Felt Book: Numbers

Normally I wouldn't post about someone's birthday gift until after I've given it to them but since c.b. is only turning one I don't think this post will ruin the surprise for him.  For c.b.'s first birthday (as well as Christmas), I am making him a felt Quiet Book.  I have several pages in mind; this is the first I completed.

My inspiration for the Numbers pages came from a blog post I found on Pinterest.  I really like having the different numbers of beads on the ribbon so c.b. can play with the beads without choking on them.

I started out by making a "pattern" of my own.  To be honest, this page was so simple I probably didn't need a pattern but I did one anyone, 'cause I'm like that.  Sorry the image isn't incredibly easy to see, I used pencil.

Here are the materials needed and their prices (if known/relevant):

- 2 background pages.  I chose white because I wanted the numbers and ribbon to be rainbow colors and I thought it'd be cute to have a white background.  These two pages came from a multi-pack that had a handful of pages in it (not all of them complete pages, which irked me a little when I got home and opened up the pack).  Each page in that pack came to about $0.15, so my two background pages cost $0.30.

- Felt for each color the numbers would be in.  This price is going to be difficult to come to.  The pink, yellow, green, and blue came from the multi-pack but I obviously didn't use full pages.  The multi-pack didn't have any orange so I had to buy that one separate, on sale, for $0.25 (and it wasn't even the orange I wanted but the best JoAnn had at the time).  I figure all the felt I used for those numbers comes to about $0.10.

- Ribbon.  The purple ribbon I used came from a pack I purchased from a friend while she was getting ready to move.  The whole pack had a ton of ribbon in it and I think I paid her $10 so I'd guesstimate the cost of the ribbon I used for these pages to be about $0.20.

- Thread.  I just used the cheap white stuff that is currently in my machine.  I think the cost is probably too insignificant to put here.

- 55 Beads.  The smallest pack of the big plastic beads that I could find had 245 pieces - way more than I needed but whatever.  That pack cost $1.99.  I chose white because I couldn't find any good mutli-colored packs.  I saw a red, white, and blue pack and a multi-colored pack that has some funky colors but I wanted to stick with traditional rainbow-like colors, so white works.

This brings the total cost of these two pages to $2.59 - that includes the 190 beads I didn't use.

Steps.

1. I started with cutting out the numbers.  I cut the color felt I wanted to about 2 inches by 2 inches, then drew the number on the felt (using a thin Sharpie marker) backwards.  I did it backwards so less of the marker would show when I put the numbers on the pages.
2. Next I sewed each number on to the background felt and sewed  one side of the ribbon to the background.
3. Then I placed the appropriate number of beads on the ribbon, secured the beads back with a pin, and sewed the other side of the ribbon.
4. Done.  Ok, so these pages are technically done but I'll still need to place holes on the inside side of each page when I finish other pages and want to secure them all together.