Style Watch: A DIY Busy Book for Little Hands

One week ago, I launched Drawn Together, a creative effort to bring healing to the children and families of  Newtown, Connecticut. If this is your first time hearing about it, Drawn Together is a project that will provide tote bags filled with brand new art supplies to the children of Newtown, CT and the surrounding communities. Research has shown art to be a valuable therapeutic tool for working with children as they process grief and trauma. There are still several ways to get involved with Drawn Together. You can read the original post HERE and the updates HERE and HERE.  For minute to minute updates on the progress on this project, join me on Instagram and Facebook for photos and more.

For today’s Style Watch, I thought I’d share a project that I completed a while back, and it’s perfect for little hands. I combined some of my sewing skills with papercrafting to create this portable busy book, complete with printable templates for the pages.

DIY Busy Book Header

DIY Busy Book

I started out but stitching together two rectangles of canvas with a firm interfacing between, to give the folder some stiffness. It’s worth mentioning that I am far from an expert seamstress! I can sew in a straight-ish line, and that’s it!

For this busy book, I designed 4 different busy book worksheets and customized each with my Clear & Simple Stamps.

Busy Book Worksheets

{1} Fruit Shape Matching: I die cut the fruit shapes using the Mini Fruit Dies with black cardstock, then arranged them onto the worksheet, which I then laminated.  Next, I stamped and die cut the same shapes using the Perfect Harvest stamp set, which I also laminated an cut out. I placed a piece of adhesive velcro on each to make them interactive.

{2} Mia’s Lemonade Stand: Using the Well Preserved: Large stamp set, I created a rainbow of jars, with separate, laminated lids that can be matched up!

{3} Pirate Treasure Hunt: I simply added a fun treasure hunt image to this worksheet using the Ragdoll: Pirate stamp set which I colored with markers.

{4} Letter Matching (not shown): Using the same shapes for the Fruit Matching worksheet, I die cut and laminated letters from Uppercase Alphabet .

Busy Book Fruit Worksheet

Busy Book Felt Envelopes

To create little storage cases for all the little die cuts that make up this busy book, I used the Mini Tri-fold Die to create little envelopes! By cutting them from felt,  stitching up the sides and adding a button hole closure, I was able to create perfect envelopes for holding the pieces.

IMG_8736

And just to be sure this busy book was a hit, I gave it to one of my friend’s daughter…she loved it!

Busy Book in Action

Download-Here arrow

BUSY BOOK WORKSHEETS DOWNLOAD

Keep on crafting with these other posts

About Amber

Hey, I’m Amber Kemp-Gerstel - the crafty brain behind Damask Love, where creativity, color, and a little chaos come together. I’m a suburban mom of two, known for turning up the volume on everyday DIYs and showing up like your colorful, crafty BFF. Over the years, I’ve gone from psychologist to full-time content creator, TV host, and brand partner, with appearances on Making It, Today, and HGTV. When I’m not making stuff or on set, I’m chasing around my two boys, Markus and Maxwell, and laughing my way through the mess.

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107 Comments

  1. 12.23.12

    Wow! Amazing project!

  2. 12.23.12
    conil said:

    What a wonderful gift for a little person. Just perfect.

  3. 12.23.12
    Judy said:

    Amber this is fabulous; your creativity is
    amazing!!

  4. 12.23.12
    janet said:

    GASP!!! What a brilliant project, Amber 🙂

  5. 12.24.12

    I am speechless, Amber!
    Stunning project, photos and activities. I can’t wait to make envies with that die and a few busy books of my own! You are simply amazing!

  6. 12.26.12
    Lindsey said:

    Incredible! I’ve been making some activities like this for my son, and I totally forgot to use my stamps/die cuts! This is genius!

  7. 12.28.12
    Urska said:

    This is such a great project!
    You’ve come up with such great ideas, die cuts of fruits – who would have thought of that? And so lovely put together…
    You are just so full of ideas!

  8. 12.24.21
    Laura Cooper said:

    It is so cute! I’m impressed with this idea, and think it will be really useful and interesting for little learners!

  9. 12.24.21
    Roderick Nelson said:

    This can make the educational process more vivid and interesting. And can help with the development and education of children. I love reading various books and it helps to develop my imagination. Recently I needed to prepare a work on the Great Gatsby and this source helped me a lot with this https://graduateway.com/the-great-gatsby-essay-topics/ I found many different writing ideas and the examples were useful too. I’ve read a few of them and got inspired to write.

  10. 6.21.23

    Your article is really interesting thanks for sharing it.

  11. 7.11.23

    I love it! Beautiful project, photos, and activities. I can’t wait to make envies with that die with a handful of my own busy books! You are really incredible!

  12. 10.21.23

    thanx you admin. Nice posts.. Netflix Bedava Hesap

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    Thanks a bunch for one more valuable post.

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