Creating the Perfect Craft Item for a Baby: Material Books

Babies love books, but babies also tear books to shreds, hence the reason heavy-duty cardboard books for children were invented. The cardboard books, however, are hard on baby's face if he drops them or hits himself with them. The solution is as easy as creating your own fabric book. This project takes little time, is easy to do, and can be as creative as you would like it to be!

First gather your supplies. You will need two yards of a heavier type of fabric to work with, such as canvas. Make sure the two yards are cut from a fabric bolt that is fifty-four inches wide. These will be your book pages.

Scissors

Pinking Shears for a decorative edge

Measuring tape.

Thread

Eyelets and an eyelet punch (you need an eyelet for each hole of the ten pages and the holes on the cover, so 33 in all).

Hole punch

Iron

Shoe String (this will bind your book so make it pretty, matching, or rugged, such as a rope-type string).

Iron-on adhesive

Felt to create your designs (or you can get various felt pieces and numbers that already have iron- on adhesive attached and skip purchasing iron on adhesive as noted directly above).

Cut your material into eleven squares that measure 10 x 20 2/3 inches each.

Fold each square in half and press with your iron.

Top stitch a 1/4 inch seam along each side of every square.

Use your pinking shears to go around each unfolded side of every square to give your book a nice, finished and decorative look. Be careful not pink around the folded side of your squares. You should use the folded size of your square to be your guide for either the side of the book you will bind with your shoestring, or the outside edge of the book.

Create whatever shapes you would like to adorn your pages out of the felt. You can make hand prints, letters, animal shapes, numbers, a counting book with numbers that coincide with the amount of items on a page, blocks, baby items, such as rattles and blocks, names, a sunshine and umbrella for a weather theme, fruits and vegetables, etc. The ideas are as endless as you can imagine. You can make the book to match baby's nursery or make it completely unique unto itself.

Bond the iron-on adhesive to your felt and iron per directions onto your fabric, as you wish your pages to look. If you have felt with bond already on it, place on pages and iron per manufacturer's instructions.

Make sure all edges are ironed securely so they do not come off in baby's hands.

Make three holes on the cover of your book with a hole puncher. Place them along the edge with one being towards the top, one being in the middle and one being towards the bottom. Use these holes to mark holes in the same spot on each of the remaining pages.

Put eyelets in each hole with your eyelet punch.

Take your shoestring and thread it through the hole at the top and the hole at the bottom of your front cover. Pull your shoelace flat (not crimped or tight) and then thread through each page subsequently (at the top and bottom holes on each page. Your laces should now be at the back of the last page. Pull the ends of each shoelace through the middle hole of each page. Knot. Tie in a pretty bow.

You have now created a book that is soft for baby to handle, colorful for baby to see, and fun for mom or dad to read. The only caution with this item is to make sure all items that are used cannot be pulled off, or come off in any other manner, and create a choking hazard. You can even decorate the pages in entirety with non-toxic paint or markers if you choose, instead of gluing or ironing pieces on, if you prefer to do so.