I folded a long strip of tulle and sewed a small stitch in the middle to keep it together.  Then I just glued it to the doll.

My little enchanted forest is just fabric scraps and felt.  I didn't have a fancy cutting machine for the circles, so I just used the bottom of a can of green beans {olds school style}.  I placed a small brown button at the base of the tree for a little animal den.   

The starry night page is a fun one!  I took my hole puncher and punched several holes in tin foil and instantly created a starry night.  Just a little science tid bit, stars are really balls of gas and not pointy like we see in so many books.  Sorry, that’s the teacher in me.  For the mountains, I took fabric and stuffed it with pillow fill.  You could also use cotton balls too.

And there you have it!  I hope you have fun creating one for your little tyke, or making one with your older children.  I know this is a project they will enjoy too. Happy crafting!!!

Disclaimer: Sunny Vanilla recommends reading this book with young children.  You should never leave a child with small pieces they could choke on.

Thanks for the wonderful idea, Jennifer!  I appreciated having you over today.  And thanks to my readers for coming along, too!  Until next time, happy crafting!

--CC

P.S. Don't forget I would love for you to visit me over at Sunny Vanilla today. See you there!  :)