Sesame Street Quiet Book

Miss A-Cakes loves herself some Sesame Street.  She has many Sesame Street stuffed animals, outfits, DVD's, and books. 

So when I set out to make a quiet book I knew it had to be a Sesame Street one. I saw a few quiet books on Pinterest that were Sesame Street but they were all really short. I wanted this to be a really big book to keep her entertained and to help her learn. Also since she is only one I had to make sure it had activities that she was able to do, but also some that would grow with her and challenge her. So I set out on the biggest crafting thing of my life. This book took several nights a week for like 2 1/2 months. It really took forever! If you are better at sewing, it probably wouldn't take so long for you, but I am a crappy sew-er so it was very time intensive. But She really likes it, I gave it to her for Christmas and she looks at it every day. And the other kids that have played with it absolutely love it. In fact Analiese got into a fight with one kid over it, they both did not want to share it. So that made all my time worth it. 

This is the front and the back of the book. I didn't have a pattern or anything for the book, so everything was cut out free hand, so please don't judge my characters. One little girl at church knew immediately who was on the cover there, and it really helped my spirits! 

The cover doesn't do anything special. It just has Elmo and Cookie Monster's face on it and the Sesame Street sign. I just used a glue gun on it to glue everything down. I didn't want to sew all the details on the faces down, so that was easier. I used foam letters that I bought at the craft store for the letters on 'Sesame.' 

The back is a page to color with dry erase markers on. I sewed a piece of plastic to the white felt. I should have doodled on it, but I forgot. A-Cakes is too young to color, so she hasn't used this page yet. 

I didn't want to bind the book so I just used 3 giant rings to hold it together. I think its easier for A-Cakes to turn this way and that way I can take out a page to wash it, or add a page if I wanted to. 

The one problem was that a hole punch was too small for the felt to fit through, so I had to just cut holes in the pages and then I sewed around the holes. I did it last, so that made it harder. I think I would  cut the holes out in the beginning. 

The top pages are a counting bead page, the other page is a page that you brush the guy's hair and brush his teeth. You can also braid the red strips or tie a bow. 

The lower pages are Super Grover with the foam letters in the alphabet and then the second page is Elmo with a fish tank. There are a few animals and the child needs to decide which one is Dorothy (Elmo's pet fish) and put Dorothy in the bowl. 

I tied everything down, she is young and would lose the pieces or put them in her mouth, I zigzagged and double stitched those things on way tightly. They are on there pretty good. I glue gunned the rest of the stuff on. 

The top pages are a felt house with windows and doors that open up with pictures inside and then the other page is where you feed Cookie Monster cookies. 

The bottom pages are a page with big bird, he has feathers all over his face and then snap on flowers. 

The top page is the felt house again with the windows opened. I sewed the pictures onto the felt. There is also a picture of my husband in the door. I didn't want the pictures to get ruined by drool or shaking her sippy cup really hard (which she does on a daily basis) so I sewed plastic, plastic from those photo album pages, onto the pictures.  A-Cakes loves looking at the pictures. 

The lower pages is Abby Cadabby, who is a fairy. I used yarn for her hair and wrote poof out of the foam letters, I was running out of letters because I had used most of them on the alphabet page. So poof was one of the only magical word I could make. Then there is a zipper pocket that you can put treats or crayons, or the dry erase markers for the coloring page. 

This page is Murray, he has a segment on Sesame Street called 'Murray had a Little Lamb' so I used this stuff that is kinda like what they make those boa's out of, but you buy it by the yard for his face. And then pom pom's for the lamb.  The other page is A-Cake's favorite, you match the shapes and colors together. She really just likes to rip them off the page because she likes the velcro that I put on there. 

For the pages I used a piece of felt for each page and then sewed the two pages together. The only problem I had with this, was some parts that I had glue gunned were too close to the edges and my sewing machine had a hard time going over the glue gunned parts, I bent a needle on the cover and I had to sew the alphabet page on by hand because it had too much glue near the edges. 

Cutting out all the little pieces and shapes and character faces free hand took a long time. But it turned out really good (even if some of my characters look slightly demented, poor Big Bird...). I just had to tell my self that she is one and does not notice the faults, she will just have fun with it, and she really does. It was worth all the time!