Remy's Quiet Book - My First One

Not long after I had Tahlia, my good friend was having a baby shower. Mum had recently reminded me about the felt quiet books we had when we were kids - bought ones, but I remember them being lots of fun.

I decided to ask everyone at the baby shower to make a quiet book page which Mum and I would sew together at the end.  We ended up doing a lot more work than that, but it turned out so well that I became a little obsessed with them... and that's how all this started!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REMY - YOU HAVE TURNED 5!! 

You are such a sweet, lovely girl and Tahlia loves having you in her life.
Thanks so much for inspiring Faith and Felt Obsession and The Bible Quiet Book Project. 

Over 5 Years in the making...

The templates:

• I can't remember where I got the birds for the front cover - it may have been a colouring page
• Mr Potato Head is by Jocelyn from Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows
• the palm trees are by Laura from the blog Bugs and Fishes
• I also can't find the where I got the dragon from either - sorry
• the pony is by my good friend available on my Tahlia's Quiet Book - Pony Page post
• the teddy is by my Mum available on my Tahlia's Quiet Book - Teddy Page post
• the cup, toothpaste and toothbrush are from Stephanie's Brush Your Teeth quiet book page from Imagine Our Life
• the mouth is by my Mum & I - available on my Tahlia's Quiet Book - Brush Your Teeth Pages post
• the hive pattern was once again made by Stephanie from Imagine Our Life
• and the flowers are from Purl Soho
• the apple tree is by Jocelyn from Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows
• the treasure map and chest are by Stephanie from Imagine Our Life
• and the finger puppets are by Jocelyn from Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

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Which pages would you HAVE to include in your first quiet book?

Spectacular Spring Lamb Easter Bonnet

Last Year we set the bar for the remaining years of Tahlia's primary school Easter Hat Parades. I set myself the challenge of making an admirable Christian hat (no eggs or bunnies) that would be far from embarrassing and that would get people talking about the Good News of Easter, um, I mean Passover.

This year I hope we have again risen to the challenge with our Spring Lamb Easter Bonnet.

This idea came with one week to go before the event. Thankfully. I had planned something else, but it just didn't have the pizzazz I was looking for and I never ended up buying all the needed items.

My first job was to secure a stuffed toy lamb - and not a Shaun the Sheep look-alike. It had to be without blemish like all Passover lambs. Happily my workmates were in the know about an awesome nearby op shop and enthusiastically took me on a lunch-time shopping adventure. Praise God this little cutie was waiting for me!

The inspiration for the Spring Lamb Easter Bonnet came from the 10th Plague from the First Passover.

You realise a lot of things when you try to convert Bible text into images. Obviously others have realised it before me because I found some awesome pictures online that demonstrate what happened to the Israelite's doors when they followed God's instructions to kill a lamb and use hyssop to paint blood on the lintel and both doorposts as protection against the death of their first born sons (Exodus 12:22).

Image Source

Who knew there was so much imagery in the old testament around the cross?

Tahlia did get to show her hat to her class and talk about it. I'm not sure that what she said would have made a whole lot of sense to them, but it was good witnessing practice. And it was a wonderful learning experience for us to share together.

You might think that I made the hat, but let me reassure you, Tahlia helped a lot.

Most importantly, she proudly wore it on the day!

Together we stripped back the Palm Sunday Easter Bonnet from last year.

She stirred the paper mache glue mixture and applied another coat.

She re-painted the hat.

Tahlia insisted we iron the felt before making the flowers. A step I was thinking we might be able to skip.

She cut the pipe cleaners.

She cut the red, white and orange flower pieces out and even helped with hot gluing them all together.

I made the bunch of hyssop.

I rolled strips of red felt for the blood to fill the bowl and glued one end of the ribbon for the cross to it. I glued everything down - the ribbon to the screws and itself, the felt to the bowl and the bowl to the hat.

I used a small screw driver to make holes to insert the screws. I had planned on using nails but I couldn't find them. I think screws worked well anyway because they had a lip which stopped the ribbon slipping off.

Tahlia wanted to make a door for the archway but we ran out of time. I thought it would be better without, but I think Tahlia was right to want a door. It might have helped the ribbon cross stand out more.

She helped glue everything onto the hat.

So that the lamb was not ruined by hot glue I employed more felt and my secret weapon safety pins!

We watched quite a few YouTube videos on how to make felt flowers. These were our favourites:

• Flowers - Flowers with felt - How to make a rose by PapelyManualities
• DIY Felt Flowers - 5 Flowers and Leaves by The Daily DIYer
• Felt Flower Tutorial #2 - DIY : How to make easy felt flower / Spring Crafts - Kids Crafts . by Miss Tricks Mix DIY

If you can't work out how I made the pink carnations you will have to beg me to do a tutorial. I'm not planning to do it unless someone asks though!

