The idea for this page was a bit of a process.  Some of the things that I considered for this page include a puzzle page, a photo flip page, a memory page and the list goes on. Ultimately, I wanted to include something architectural in this book (as both my husband and I are in the field), but the problem remained, how I would actually go about this. I didn't want to do velcro or snaps because I had already done that, so, for a while, I was stuck. Then, a couple weeks ago, while visiting my sister, the bright glimmer of hope shined! One of the toys she uses for her daughter at church is a little tin with magnetic letters in it. Now the problem remained of whether to buy pre-made shapes or to design my own. I leaned toward the design side, but wasn't sure how I would turn it into magnets, then again, my sister shared another idea. A friend of hers had printed pictures of their kids onto magnetic paper, which seemed easy enough, but.... well I will get into that during the process part. (The update for this post is just in the pictures).

A little over a year ago, I shared this pancake recipe as a shout out with just a picture that linked to the original recipe on AllRecipes.com. About a month ago, my husband went to make these delightful pancakes and I noticed that the instructions could use some improvement, so I thought I would update things and give a play by play of how I make these incredible pancakes.

These little cupcakes are one of my proudest quiet book moments. The page is a bit on the time consuming side, but so darn cute! I came across a little baking page by Imagine Our Life when I was originally looking for quiet book ideas, which inspired the lovely page in this tutorial. (By the way, the only updates to this tutorial are to the pictures).

Today's post is a shout out to Kid's Activities Blog for their Super Soft Play Dough. I made this a couple weeks ago and my toddler played for 2 hours straight and even took a bathroom break! Granted, it was her first experience with play dough, but never the less, it is a pretty easy homemade dough to make and you most likely have all of the ingredients on hand.

This page is perhaps the most friendly of all the pages as the smiling face waves hello. The inspiration came from two places. The face and hair came from Craftalicious, but the waving hand came from a pirate page at Orange Crafts. If I were to make this over again, I might add a little pocket to the shirt that would hold hair ties.

Whenever I go to a pot luck there are a couple of things I avoid. One of them is cornbread. Rarely have I find a cornbread that is actually moist and doesn't need a TON of honey butter in order to swallow the mealy square. Honestly, I have never made the stuff because I thought that cornbread is supposed to be dry and awful. Well, last weekend, my in-laws gave us a bunch of fresh corn and, to use some of it up, I thought I would try a fresh corn cornbread. Let me just tell you, all of my preconceived notions of cornbread have been completely dispelled. The Epicurious recipe I found for Fresh Corn and Basil Cornbread is so moist and delicious it is almost cake. No butter or honey butter needed (although it is still good with honey butter). Click on the photo below to link to the recipe. By the way, I baked the bread in the photo using a spring form pan as I don't have a 9" x 9" square pan.

Just like the Babushkas Page of a couple weeks ago, this page doesn't need any construction updates, just photo updates. It is actually the first quiet book page I made as, the name page is one of the most classic quiet book pages. This particular page does double duty, however, because it features a zippered pocket to store the letters. You can download a pattern for the pocket that gives the option of a scalloped top, or a zig-zag top. To create the name, make a pattern in Word (I used Janda Manatee Bubble for my font on this page).

A couple weeks ago, I posted some Nature Bracelets that I made with my nieces. That same day we did the bracelets, we also made bubble snakes. I first saw this science experiment last March on a local show, Studio 5. Turns out, these are all over the web. There are tons of tutorials on how to make these fun bubble towers, probably because it is a cheap craft that keeps kids, young and old, entertained for quite a while.