This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
Anticipated Crafting Time for this project: 4-5 Hours
This busy book is recommended for children ages 3-5.
(Warning – This book may contain small parts that may present a choking hazard for children under the age of 3.)
The “My Princess Book” includes instructions to make the following busy book pages:
• A front cover for the book
• A “Help Lace And Tie The Dress” page with six buttons, and a ribbon meant to wrap around the buttons and tie in a bow
• A “Build A Castle” page, with 4 Velcro on castle puzzle pieces
• A “Help The Princess Get Dressed” page with a removable doll, three Velcro on dresses, and a storage pocket/dressing shield for when the doll is not in use
• A “Help Style Her Hair” page, with corded hair, and hair clips to arrange, braid or style the hair on the page
• A “Dress Yourself Like A Princess” page, with a Velcro pocket treasure chest, and plastic play jewelry
Supplies Needed:
• busy Book Printed Fabric Page (Available at Spoonflower.com – I’d suggest the Cotton Canvas fabric for the best durability)
• Iron on fixative lining (adhesive to connect the smaller fabric pieces to the felt)
• Felt (for lining the smaller book play pieces)
• Elastic
• 7 Buttons
• Velcro
• Plastic play jewelry
• Cording or Yarn (for play hair)
• Ribbon
• Hair clips (1/2 inch or so works best)
• A sewing machine (Can also be hand sewn)
• A needle
• Thread
• Sewing pins
• Scissors
• An iron
• An ironing board or ironing surface
• A candle
• Matches to light the candle
*Note* A few minor design updates may have been made to the fabric & movable pieces for better usability.
Step One:
Iron the printed fabric. Then take it and cut out the 4 large rectangular pages of the book, each section should have two pages still attached in the middle, and when they are cut out they should look like the image to the right.
Put pages aside.
Step Two:
Take the leftover fabric with the various smaller pieces for the busy book and make sure you DO NOT CUT OUT the individual pieces.
Follow the instructions on the iron on fixative lining to connect the smaller play pieces to the felt fabric for stronger durability.
Start by taking the fabric with the smaller busy book pieces and cut the iron on fixative lining and the felt to match the size and shape of the fabric.
Next layer the three pieces of fabric. Felt should be on the bottom, iron on fixative should be in the middle, printed fabric should be on the top with printed side out (not facing the iron on fixative) You may want a disposable cloth, or bit a excess fabric for the next part as any over hang of the iron on fixative will be sticky and will gunk up your iron or ironing board if they touch.
Set your iron to a medium setting and press it to the printed fabric holding for three seconds before removing and pressing the next section. Continue until the whole cloth has been ironed. Then flip your cloth over so the printed side is down, and the felt side is up and repeat the process (again you may want to use a cloth on this part to save your fabric and your iron if you have any overhang).
Step Three:
Take the fabric with the various busy book pieces to your sewing machine and sew around each individual piece, keeping your thread just barely inside the line of the design.
Special Note: Sew around the green rectangle of the crown on the left, top and right sides, and follow the line of the crown on the bottom side, as you’ll need the full piece rather than just the crown shape for the page. See image for example of where to sew:
Step Four:
Take the book page with the purple lace dress back and sew six buttons along the “V” of the dress at even intervals (Starting two inches from the bottom of the page).
Step Five:
Take a thin ribbon, and measure out how much of it you’ll need to start at the bottom “V” of the purple dress and lace it around each of the buttons before tying in a bow. Cut off any excess.
Light a candle then take each end of the ribbon and move it towards the flame (without actually touching the strands to the flame) just get close enough to melt the fiber at the end to prevent fraying.
Step Six:
Sew the middle of the ribbon to the bottom of the purple page shown in Step 4 & 5.
Step Seven:
Line up the two treasure box cut outs pieces so that the flap of the top of the treasure box lid overlaps with the bottom of the box. Take your velcro and cut a small strip for the gold treasure box lid. Sew the soft part of the velcro to the top “gold” tab, and sew the rough part of the velcro to the bottom of treasure box piece where the gold top will overlap.
Step Eight:
Take the busy book page with the treasure box on it and line up the bottom part of the treasure box with the treasure box on the page. Sew around the left, bottom, and right part of the treasure box securing the cutout piece over the printed section.
Step Nine:
Take the cutout for the lid of the treasure box and align it with the top of the treasure box on the printed page. Sew the cutout piece to the printed page by sewing across just the top of the treasure box lid. This should allow it to act like a flap and open and close to allow access to the treasures inside the treasure box.