EDIT:

See the other Easter Hats in this Trilogy

1. Hosanna! Palm Sunday Easter Bonnet - focuses on Praising Jesus' ability to save
2. Spectacular Spring Lamb Easter Bonnet - this one!
3. Magnificent Butterfly Resurrection Easter Bonnet - focuses on the joy and hope of the Resurrection

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I would love to see and share your Christian themed Easter Hats!

How to Safely Dispose of Sewing Pins and Needles

I had a whole bunch of blunt pins in my pin box - and it is really frustrating going through several pins each time you want to pin a new spot together. So I bought a new lot of pins and went through the entire lot of old ones taking out anything that wouldn't pin my felt easily.

It's not a great idea to put sharp objects into the rubbish bin - mostly for the sake of those who work handling the waste.

Here's how you can dispose of them safely:

Get an empty mint tin and put them in - close the lid and done! There should be no waste center workers going home with injuries today.

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How do you dispose of your pins and needles?

Re-labelled Baby Slogan Slippers

Pre-made baby slogans are often almost perfect, but they use the wrong names of endearment for your family.

For that reason, you can often pick things like this up quite cheaply at the end of the season because they don't suit anyone.

I have re-labelled these slippers so they fit my family. It was easy - you can do it too.

First I cut lengths of ribbon to cover the original names and melted the ends to prevent fraying. Then I hand sewed the letter beads onto the ribbon, securing each one individually. Next I attached the ribbon to the shoes with a little bit of hand sewing and a whole lot of hot glue. Sewing them in place is important if the gift is for a baby. A present that a baby ends up choking on is not a good gift.

Enjoy!

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How would you label your slippers?

Isaiah 53 - Messiah ben Joseph Quiet Book Page

Isaiah 53 is a Messianic passage which describes the sacrificial death of the suffering servant (Messiah ben Joseph).

Memory Verse: “But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.

Materials needed to create the Messiah ben Joseph quiet book page:

• A4 felt background sheet - I used mid blue
• four small nail looking shank buttons
• felt scraps in skin colour, hair colour, wood colour and parchment colour
• matching thread colours, and red thread (for the blood)
• air erasable marker (or pen)
• letter beads - or ink pads and small alphabet stamps or a permanent marker etc
• hot glue and glue gun
• my free Messiah ben Joseph template download

Cut out your template and most pieces from the felt scraps in appropriate colours. I find for intricate shapes (such as the section that needs to be cut from the inside of the legs) it is sometimes best to use a pen to draw the shape onto the felt and cut it out that way - of course you need to flip the pattern over and draw on the inside so it will be hidden when sewn together. I only cut the front of Jesus' body out and waited until I attached the front to the back to cut out the whole body.

The draw and cut method was certainly useful when trying to keep within the lines whilst sewing on Jesus' whip stripes. And of course you need to sew on the wound details in red thread before sewing the front body to the back. Jesus most likely received 39 stripes. Jewish law forbade any more than 40 (Deuteronomy 25:3) and in an effort not to cross this line, 39 were delivered just in case someone miscounted. Since the Roman whip had three tails on it, they would have delivered 13 strokes to make a total of 39 lashes.

39 stripes

Sew the front of Jesus' body to the back and cut it out. Then sew on the face - don't worry that you can see the stitching on the back as the hair will cover it. Use red thread to make small buttonholes to fit your buttons on the feet/ankle and wrist/hand areas.

For the hair, cut two fronts and sew them together, two backs and sew them together and then join the doubled front to the doubled back along the top of the hairline to a spot at about just above the nape of the head. Leaving the ends open will allow the hair to fit over the head and split over the shoulder. You will also be able to lift the hair at the back to see all of the stripes. Position the hair and secure in place using red thread on a zig-zag and/or decorative stitch to sew across the head to make a bloodied crown of thorns.

To make the sign for the top of the cross, sew the two white pieces of felt together and make a buttonhole the same size as the others using matching thread this time. It should be positioned down a ways from the top to allow room to roll the ends up. Use hot glue to keep the ends rolled in place. Hand sew on some beads to make a list of names on one side and to say "Messiah ben Joseph" on the other.

I did also try using stamps and ink for the lettering, but I don't think my ink was very good quality. You can see that it ran/separated a little, especially at the 'M' - it looks worse in real life. I have seen felt stamped before that turned out well. If you have good quality ink it might work better.

