Toddler Sensory Book

This next project was inspired by Pinterest! (Seriously, where would I be without Pinterest!?)

I came across a pin for a sensory book. That pin inspired a google search from one end of the internet to the other to inspire all of the pages of this book. The one thing I didn't find was a good, tutorial on how to assemble the actual book. So, of course, I was determined to make one!

So here it is:

I would say this project was a success. I'm very happy with the final product. It took me WAY longer than I thought it would. I started before Halloween to ensure I would have it done by Christmas.  Once I started I spent every spare moment on it, and it still took me 2 weeks to finish! So be warned, this is addicting and time consuming! But my 10, 7 and 2 year olds were fighting over it, so it's worth it! Enjoy!

I got 1/3 yard of 5 coordinating cotton fabrics.

 Zippers, buttons, Buckles, Eyelets, Ric Rac, Ribbons... Anything goes! I tried to use as many different textures and materials as I could to delight the little ones senses! :)

 For Every four pages you want, you will need two pieces of 10"X20" fabric. I originally wanted 12 pages, but later scaled back to 8 because I wanted to finish by Christmas! :)

 Iron the fabric, fold it in half and iron it so you know where the page will end.

Two pieces of fabric will be 4 pages

You will want to sew the activities onto each page before you put the pages and the book together. So when you are assembling on specific page, you will only be working with one piece of fabric. Once you have all the designs put together, then you can make a book!

Let's start with the Bead Counting Page:

 The middle two pages will be on the same piece of fabric. So this design will be a two page spread. Think of book bindings!

 I divided up the space I wanted to fill by 10 and made marks along the top and bottom for where to place the ribbons. These marks were made about 1.5" from the top/bottom. (The stripes on this fabric were a life saver, I ended up marking on every 6th stripe instead of measuring, which helped it come out perfectly!)

 Find your desired beads

 Spend way too much time finding the exact right amount of right colors...

Only to discover that you had an ENTIRE bag of red beads lying right next to you the WHOLE time!!! Too late, I put in the effort, I was using the colorful beads!

I cut ten pieces of 1/8" ribbon, I cut them 8 " each, the gap is about 7" but I wanted to have ribbon to hold on to when sewing it down.

Carefully sew each piece in place on the fabric.

 After the top is attached, one by one, add the beads and attach the bottom of the ribbon.

 All attached! Trim off all the extra ribbon (once you've made sure you put the right amount on beads on each ribbon! I'm not speaking from experience here at all!!).

 Now to make a strip of fabric to cover up the ends of the ribbon. Cut two strips of 18"X 3" fabric

 Iron the fabric in half lengthwise. This is just so you know where the center is.

 Now unfold it and fold each edge into the center line and iron.

 Now fold each end over, and then over again to prevent fraying.

 Now find the center of the strip of fabric and line that up with the center of the page. Pin in place.

 Sew in place! Do the same for the top and you have 2 pages done!

On to the Owl Nest:

 Draw an owl shape and cut it out of felt. Cut out two circles and a triangle. Sew down the triangle, then the eyes. I made the eyes overlap the beak, and each other, just a tiny bit. Color the black into the eyes with a Sharpie.

Cut out ribbon for the wings and feet

Since I'm making mine with felt I can sew from the outside and not have to worry about turning it inside out and top stitching. If you elect to use a different material that will fray make sure you do this inside out. If you're using felt... carry on.

Pin together the two layers of felt, place ribbons for wings, feet, and the tether ribbon and pin them in place. 

 I forgot the tether ribbon so I had to go back and sew it in later. So don't do what I did, add it now, save yourself a little trouble!

Sew around the outside and leave a small portion open to insert stuffing. 

 I opted to stuff it with crinkly material. I searched high and low and found the perfect stuffing, the wrapping from my printer paper! Some people use plastic bags but I think thicker cellophane works best. Don't over stuff because you still have to sew it closed. Once stuffed sew it closed.

Now decide on the shape you want the nest to be.  I didn't put a lot of thought into this, just made sure it was deep enough to hold the Owl in place. I used a minky fabric for the nest. 

 Cut out the nest...

 Then sew down the tether ribbon.

 Then sew down the nest!

Snaps and Colors and Shapes, Oh MY!:

 Cut out 3 of each shape. I did these on felt, because I had it on hand, it doesn't fray, and it was the easiest. You can try it with whatever material you like. I opted for snaps, but in hindsight, I wish I would have used velcro. The snaps are a little bit too tricky for two year old coordination to master. So feel free to use velcro instead.
Put one part of the snap on cutout #1, and the other on cutout #2. Leave the third shape empty.

 Sew all of the cutout #1s onto the page.

 Sew Cutout #2 and #3 together with the snap facing out. Once they are all sewn you can snap them to the page with the coordinating shape.

Now put these two pages face to face, lay a layer of batting on top of that and pin it all into place. Sew around the edges, leaving an opening to turn it right side out. Once you've got the right side out, pin the opening closed, and top stitch along the edge. Four pages down!

