One Project Done!

A couple of months ago I saw this and knew I wanted to make a version of it. With my mom here, and willing to cut out all the pieces (can you believe that she was nice enough to do that?) we "closely mirrored" the pages from the original book... with a few alterations and without all the hand stitching. I doubled up the pages (two sheets of felt) to make the book sturdier and put rivet things (this is not their technical name) over holes so the book can be assembled like a three ring binder... oh yeah and I hot glued where possible, none of that time consuming hand or machine stitching for me (have you tried to machine sew felt, seriously not a good idea). All in all I like the book, I think the original one is much cuter (and let's face it better quality), poor Mikey will have to deal with my hot glued imitation instead of the hand-stitched masterpiece.

The cover... I may need to come up with another way to hold the whole thing together, but in the meantime these ribbons will work (the rings I have are too small, I have to get larger ones, but that involves a trip to the store which requires a tiny bit more planning these days).

The Whale- this one I did come up with, it was originally a Jonah and the whale page, but Jonah freaked me out (his eyes followed you), so I used a fish instead. Yes, I am aware that many whales eat plankton and krill, and the likelihood of finding a whale the size of an island, let alone a cute yellow fish the size of a house is... really small, but hey work with me here.

I thought the fish page needed at least two fish, otherwise the lone fish would be... well lonely. The fish can be moved around the tank using the velcro patches.

The butterfly has moveable and squishable wings, sure a butterfly is "girly", but who can resist the smiling face?


The frog's tongue can be used to "catch" any of the velcro flies on the page. The original book used snaps, but I figure Mikey is a ways off from understanding how to use a snap... plus snaps are harder to sew on.

This is my favorite page... the owl peekaboo page. So cute!
Mommy Owl... and Baby Owl!

Monkey and the banana, I didnt get a good photo of this, but the object of the page is to "peel" the banana- basically the top yellow piece folds down to reveal the banana.

This might actually be my favorite page. This touch and feel ribbon lion is just too cute!
I think I just like ribbons.