Quiet-Time Busy Books

I love the thought of creating personalized activity books for children. While this book offers several ideas for specific pages, they are all made using the same basic assembly and finishing techniques. By following those directions, you can create your own page designs easily. What child would not enjoy playing with an activity book featuring photos of himself and friends and family along with other meaningful items.

I really like the way the author goes about creating the book pages. By using the same basic construction and finishing techniques for each page, it is easy to get the hang of making page after page. Michelle Van Tassell also starts out by introducing you to a glossary of the terms she uses frequently and also a wonderful description of the supplies needed.

I also like the fact that, while you are creating a book, the author does not instruct you to bind the pages together. Instead, small button holes are created on one edge of each page and the pages are held together using loose binder rings or other round clips. By holding the pages together in this manner the book can be used by more than one child at a time. It also makes if easier to add new pages or rearrange the pages you have.

While this book says it contains lots of fun activities for infants and toddlers, you have to take great care when constructing many of the pages. Since many of the ideas featured in the book use buttons, beads, and other small objects as embellishments, any child who might put the book pages in their mouths should be closely supervised. There are, however, several ideas that can be created or modified for the youngest of kids.

Not only do I like the concept of creating personalized activity books, I like the idea that this is a great way I can use up some of the scrap fabric in my stash. As the author suggests, it is also a great excuse to go to thrift stores or garage sales where you can find a wealth of objects. You can gather everything from fashionable buttons from old sweaters to beads from unwanted costume jewelry. You can recycle an old belt into a page that helps teach a child how to work a buckle or even the eyelet section for shoes to learn how to tie. Use your imagination to help create a unique page to help a special child use theirs.