For Little J’s birthday this past August, I decided to embark on a major project. The last thing my kids need is more “stuff” so I prefer to make things for them. He loves books, daddy & I are geeks, so I decided to combine these two things into a wonderfully geeky felt ABC book. While this isn’t your typical quiet book in that there are no activities to do, this is a great little book for a one year old. As he gets older and understands what these things are, I think he will appreciate this book more and more. 

 

Tips & Tricks

• You will need 28 pages of 6″x6″ pieces of white felt – the extra two are for the front & back cover. A cutting mat & rotary cutter will make your life easier but is definitely not necessary. As sheets of felt are only 9″ x 12″ from craft stores, it seemed wasteful to purchase 28 sheets. I opted to visit a fabric store and purchase a large piece from the bolt. 
• I highly recommend using proper fabric scissors (I just use Fiskars bought from Walmart). You will also want a pair of smaller scissors such as embroidery scissors for cutting out the tiny pieces.
• Some images were free-handed onto a piece of paper such as Computer, Doctor Who, Einstein, iPod, Joker, Ninja, Robot, Vulcan, Wolverine and Zelda.
• Most of the images were printed out; I then cut out different layers for each colour in the image, stapled to the felt then cut out. For example, Batman: Staple the whole image to black felt and cut out your main oval; remove staples & paper. Then trim the paper down to the yellow oval; staple to yellow felt, cut, then remove staples & paper. Next, cut out the bat symbol, staple to black felt and cut out then remove staples & paper. Now you can sew on each layer.
• To find your images, simply search on Google Images or get inspiration from Pinterest
• For the font on the front page, I downloaded Avengeance Mightiest Avenger, typed the letters into a Word/Pages document then printed out.
• Most pieces were attached with a simple backstitch. 
• Add things like buttons for fun. The Joker’s flower & eyes are buttons as is Wolverine’s belt buckle.
• Some of the eyes are french knots such as Einstein & Yoshi. There are many tutorials available online.
• I used a sewing machine to attach the pages together – it was much quicker than hand-sewing!
• The rings on the pages are grommets. You can purchase these at your local craft store or Walmart. Make sure your grommet kit includes the tool for assembling them or purchase it separately.
• The book is very thick and I had to find 2″ binder rings to close it. I purchased them at an office supply store. Another alternative is to alter it into two smaller books.
• This book will take you quite a while to assemble and hand-sew. All-in-all I would say this book took me about 1.5 months to prepare (keeping in mind I only worked on it after the kids went to bed at night). 
• Yes, I know that’s technically “Spock” and “Link” but I needed the letter V & Z!

If you have any questions about this book, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below! I would love to hear if you have made any geeky felt crafts for your kids.