Next up... Flowers and Buttons:

 Cut a long narrow strip to of the desired fabric for your flower. Depending on how long you  make it, the fuller the flower will be, the wider you make it the bigger the diameter will be. Mine was about 20"X3"

Fold and press the strip in half, lengthwise...

 Sew the two short ends together, this will form a cirle.

 Sew a loose basting stitch along the raw edge of the circle. Disclaimer: This was only my second attempt at basting.  I have not perfected basting and gathering yet. So I'll give you this link to learn basting and gathering if you need further explanation)

 Gather the material as much as possible.

 Once it's gathered, pin the edges together in the center. Mine ended up more oval shaped than circular because I used too much length, but I decided to go with it!

 In order to make the middle a little prettier I used the zigzag stitch, back and forth to secure the raw edges and hold the flower together.

 Thankfully I have a huge button to cover my mess-- err, I mean work :)

The second flower will have the button hole. I drew out a simple, five pedal, flower pattern on felt and put the button hole in the middle.

I was not able to get a good picture of the button hole making process. I will admit, I had to scour the internet to figure out how to make a button hole because this was my first button hole. I finally consulted the sewing  machines manual to figure it out because every tutorial I found online was different since all machines are different :) So my best advice... consult your manual, and practice, practice practice! I made about 5 attempts on scrap material before this I felt confident to try it on the real material.

 I used a thick, green silky ribbon for the grass. Little kids love rubbing silky stuff :)

 You can use any variation of ribbon and/or ric rac for the stems. Sew the stems in place first.

 The make a couple loops for the leaves on each stem. Sew them in place, making sure that they will end up above the "grass" once you sew the ribbon on.

 Sew the grass down, and sew the buttons in place!

Another first for me was learning to machine sew buttons! SOOO much easier!

Zipper Pocket:

If you can sew a zipper this page is the easiest of them all, if you can't... it's time to learn! It's really not as hard as you think.

The pages of the book are going to be about 9"X 9" so you'll wanted the pocket to be about 8"X 8". Cut two pieces of fabric 5"X 8.5" and sew the zipper in place.

Fold and press the edges in, pin it in place and sew in place!

 Lace and Tie:

 Cut two pieces of fabric 5"X 8.5"

Fold them in half, wrong sides together, you want to end up with two pieces that are 8"X 4" when it's all said and done.

Sew along the two short edges and turn the fabric right side out, top stitch around the two short edges, and the folded edge. (I'm not sure how I missed taking pictures of all of these steps!

Decide where you want the eyelets to go. Make marks and attach eyelets.

Lay the flaps, facing the wrong way, making sure that when you fold them to the center that they will be positioned right. Sew along the raw edge.

Fold the flaps into the center and sew up the folded edge. I sewed a rectangular shape to assure that the raw edge underneath is contained:

It should look something like this:

I still have to get a shoelace for tying!

Mitten and Buckle:

First off cut a mitten shape out of felt.

Cut a two strips of fabric a little longer than the width of the bottom of the mitten in length and double the size of the hole for the strap on your buckle, plus half an inch.

Fold the strips in half length wise, sew along the long edge leaving a 1/4 inch salvage. Turn the strip right side out, iron it flat. leave both short ends raw

 Put each strip through the buckle holes. Decide where you want the mitten to be, lay the edge of the strips right underneath the edge of the mitten, pin in place and sew.

 Pin the mitten in place, sew around the edge and secure the strap as well

Once all four pages are assembled, sew the two pieces of fabric together like you did the first two pages. You now have four pages assembled and ready to go! 

Cover:

For the cover I wanted it to be a little bit bigger than the book pages so I cut two pieces of fabric 21'X 10.5" 

I added an applique T to the cover for the recipients first initial. See applique tutorial.

 Line up the two pieces of fabric, wrong sides together. Sew around the outside, leaving a 10" opening on one of the edges.

 I used plastic canvas to make the cover stiffer. You can use felt, or batting, or whatever you like.

Cut the plastic canvas to fit inside the cover, accounting for top stitching. Mine ended up being 9"X 9"

Insert the plastic canvas into the cover, keep both pieces together for now.

Fold the edges of the opening in and pin them in place. Top stitch around the edge of the cover. Move the plastic canvas to the side that you are not sewing so it doesn't get in your way while you sew.

Once you've top stitched all the way around wiggle one of the pieces of plastic canvas to the other end.

Lay all of the pages down in order, and sew one seam right up the middle.

And that's all! Hours of fun! My 2 year old loves this book. His favorite pages are the shapes, and the zipper pouch. Remove the shapes, put them in the pouch, zip the pouch, unzip, pull the shapes out, snap shapes in place, repeat... over and over. This book also brought mastery of the buckle, which resulted in mastery of the buckle in the shopping carts at the grocery store... shopping is quite a trial now!

I hope you all enjoy making this as much as I did. Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions, or share pictures of your own projects that were inspired by this post! I love the feedback! Also, be sure to follow me so you can stay up to date on any new projects!