Recycling Quiet Book

image courtesy of plaidonline.com

i am going to share 2 of my favorite things! first of all, and maybe best of all, is MOD PODGE which i think is quite possibly the coolest craft item EVER! check here if you don't know much about this product or want to read how the inventor mod podged her VW bug! ok, so there are several varieties of this adhesive, and i always have a jar of the regular type for paper on hand. excellent for all sorts of projects, there is of course an acid-free variety and a crazy glitter version and a heavy duty one for furniture, and others.
I LOVE IT!!

now on to fave #2. i love books, which means i love children's books, and my favorite of those is the quiet book. now, if you have looked at those, they are pretty spendy to purchase, and sometimes even to make. i just started a practically-free-because i-am-using-recycling version for haven. my theme is the alphabet, and i am focusing on 1 letter per page, and each page is as much of that letter as i can get! so for "B" that means blue paper, birds, balls and boots! i am going to share what i did, then give a few pointers for alternate ideas:

*3-hole punch an 8x11 piece of cardstock
*have a general layout in mind, then remove all your cut-outs

*put cardstock on sturdy, washable surface eg. cutting board

*spread a thin layer of MOD PODGE over the whole paper
*place 1st layer of pictures
*add another coat of MOD PODGE, place next layer of pictures
*repeat until finished, ending with a final coat of the PODGE

*let paper dry, about an hour or so
*pop into a 3-ring binder (which can also be PODGED up cute!)

the reason i like MOD PODGE for this is that you can keep adding new pictures/words to the pages, always updating when you find what you are looking for. you could however, just tape or use a different glue for the cut-outs and slide the finished product into a plastic protector sheet, then add new images by removing the paper from the sheet.

alternate themes could be: favorite things ie. trucks, animals, stories
things that rhyme
focus each page on a "subject" ie. colors, senses, food groups

i only used materials that i had on hand, and that would've ended up in the recycling box. i liked: annie's cracker boxes, family fun magazines, and the land of nod catalog. anything you have works though, then i added a few stickers just to look pretty!