Page 19: Apple Tree

Items needed: 6" x 3.5" square of red felt (4 apples), 6" x 6" square of green felt (tree leaves), 5" x 4" square of brown felt (tree trunk), 3" x 5" square of brown/any color felt (bucket), small piece of ric-rac to decorate bucket, thread (any color- I used brown on mine), 4 snaps (I used the big bulky snaps that you put it with a snap tool/eyelet tool, however, they are a bit tough to do/undo. I recommend using the sew-on snaps as they are easier for little fingers). If you want to put a text box on your page (mine says: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!"), you will need a small rectangle of pellon to write the text on.

Teaches: snaps, counting, putting things away, and that apples are fun/good to pick/eat!

Cut out the following pieces: From your red felt, you are going to want to cut out eight apples (they will be doubled up in thickness, so in the end you will end up with 4 apples like my page). If you want more/less apples, then adjust accordingly. Also, here's a tip, you are going to want to cut the apples quite a bit bigger than the finished product (since you will trim the edges and they will reduce in size). My individual apples are roughly 1.5" tall and 1.25" wide, but when I first cut them out, they were about 1.75" tall and 1.5" wide before trimming them down (but don't trim them until you've sewed the snap on/sewed the 2 sides together).

Cut out the dark brown (or whatever color your bucket is) square into a bucket or basket shape. Make sure that the bucket mouth (width in between the handles) is big enough to fit the width of an apple in. And make sure to cut the bucket deep enough to fit a few apples in there. Cut out a piece of ric-rac/ribbon that can decorate your bucket (mine piece of ric-rac was 3" long).

Cut out the brown felt square and the green felt square into the shape of a tree and tree trunk. For the tree (green) part, I just cut out what looks like a fluffy cloud shape, and then when I sewed it on the page, I set the brown tree trunk part in front of the green cloud shape so it looks more like a tree top with the branches protruding it. I kind of just eyeballed my tree after looking at my mom's apple tree quiet book, and you can try and do the same. My mom gave me a bunch of sketches she made, way back in the 70's, while making her quiet book, and I scanned the Apple tree page sketch and will post it here. It might be helpful to enlarge the sketch picture and print it off and use it as a template when cutting your tree and trunk out:
Or you can get creative and make your own style of (apple) tree. Here are some links to cute other quiet book tree pages:

The Thornock family has 2 cute trees in their book- an apple tree and a tree with removable leaves for a spring and autumn theme.

My little sister, Sara made a cute apple tree page (complete with a blueberry bush!) for picking in her quiet book.

Jill from Homemade by Jill has a cute tree in her quiet book with individual leaves sewn on (a bit more time consuming but very nice looking).

Michelle from Sew Much More has a cute tree page rendition where she made a page that has leaves that button on branches.

Erika from "celebrating today" blog has a cute little apple tree with a patch of grass and even a template for the pages.

Directions: First we are going to start with making the little apples. Since you've already cut them out into apple shapes, the next step is to apply the 4 snaps to the back of 1/2 of the cut outs (so I applied 4 snaps onto 4 of the apple shapes, leaving 4 apple shapes without snaps- these will be the front layer of the apples). You are just going to want to apply 1/2 of the snap (the top or bottom) to the apple, and save the other 1/2 for application to the green felt of the tree.
Once you've gotten the snaps on the apples, you are going to want to sew the apples into a double thickness by placing the remaining apple shapes on top of the apple shapes with snaps on the back, and then sew along the border of the edges. After sewing these 2 layers together, you can trim the edges so the seam lies right close to the edge.Next take the remaining 4 snap halves and apply them onto the green tree felt part, positioning them where they look well-spaced. Now you are going to want to sew the tree onto the muslin quiet book page. Do this by first sewing on the green tree felt piece by sewing around it's edges. Then place the brown trunk felt piece and sew that into place also by sewing around the edges. You can now snap on the apples.
Next, is the bucket/basket. First sew on the ric-rac or ribbon onto the bucket felt piece if you are decorating it. I also sewed a straight stitch at the bucket mouth for reinforcement (since the felt will get tugged on a bit here). Then you are going to want to sew the bucket onto the muslin page. To do this. Sew around the edges of the bucket and the inside/outside edges of the handle. Make sure to not sew the bucket to the muslin across the mouth of the bucket- this will keep the bucket "open" and you can stuff things inside.Lastly, if you want a text box, cut out a small rectangle of white pellon (mine is 3" x 1.5" big) and write something cute on it like the apple a day phrase or the "tisket a tasket" rhyme.

Here's a picture of the apple tree in my mom's old quiet book (missing a few apples as you can see):
You're done! Have fun at the orchard!