Page 15: 3..2..1...Blast Off (Rocket Ship Page)

Ok, this one has been mostly done for about a week. But I have been waiting for some of the materials I needed to arrive.... and they finally came in the mail yesterday!! :)

Anyhow... on to the page. It's sort of simple, just slide the rocketship from the earth to the moon. And I know, I know, the rocketship is out of proportion with the earth and the moon, but here's my take on it: it's the perspective from which you are viewing the rocketship that makes it look bigger... ha ha! :) Ok, truth is-- I found them (the rocket ships) on clearance at Micheals for 29 cents a piece. Now, would you have walked away from that deal??!! :)

Here are the 2 pages I made, side by side... amazing that even though they are similar, they are still different...

A little bit of a close up...

And thanks to the auto-rotate you will need to tilt your head to see this one right side up, but it's a close up of the earth I made...

And here's a somewhat close up of the moon, and the rocket ship.

I used eyelets to thread the ribbon through, and then the rocket just slides up and down fairly easily.

I got my inspiration for this page--- well, somewhere out there. It surely wasn't an original idea on my part! :)

Page 14: The Counting Page

This page was fairly simple in the scheme of things... although I learned that the cricut does not like to cut material that only has pellon on the back of it. But it did well enough that I could just use my scissors to cut them out in the places that weren't so great.

Dang auto-rotate... anyhow, this is it. I was a little disappointed that the cars and trains are sideways, but that's just how it's gonna be... cause I already bought them and used them... lol

A closer look

And an even closer look! :) Not perfect, but lots and lots of character.

I got my inspiration for this page somewhere out there in this vast "internet universe"! Thanks to whomever posted the picture that inspired me!  Oh, and I more then 1/2 finished! yay me!

Pages 12 & 13: Head Hunter

Okay, so this page isn't completely done.... but close enough for me! I am waiting on the velcro to come in the mail. The point of this page is to match the heads to the correct animal. :) Of course, they can choose to put the wrong heads on the animals too.... which is my favorite!

With the correct heads

With some mismatched heads

A close up with some mismatched heads! :)


I got my inspiration for this page here.

Pages 10 & 11: Help me get dressed

Ok, this has been a page full of learning how to use my Cricut machine to cut material! :) Also, a page of thinking- "hey, they are probably going to lose those tiny pieces.... what to do about that?" and I came up with a solution, that I hope will work! :)

Page 10 and 11

Again with the annoying auto-rotation of the page.... grrrr....

Page 10- the Closet

Page 11- the kid who needs to be dressed-- who's dressed as a cowboy! :)

The "naked" kid

The "clown" kid 1

The Clown Kid 2

The goin' to church kid

Just another possible outfit

And another possibility

And another possibility

Superboy 1

Superboy 2

What an adventure this page has been. I hope that clothes hold up to little fingers and mouths! :) I loved playing with my Cricut --- the paperdoll cartridge. I think it turned out cute! :)

I got my inspiration for this page here.

Page 9: Pick the Apples

Here's this page sans title. I just want to use the printable fabric as completely as possible and don't want to waste a bunch of it to print to tiny titles... :)

 Here's the two pages side by side... I had slightly different greens, but both look good! :)

 The point here is to "pick the apples" and put them in the basket.

Here's a close up on my basket. I decided I couldn't just do a plain old basket, it had to have more character than that! :)

I got my inspiration for this page here.

Page 8: Help Peter Catch The Fish

Ok, so this was a fairly easy page to do. And I think it turned out sooo cute! :)

So here's a few close ups:

They have to unbutton the fish and put them in the net...

I got my inspiration for this page here.

Page 7: Tie My Shoe

Well, this one was an interesting page to make. I don't know if I am totally thrilled with the results, but happy enough not to do it over.

How do you like the bright colors? :) 

I found some pretty short laces for this page. They seemed to work out. The eyelets were a real gem to install, let me tell you. They look nice, but they tended to pull right through the material, so I had to reinforce it.

And here's my brainy idea- to "label" the shoes! :) Above is the shoe for Van's book, and below is from David's.

Inspiration for this page came from here.

