Violet Quiet Book Page

I have recently started working on a quiet book for my daughter. I wanted to create something that would entertain her quietly that we could take to church or in the car for road trips.  I started off by following templates that I found online.  The more I worked on this project, the more I feel in love with felt and wanted to branch out and make pages that were more tailored to her interest.  One of her biggest obsessions in Leapfrog's Violet dog.  Another of her obsessions is any sort of accessories. I thought that she would have fun changing bows and dog collar charms.  It would also help with learning colors as well as learning what colors go well with other colors. I am really proud of my final product and I hope that you like it as much as I do!

  It was the first page that I did completely by myself.  My daughter a
lso loves it as well and she knew immediately that it was a picture of her best pal Violet.  The one thing I will say about making this page is that I found the smaller magnets at the craft store not to be strong enough so I had to invest in the larger ones. This did make the page to be a little heavier than I would have liked but still  not bad. If you wanted to make it lighter, you could use velcro instead. I did have to use a bigger dog bone than what is featured in the pattern because I had to use a bigger magnet than I originally had purchased. For the color names, I just free hand cut them out so I do not have a pattern for them. I have seen already cut out letters at the craft store and I know some people use die cutters to cut out felt shapes.
The bows I made using a 2 1/2 inch bow template and creating simple pinwheels.  They are very easy bows to make and thousands of instructions can be found online.  I hope your little one enjoys their violet page as much as mine has.

The 2 page pattern for this quiet book page can be found here: page 1 and page 2.
For this project I used:
Felt: dk purple for background, Md purple, lt purple, white, md pink, red, orange, yellow, green and blue
Magnets- 26 strong magnets- has to hold even with two layers of felt in between magnets
ribbon-white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink
hot glue


Around each magnet I sewed corresponding felt before I glued it to the bows. I didn't want any exposed magnets in case she popped it off of the bows and decided to put it into her mouth. We all know how toddlers can be. When placing the magnets you have to be careful what way you face them as well. You do not want your bows to be repelled from the page because the magnets are not facing the right way.

Under the Sea Felt Board

I did this cute felt board for my daughter for Valentines Day.  I'm all about the made with love gifts, especially on days like Valentines Day.  No don't get my wrong, I'm completely in love with the box of chocolates that I get as well but it is a day to help remind the ones we love that we do love them, even when said two year old repetitively tells me they don't want to be my Valentine (she did change her mind immediately once she found out presents were involved).

First off I made my own felt board using part of a cardboard box and hot gluing felt around it. I'm always looking for a way to use up cardboard boxes since where I live, they do not recycle them.  It feels like such a waste to just throw away something like that.

I don't know why it amazes me as much as it does that you do not need anything to make the pieces stay up on the felt board.  The felt just naturally sticks to other felt though sometimes you do have the buff the pieces a little bit just to help them stick a little better.

I found a similar felt board online but it was on someone else's blog that spoke another language and because of that there was no real instructions. I did look at the picture they posted and cut out similar shapes.  I find for me, it is much easier to hand stitch the pieces together than it is to sew them with sewing machine. I give mad props to the people that can do it with the machines but for me it just turns out to be one huge mess.  Doing it by hand also gives me something to keep my hands busy at night when I am sitting on the couch with my husband after a long day.   I hope you all enjoy my yellow submarine and here is a 2 page template so that you can make one of your own. Page 1 and Page 2.

Free Crochet Giraffe Hat Pattern

The first step is to make a basic crochet hat with ear flaps or you may choose for your hat to have no ear flaps at all.  There are a lot of online patterns and directions to make a basic hat in different sizes.  For the braids I took 15 strands for each braid and latch hooked them to the end of the ear flaps and braided them down. 

Horns

(yellow)

Row 1: magic circle with four stitches (leave enough string at the start to attach each horn to the hat)

Row 2: 4 single stitch, connect

Row 3: chain 2 1 double stitch in each sing stitch connect (repeat 3 times)

Switch colors (orange)

Row 4-5: cs 2, 2 ds in each cs, join with a sl st.