Step Ten:
Take your cording or yarn and cut it into strips, making each strip about 7 inches long.
Step Eleven:
Light your candle, then take each of the cut strips from step ten and move the ends of them towards the flame (without actually touching the strands to the flame) just get close enough to melt the fiber at the end to prevent fraying. Repeat on both sides of the strand with each of the strands.
Step Twelve:
Take your finished strands from step ten and lay them out horizontally over the crown on the page with the text “Help Style Her Hair.” (They should be touching the left and right sides of the page, not the top and bottom).
Then sew a vertical line across the strands anchoring them in place. (Make sure they are not covering her face).
Then take the extra piece of fabric with the crown, and cut out the bottom curve under the crown.
Press down the hair strands so they are at the side of the princess’s face then lay the cutout crown over the strands and align it with the crown on the page, then carefully sew around the crown and over the strands sewing them into place.
Take your strand of ribbon (thicker works better) and align it to the right of the princess “hairstyle” page. Do a loose stitch (baste or pin it in place) at the top and bottom of the page. When the pages are sewn together it will be sewn into the page and secured.
Step Fourteen:
Take the “Build a Castle” page and cut out strips of velcro for each of the different castle puzzle pieces. Sew strips of the soft part of the velcro onto the castle page, and sew pieces of the rough part of the velcro onto the back of the corresponding castle puzzle pieces. (Note: Make sure you sew the velcro onto the same place on both the page and the castle pieces so they will match up when building the puzzle.)
Step Fifteen:
Cut out the princess, her three dresses, and the dressing curtain from your “pieces” of fabric.
Take the busy book page with the title “Help The Princess Get Dressed” and line up the dressing curtain with the dressing curtain on the page. Sew around the left, bottom, and right of the dressing curtain creating a pocket for the “Princess” to be in when not in use.
Step Sixteen:
Take your velcro and sew a small strip (of the soft side) onto the top part of the “princess doll” and each of the dresses printed on the page. (Note: Make sure you sew the velcro onto the same place on both the page and the dresses so they will line up when you put them on the page.)
Take the rough part of the velcro from step sixteen and sew it onto the top back part of each of the dress cutouts.
Step Eighteen: (Optional)
Take the front cover of the book and sew a button onto the right side of the page in the middle.
On the opposite side of the page (the back cover of the book) pin the small loop of elastic with the loop facing the print on the page and the edges of the elastic pinned at the edge of the page.
Step Nineteen:
Take the front cover of the book, and lay it face up, then take the page with the purple lace up dress, and the treasure chest and lay it face down over the top page, so the printed side of each page is touching.
Pin in place. Make sure the treasure box is empty and the long laces from the dress lace up are tucked between the two pages so they don’t get sewn into the seam.
Also make sure your elastic loop is facing in against the printed pages and only the edges of it are at the seam.
Starting at the bottom middle sew around the outside of the two pages, about a ⅜ inch from the edge, leave a four inch gap in the bottom of the book from where you began your sewing to where you end it.
Step Twenty:
Clip off the extra fabric in the corners of your book (This will allow it to lay more flat when you flip the book).
Use the four inch gap you left in step nineteen and flip the page, so that the print side is out, taking special care to press out the corners of the page as much as possible.
Iron your page flat. Be careful not to iron over the velcro parts as they may melt.
Step Twenty-Two:
Fold up the edges of your four inch gap, and pin them in place. Then sew around the outside of your book page (about ¼ inch from the edge) Start and end your sewing in the same place so that your four inch gap is sealed shut.
Step Twenty-Three:
Repeat steps nineteen through twenty-two for the other two pages of your busy book.
Step Twenty-Four:
Line up the two sewn rectangular pages (that create the whole of your busy book) and pin them in place so they completely overlap one another. Sew a straight line down the middle of your overlapped pages, securing the pages of the book together.
Step Twenty-Five:
Add all of your busy book pieces to the book and congratulations, you are done! 🙂
Thank you so much for your purchase of this busy book fabric, if you found any of these instructions to be unclear or difficult please email me at [email protected] – I’d love to get them updated and clarified to the best of my ability.
Spot cleaning with a light detergent and a damp rag is the best way to clean your busy book, but it should also hold up if you remove all the excess pieces from it and wash it in the washing machine on a gentle cycle. Air dry only.
Please let me know if you have any comments or additional questions.