Page 6: Noah's Ark

Wow! What an adventure this page has been, but fun too! I loooooove how it turned out! The animals are adorable, if I do say so myself, AND they even all fit into the ark! (Wade knows what I am talking about here... I was certain they wouldn't all fit....)

So, I got my inspiration for this one- well all over the place, but here is the page that I "loosely" followed! I also looked online and found a quilters pattern for an ark, which is what led to the "striped" look, besides I wanted to practice my "installation of zipper" skills! :) I downloaded the animals from here for $2 (well worth it, since I don't have any drawing abilities). I used my Creative Memories Storybook Creator 3.0 software to piece together the rainbow background, printed it on ink jet friendly fabric I bought at the Walmart, and used some blue material for the background.


Ok, here are the pics...

Here's the page, zipped, and ready to go....

Here's a few of the animals looking at ya from the pocket! :)

Here's all of the animals. I couldn't leave any of them out... they were too darn cute!

Here's a close up of a few of them

I think that giraffe is my favorite, it's just so stinkin' cute!

Oh, and to make the animals have a little more "substance", I ironed fusible fleece to the back, then pinned a material on the back, and sewed around each of them, then cut them out. It was a fair amount of work, but I love the results! What do you think?

Page 5: Shapes

There it is, Page Number 5 in all it's glory.

With a title like, "Shapes", you would think- hey, that's easy.... at least that's what I thought.... and then I got into the process.... and wow, I learned a lot:

1. how to sew on snaps (I heard a rumor that there's some cool tool that will put on snaps.... must.get.tool. before my next attempt at using snaps as fasteners!) No, I bought the CHEAPO snaps from the dollar store-- the kind you have to sew on, and don't even have the hole that runs through the middle so that you can properly center the dang thing.... I guess you get what you pay for!! Consequently-- my snaps aren't exactly "centered"... but there's no way I am going back and redoing them. Not in this lifetime, or the next!

2. How to sew on buttons with machine - VERY cool by the way! So glad for that particular feature. After the snaps I was soooooo not hand sewing on any more notions (is that the right word? in scrapbooking they'd be called "embellishments").

3. How to sew a buttonhole. Very cool also. Love my machine for this!! I did a couple of "test" holes on random fabric scraps, and it seemed to work just like it was supposed to.... and I had no problems with the process.

4. I think I didn't necessarily LEARN this, but I sure did it... I had to hand sew the "shapes" together (each shape is made from 2 layers of felt.) Which was ok, BUT I would have MUCH rather sewn them on the machine. I tried, really I did. But it wasn't agreeing with me, and after picking out the stitching from the same shape 3 times I gave up, and just hand-sewed them. I have decided they have a lot of "character". :D

Just showing off the pocket here, not sure WHY it changed the picture orientation on me, it was fine the other way.... grrr. Oh well, it's just a simple pocket, a place to store the shapes!

And the picture above is what it looks like when they open the book to this page. The point is to open the pocket, and match the shapes.


Anyhow, I am glad that page is done. It was no where as near as fun to make as my last few have been. Oh well, guess that's how it goes! :)




Oh, and I got my inspiration for this page here

Page 4: Zipper Page

I got my inspiration for this.... somewhere, I can't find it now, but I loved the idea, and it stuck with me! I definitely learned how to sew on zippers... of course, the page I saw only had the zippers on top of the page, but I actually sewed one in and made a pocket on the page.... wow, that was quite the process! :) But I did it!!

Overall, this is very bright page!! What do you think? Too bright?

And here's a close up on the title- I was not going to add a title, but just couldn't do it.... so, I caved, and did.

Pages 2 & 3: On the Move (or the "Car Page")

So, this page turned out to be more fun to make than I thought. I also learned a lot doing these pages times 2. My inspiration for these pages can be found here. I added a few embellishments of my own, and had fun doing so! :)

Here's the 2 page spread:

Here's a close up of page 2:

The "garage opens, and there's a red truck that lives there. Also the lights on the stoplight are attached by Velcro and can be moved. Here's page 2 with the truck and one of the lights removed:

And page 3, up close:

I was quite proud of my little "pond" with the ducks. :)

Here's my pages from my second book:

And there they are folks! :) My next 2 pages.... hoping the next page is as fun to put together as this one. :)