A Busy Book for my grandson

Birthday busy-ness continued in my family with quiet acknowledgment of birthdays on the actual dates and parties (surprise and otherwise) fell on weekends. We are done until September with our branch of the family but have another great-nephew's birthday coming up next month. When Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake", do you think she had my calendar in hand and saw what the first 5 months of the year look like?

Before I get to the book, I want to share my daughter-on-law's cake for Colton. His party theme was Disney's Cars.  The cake is two 8" layers, one yellow, one chocolate, joined together by a thin slice off one side of each. The track is black fondant from Wilton. I must say that I am still not fond of the taste of fondant and it wasn't as easy to work with as some claim. My daughter-in-law and I both worked with the fondant. I'm sure practice would improve our results. Nonetheless, didn't her cake turn out cute?

The infield is crushed graham cracker crumbs with a few green sprinkles added for grass. Lightning McQueen is a toy car, the pair at the top of the cake is a candle.

On to the Busy Book, known by some as a Quiet Book. Back when I had the notion to make finger puppets, I didn't have plans to continue playing with felt. Little did I know that I would fall for a play house and make one for Colton for Christmas. I began pinning felt projects on Pinterest (I'm 'Charlene (Knitty)' there) and thus began the plans for this book.

I have multiple photos of most pages because each one is an activity. Here is the book courtesy of a Smilebox slide presentation. **Please note that an ad may appear below the Smilebox loading image. You do not need to to click on the ad to view the slideshow**

This free digital slideshow created with Smilebox

My inspiration for pages came mainly from these sources
http://icandyhandmade.blogspot.com/2011/08/icandy-quiet-book-part-2-of-3.html
http://samandkristi.blogspot.com/2011/06/obsessed-with-sewing.html
and I must give a huge thank you to this blogger who shared printable patterns that she lovingly created: http://www.imagineourlife.com/quiet-book-patterns/
If I had started this project with more than 10 days lead time, I would have followed her lead and worked in greater detail. My grandson is a rugged little boy though, and I honestly don't know he will enjoy the book or not. That is ok...gifts from me don't come with strings attached and I loved making it. His mommy and daddy will know that time and love went into it and appreciate it.

I used the same little boy image from the cover to create a card for Colton.

Have I mentioned that I love coloring with Copic markers?

If anyone plans to make a page or book of their own and has questions, I will happily share more about this experience.