Quiet book: fishing page

It's time for a quiet book blog post!

This is a quiet book fishing page.

I modeled this page after a couple different fishing versions that I found. 

I really liked how this fishing page looked because it was so cute. 

But I also liked the idea of a Bible based book ie becoming fishers of men or Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish (John 21:6). 

There was this page with a net that I liked.

I took the ocean page from the first blog and added a boat at the top.

 I took the idea of the net from the second blog to store the fish when not in use. 

The net is actually a bag that some marbles came in. I put in a vinyl bag (also a recycled package from something) inside the net so that the fish didn't get stuck when trying to put them in. Then I sewed the netting to the vinyl bag just to keep then together and I weaved ribbon through the top of the netting so that it would close like a drawstring.

I thought that the fish on the first blog were cute so I made templates of those and cut them out of felt. I reinforced them with Pellon and stuck a paper clip in between before I sewed them together. I super glued the eyes on (which didn't stop some of the eyes from falling off. Oh well) 

I didn't get a picture of the fish before I let Koala play with them so two of octopus' legs are shorter in the picture.

I ran out of time before we went on our trip so here is Koala using a makeshift fishing pole which worked well for a while. But Koala used this page so often that eventually the fishing pole fell apart so she couldn't use it anymore. That's when I finally decided to make the real fishing pole. 

I took a wooden disposable chopstick that had a thick end and drilled a hole in it. Then I threaded some ribbon through the hole and tied it to the stick so that it wouldn't fall through. On the end of the ribbon, I attached a round magnet using a glue gun. Then I decorated it to look like a round fishing tackle/bobbin.

This is the finished fishing pole and up close pic of the tackle (which kind of looks like a pokeball).

Koala seems to enjoy this page a lot because no matter how many time she plays with it, it's still fun. She loves catching the fish over and over and it keeps her busy for a while. This page is definitely one of my favorite not only because I like how it turned out but because Koala loves playing with it.  

Calm down/Time out bottle

Lately, Koala has been getting frustrated more easily. I think that it has a lot to do with BBC being here. Don't get me wrong, she adores her brother- she gives his kisses and asks where he is when she doesn't see him. She tries to give him his binky when he's crying. But she gets upset when my attention isn't on her.

I decided to make her a calm down bottle to help her calm down when she's feeling frustrated. 

There are a lot of blogs that show how they do it like this one:

I pretty much did the same thing. 

Supplies:

Water bottle

Glitter glue

Hot water 

Funnel (optional)

I used a Fiji water bottle because some of the other water bottles are really made of flimsy thin plastic and I didn't want the bottle to accidentally burst open. I also used glitter glue from the dollar store.

Some blogs said to also add regular glitter but we only used glitter glue. 

I had Koala help me make it because I thought it would be a fun activity for her. I let her squeeze in the glue glitter.

I was going to have her only add one color but she had so much fun she wanted to put in all three. After we added the glue glitter, we added hot water. I boiled some water and then added some cold water to get water hot enough that the glitter glue would mix well but not too hot that the plastic would melt. I used a funnel so that Koala could pour the water into the bottle. 

After we poured in the water, I used a glue gun to glue the lid in place to prevent Koala from opening it and spilling glitter everywhere. 

The glitter glue was clumpy at first but after Koala shook it up, the glitter glue dissolved. 

Koala enjoyed watching the glitter and it seemed to help with the first couple almost mini-tantrums. We'll have to see how well it works for a full blown tantrum... 

Bow ties and Onesie Cardigan

My first project that I worked on after creating my new craft workspace was to make some bow ties to Baby Bear (BBC). 

I found some material that I had leftover from my bibs that was too small to make bibs with but perfect for bow ties. 

I found simple instructions on how to make a bow tie. I actually just looked at the pictures on a pin on Pinterest. But here's the link for that pin.

1. Cut out a rectangle. 

2. Fold the top and bottom horizontally about a quarter of the length

3. Fold the sides vertically so they meet in the middle. 

4. Some unpictured steps: scrunch the middle of the fabric and take a small piece of fabric and sew or glue it to hold the bow tie together. 

The pin showed a double bow tie. I only made one double bow tie because it looked funny with the other ones. 

Mustache bow tie 

Top: Blue plaid bow tie and chevron bow tie (you can't really tell that it's chevron)

Bottom: St. Patrick's Day bow tie 

The hardest part for me was getting the bow tie to look symmetrical. I still felt that the bow ties weren't symmetrical but I let it slide. 

I was going to add a snap to the back to snap onto a shirt but I decided to use safety pins so that I could use the bow ties on any shirt. 

In addition to the bow ties, I made BBC a cardigan from a onesie. This blog gave good instructions on how to make it 

1. Start with a onesie

2. Use a ruler and draw a Y shape on the front of the onesie. Cut on these lines. Also cut off the back collar 

3. Pin bias starting from the middle of the Y to go around the back collar (that was cut off) and then down the front to the bottom. 

4. Sew the bias to the shirt. Sew the two sides of the shirt back together under the bias. (It looks crooked in the final picture but it's not that crooked.)

Add buttons to the bias and viola- you have a onesie cardigan.