Row 6. Ch 2, 1 ds in cs, skip cs, 1 ds in cs, skip cs, repeat, join with sl st and end  while closing hole with another sl st.

EARS

(make 2)

Magic circle with 4 stitches

Row 2: chain two, 1 ds in each cs, join with a  sl st.

Row 3-4 : chain two, two ds in each cs, join with sl st

Row 5-7: 1 ds in each cs, join with sl st.

Row 8-11: 1 ds in next 2 cs, skip cs, 1 ds in next 2 cs, skip 1 cs, repeat join with sl st at end

Finish off and leave enough yarn to sew to hat.

Eyes

Magic circle with six stitches. 

Row 2: chain 2, 2ds into each cs, join with a sl st.

Nose

I forgot to write down the instructions for the nose but what I did made a large circle like you do when you are first making  a hat and then I folded it in half and sl st it close along the seams.  I think made very small black crochet circles for the nostril holes. I’m sure that there is an easier way to make a half circle but that is how I did it and it gave a little depth to the nose area that I like.

Mane

Latch hooked the size and width that you think looks best.  I have seen many giraffe hats online that don’t have a mane at all.  It’s up to you to make this hat the way you want it to be.

For the spots, I just crocheted various size circles and placed them together in a pattern that I liked best. I tried to not make it symmetrical because in real life, they would not be.  That’s what I wanted for my hat. Various different shapes and sizes would really add a more authentic look as well.

  Once I was done making all the elements, I hand sewed them onto the hat.  Once down, I was left with this precious little giraffe hat.  I hope you enjoy making this hat as much as I did.  The one thing I wish was that I could have found a way to make the horns stick up more and not flop down as much.  I guess the way to go about it is find some way to support them up (pipe cleaners perhaps?) or maybe even stuffing them a bit would have helped some.

Hair Bow Lamp

I wish I could take credit for this project but I found this idea on pinterest but I made it my own.   I started by striping the fabric off a lampshade and then taking some steel wool in order to strip all of the fabric glue off the metal.  I ended up getting my lampshade at goodwill where I could get a lampshade for two dollars vs going to a store and spending 10 dollars or more.  The fabric was unimportant to me since it was just going to be ripped. It was more important to find a lampshade that had a good solid frame.  After that, I painted all the metal on the lampshade and the lamp with a rose pink paint and varnish.  Then it was just a matter of hot gluing my ribbon. I put two ribbons per section of the lampshade and an orange ruffle ribbon on the bottom of the shade.  I’m so happy with the end results and it just shows that pinterest projects can go right!

Princess Party

For my little girl’s second birthday, I scoured the internet for princess ideas for the party. It was important to me for her to have a great second birthday because we are about to enter into the time of her life where she will actually start remembering some of the things we do.  I feel like up in till now it was about us forming memories but now it is about her memories and what she will remember.  I have hopes that this birthday maybe one of those memories for her. 

For her first birthday I made little fleece owl cozies and they were a big hit with the kids.

I wanted to make some more this year but I decided to make them better by crocheting them.  Since it was a princess birthday this year, I crochet little crowns to go on them.

After I finished make the cozies, I moved onto birthday hats for the kids.  I found a website online that offered patterns for fleece birthday crowns. I thought that this would be perfect and fun for her friends.  I knew that there would be some boys that came as well so I got to designing boy crowns to go along with the princess crowns.  I tried to channel King Arthur and what kind of crown he would wear. To go with the crowns, I made magical wands and knightly swords. 

Another take away for the kids that I did was to make this cute little kissing booth.  In case you can’t tell, the shoes are filled with Hershey kisses.

