A Sensory Book

I get asked a lot if I have another book coming out. The short answer is — not right now. The long answer is, I am actively writing and working on something, and we are shopping around some other writing I’ve done, so stay tuned!

But while I may not have an official book coming out, I did go ahead and make one all on my own. This is a DIY sensory book I made for my daughter. Now that she’s two, she’s become pretty sensory seeking and loves to touch different textures. I totally identify with her here — I am constantly fidgeting with things. You know the rough edges on whiteboard markers that you’re supposed to use to hold the lid? Yeah, I’m constantly scratching those while I teach!

My daughter has been living in a “fur” coat Grandma gave her (we have trouble getting it off to sleep), so I thought she might enjoy a sensory book. It’s like the Pinterest quiet book with a few differences: it’s about touching, not doing. It’s full of different textured items like feathers, sandpaper, and furry fabric. And I hate hate HATE sewing, so I cut corners and glued or used iron-on tape whenever I could, so it isn’t nearly as pretty as those quilted pinterest wonders!

Still, here you go! All told, I probably spent about $40 and five or six hours on this project.

The cover! I *did* have to sew the button on, because I was pretty sure the glue wasn’t going to hold it. It spells out her name in fun fur, beaded ribbon, textured foam, and velcro. The backing is all felt squares from the Dollar Store.

I went seasonal for the first few pages! These ones uses a combination of sandpaper, chenille pipecleaners, velvet edging, ribbon, textured foam, and burlap. The center of the flower is a button covered in a fuzzy mitten finger.

Continuing with seasons! We have more pipecleaners here, some sparkly foam, painted buttons, a sort of weird plastic overlay on the left that I think is for shelves, barley, cotton balls, and more burlap.

Finishing off the seasons with a cherry blossom tree. The sun is a sponge (yeah, I didn’t do a great job cutting it out lol — and you can see an iron imprint. This page was the first I did and definitely the sloppiest). The cherry blossoms are pink fun fur and there’s a strip cut off a scrubby sponge at the bottom. The kitty is on a soft piece of flannel with some zipper attached. It’s made out of fake fur trim from the Dollar Store.

Now to move under the sea (Homer, that’s your solution to everything…). I found some great textured foam at the Dollar Store. Had to glue the trim because iron + fun foam do NOT mix, which is why they look a bit stiff. I cut up a Christmas place mat for the coral, used a sock for the octopus (and more beaded ribbon for his arms), and used ribbon for the fishies.

Another glued page and more textured fun foam. I bought a cat toy (shhh… don’t tell her) and basically cut the end off it to make the bunny, then glued a cotton ball onto it for a tail. The feathers on the chick used to be attached to the cat toy too! Whatever — it’s super soft and crinkly.

For the final page, I used a striped silky scarf and pipe cleaners for the zebra, more textured foam for the snow and moon, some beans for the rocks, and rock salt for the stars. I did modge podge over them, which is why you can see some glue lines. But if I didn’t, I don’t think they would have been there long!

And that’s it! It was a lot of fun to make.

I promise this isn’t turning into a mom blog, but lately I’ve been crafting up a storm, so that’s what I’m sharing. I’m hoping to get some more writing done soon — there are some ideas churning around in my head, so I’ll keep you posted on that, too.