Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Wheels on the Bus Quiet Book Page



One of my favorite pages that I designed was this Wheels on the Bus Quiet Book Page.  The wheels really turn, the doors open, and the children are finger puppets so they can move "up and down".  It seems like every little kid knows this song, so it only made sense to include it in a car themed quiet book.

For this page I used the pattern, felt in blue, dark gray, black, yellow, red, white, light gray, cream, brown, mustard, & three patterned felts for the kids' clothes.  I also used two short lengths of blue ribbon, two grommets, and two 1" black buttons.

I started out by making the kids so my children could play with them while I finished the rest of the page.  They are super simple to make - no sewing required!  (Of course, they could be sewn if you want, but hot glue is MUCH faster, makes them stiffer, and is completely machine wash/dryable).



To assemble the kids, glue any embellishments onto the body front (for the overalls, glue the ends of two short lengths of blue ribbon beneath the overall front) and then glue the body front and back together on the curved U shape only so the bottom will be open for a finger.  (The ribbons get wrapped over the shoulders of the kid, crossed in back, and glued under the overall back).  For the heads, the body gets slightly sandwiched between the head front and back and glued together.  Then I add the hair front and eyes.  Honestly, it's longer to explain than to actually do.  All three kids took me maybe fifteen minutes to put together and you know hot glue dries within minutes so it's very easy to make a whole class worth of kids.

To make the bus I first stitched down the two black stripes.  Then, I stitched down the gray road and figured out the placement of the bus onto the page.  After that I stitched around the outside of the bus to attach it to the page.  I added the bumpers and lights and stitched around the driver's window.  I matched up the inside door pieces to the doors on the bus, tucking the excess under the bus body.  I machine stitched where the doors meet the body of the bus so they open easily and then hand stitched around the other three edges of each door to attach the door front and back together and make them more sturdy.  Finally, I stitched around the upper three edges of the big window, leaving the bottom edge open to make the pocket for the kids.

I cut out the black wheels with pinking shears to give them a cool looking edge and added grommets to the middle.  I stitched the buttons on through the grommets so the wheels can turn.  And that's it.  The whole page comes together fairly quickly and I think it is super cute.

If you make this page, please comment or email me and send me pictures!  I would love to see how yours turns out!




3 comments:

  1. Hi there, I love how you made this page. I was just wondering if you could tell me in preschool terms how you attached the wheels with the incorporation of the grommets to the page, and when and where exactly you installed the grommets.
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there,
    I love your page. I was wondering if you could tell me in preschool terms how you installled your grommets to the wheels and to the page.
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Melon!
    I am so glad you like it! Since the grommets are through the middle of the wheels, you can really put them in anytime - I chose to do it after I stitched the bus to the page.
    I started typing up how to do grommets, but then I decided that a picture tutorial would probably be easier to understand, so you can find that here: http://booksnboys.blogspot.com/2013/03/picture-tutorial-on-installing-grommet.html
    Please let me know if you have any more questions. I would LOVE to see a picture when you finish your page!

    ReplyDelete

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