Sew down the cross onto your page and lay Jesus' body on top. Push sewing pins through the buttonholes to mark the position needed for the shank button nails. Add the sign and do the same. Hand sew the buttons on.

Finished!

Difficulty Level = Intermediate.

It's not really hard, just a bit fiddly in some sections.

Key Learning Areas and Skills

• Isaiah 53 - Taking our place and dying on the cross was not an easy task. This prophecy in Isaiah was fulfilled in such detail. Sin causes devastating consequences.
• Imaginative Play - Jesus died on the cross so we don't have to. Turn the sign at the top of the cross to reveal either your name/s or Messiah ben Joseph. You get to choose who pays the price for your sin.
• Buttoning - He died to pay for our sin so it is appropriate that our hands put the nails through.
• Counting - see if you can count the 39 stripes on Jesus' back.
• Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
• Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination

I love you this much...

Read the Chapter

Isaiah 53

Devotional

I did question whether or not making this page was a good idea. The topic is not really a fun one and I didn't want to encourage disrespectful play. However, it is also the central topic of Christianity and it is rather difficult to create a Bible full of quiet book pages without featuring the cross.

The page was inspired by the buttons which looked to me like nails. I prayed about if I should go ahead with the idea and then decided to count how many buttons I had... if there were not enough then in a way it would be decided for me. I found exactly four and felt assured of approval.

Part of the message I wanted to portray with this page was that it is MY personal sin that Jesus died to pay for. Therefore it is appropriate that my own hand does the buttoning.

In times past Christians have blamed Jews and labelled them Christ-killers and given rise to massive antisemitism. Jews were driven from their homes and massacred during the crusades and the First and Second World Wars. I want to sincerely and profusely apologise for that. Anyone who wants to shift the blame in that way does not understand the gravity of their own sin, a point which the death of God's Son should certainly drive home.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Effectively, that cross had my name on it until I decided to ask Jesus to take my place. That is what the scroll meant to demonstrate... it has 'many' (unfortunately I could only fit four) names on one side, and the other is labelled with 'Messiah ben Joseph' our suffering servant.

In Jewish eschatology there is a belief that there are to be four Messianic figures: Elijah, Messiah ben Joseph, Messiah ben David and the Righteous Priest termed collectively the Four Craftsmen. There are correlations with the Christian belief in the two comings of the Messiah. At His first coming, Jesus fulfilled the role of Messiah ben Joseph, which Christians term 'the suffering servant', and at His second coming, we believe that He will fulfill the role of Messiah ben David or what we term 'King Messiah'. We also believe Jesus is a Priest in the order of Melchizedek. In Malachi 4, Elijah was prophesied to return and in the New Testament people asked John the Baptist 'Are you Elijah'? Although he denied being Elijah or the prophet - Moses (John 1:21), perhaps an effort to deflect attention away from him and towards Christ, Jesus did imply he played the role of Elijah (Matthew 17:12). But of course the real Elijah and Moses did return prior to the cross at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9, Luke 9, 2 Peter 1).

Interestingly enough here are some of the traits attributed to Messiah ben Joseph and how I can see them relating to Jesus' first coming:

• He is the leader of the lost ten tribes and/or all Israel - Christians believe we represent spiritually the lost ten tribes who were scattered among all nations. It is said that in the future He will bring back the exiles and rebuild the land of Israel. Christians believe that this will be fulfilled by Jesus at his second coming.

• 'Ben' means 'son (of)' in Hebrew, and Jesus was known as the son of Joseph (his legal father).

• Joseph is also meant to refer to the tribe of Joseph (Ephraim) which was in the north and is linked to both the lost ten tribes and the physical northern area of Israel (i.e. Nazareth/Galilee area where Jesus was from). 

• A stone tablet called Gabriel's Revelation refers to a Messianic figure from Ephraim who will break evil in three days - Jesus breaks the power of evil by dying on the cross and rising to life again in three days. Messiah ben Joseph is also associated with the rebuilding of the temple (hence why he is a craftsmen) - something Jesus claims he will do in three days referring to his bodily resurrection. 

• Messiah ben Joseph is willing if necessary to die battling evil forces and the enemies of God and would receive an inadequate burial - which indeed happened to Jesus. Perhaps not in the way the Jews envisioned a battle would take place but it was the greatest battle ever fought and won. 

• Later God would resurrect the dead and a peaceful Messianic era would follow with Messiah ben David ruling (sounds like Heaven to me). 

Your thoughts are welcome...

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Hearing from you gives me great encouragement!