What party doesn’t need a game?  I knew that most of the kids at the party would be too young to do a complicated game.  I decided to take an old favorite, pin the tail on the donkey and make it into a felt board that the kids could enjoy. I also changed it to pin a kiss on the frog in order to stay with the theme of princesses. It was a good game to have because there were also older cousins there that we were able to be blind fold so they could play in a more traditional manner.    

While I was deciding on what all the decorations should be, I got to thinking about how blah all the cabinets looked. I wanted a way to cover them and make them a bit more festive. I was looking around the internet and found all these tulle table cloths and thought if I could figure out something like that, it would be perfect.  I ended up buying 10yds of pink tulle and cutting it into thin stripes. I then tied them onto precut string and formed a tutu covering for my bottom cabinets. This was very tedious work, but in the end I was very happy with the result. I wish I had figured a way to fasten it to bottom of the cabinets better than tape. I had to refasten it several times in certain places. I was hesitant to tack it but that would probably have led to better results. 

All in all I think my little girl and all her guest had a very magical evening.

Free Pattern Green Dragon / Dinosaur Crochet Hat

To start, crochet a beanie hat to the desired size that you want with the light green yarn.  Once you have crocheted the components as described, assemble the hat according to the picture and sew the pieces together

Eyes

Row 1: Chain 12, turn and sc into the second sc on chain from hook.

Row 2:  Sc one into the next 4 stitches, skip a sc and then 1 sc into the next four sc. 

Row 3: Chain 2 and sc into first sc on other side of chain. Sc into next nine stitches. Then put 2 sc into the next 2 stitches.   

Row 4: Sc next 4 stitches, skip a stitch and 1 sc in next 3 stitches, then put 2 sc in next 2 st,

Row 5:  sc in next 9 and then join with sl st in next stitch. The end shape should resemble a bean or a heart without a point. 

For the pupil make a magic ring with six dc. For me this is a very hard technique to describe how to do. There are many you tube videos available that will show you step by step instructions that are much easier in my opinion to follow than written instructions could ever be. 

Ears

Do this for both the dark and light color green yarn

Chain 4, then sc into 2 cs from hook and sc into the next 2 stitches, chain 2 and sc into first chain stitch and sc into next 3 stitches, sl st to next stitch. 

When it comes time construct the ear, put both a lighter color and darker color piece together and slip stitch them together using the lighter green yarn.  Finish off and leave enough yarn that you can sew the ear to the finished hat. 

Horns

Chain 5, turn and dc into the first cs from hook and then dc next 3 stitches. Ch 1 and slip stitch into first on other side.  Do two of these for each horn and then sl st the two pieces together to form one horn.  Again leave enough yarn after finishing sewing the horn onto the finished hat.

Snout

Row 1: Chain 8, turn and dc into the second cs from hook.

Row 2: One dc in the next seven stitches, cs 1 and dc into the first stitch on opposite side.  Continue to put one dc into each stitch for five more loops to make a rounded cone shape.

With a light pink thread cs 15 and sew onto bottom half of snout the make the mouth.  When stitching the snout onto the beaning, don’t forget to stuff it before you finish it off.  The amount of stuffing that you use is determined by how big and full you wish the snout to be. 

Braided Pigtails 

To make ear flap, first choose where you want the ear flap to be. For me I like to put them more towards the back but some people like to put them exactly in the middle. It is really up to you and where you wish to have them. It is your hat after all.

Row 1: SC into 11 stitches

Row 2: Turn Ch 1, and sc into the next 10 stitches

Row 3: Turn Ch 1, and sc into the next 9 stitches

Row 4: Turn Ch 1, and sc into the next 8 stitches

Repeat this process till you are at 1 sc and have a nice triangle ear flap.

If choosing to do the ear flap with braided pigtails as shown, make ear flaps.  Cut (6) 1 yard length pieces of the light green, dark green and the blue. On each ear flap, latch hook at the bottom 3 pieces of each color and braid to desired length. I chose to separate the colors for braiding but it would also be cute to just have the colors mixed up.