Felt bookmarks

We love a fun craft project around here! Anything colourful and useful is often found in production at our dining room table. My number one request when looking for a bigger house, after Henry was born, was that I wanted a large dining room table. I could just see us all either eating, working on projects, reading, playing games, or writing around a table big enough for guests too. This is definitely what I ended up with. We bought the largest Norden table from IKEA. It has been stabbed with the forks of toddlers, scratched, permanently engraved with pens and cleaned so much that the lacquer is now wearing off. But it is also a place where some of my fondest memories have taken place. Sitting and chatting over a cuppa with Craig, playing Hungry Hippos with the kids, sewing the kids' memory quilts, magnificent Play Doh creations, watching 'I love you, mummy' cards in the making, letter writing, and more smiles than I ever thought possible in a lifetime. An endless amount of moments that make up the good, the bad, and the in-between bits. Well, over the last couple of days we have added another lovely memory to the use of this table. Felt bookmarks that turned out to be a great deal less challenging than I first thought. Maybe because we worked on them over two days, instead of one.

Materials needed to make a felt bookmark:

3 Templates in any chosen shape (computer with printer needed)
Stiff cardboard
Pen
Felt in 3 different colours
Needles (one to use with regular thread and one for embroidery thread)
Regular polyester thread
Embroidery thread
Ribbon
Elastic, preferably coloured
Pins
Scissors
Craft glue (optional)

How to:

1) The first step is to get all the materials ready. This includes making the templates, which is really easy. All I did was ask the kids to tell me a shape that they liked, then used Microsoft Word (you could use any program that can create shapes) to make three versions of the chosen shape in different sizes. Print these templates and cut out. Next you need to trace around these templates, onto stiff card. For this step I used a Lego box to reduce wastage.

2) Trace around each of the three cardboard templates onto felt. Use a different colour of felt for each template.

3) Make a small bow out of ribbon and sew it onto the middle of the smallest piece of felt using regular polyester thread.

4) Using embroidery thread, sew around the edge of the middle sized piece of felt using overcast stitch.

5) Chose a piece of elastic and use a book to work out the length needed. Make sure the elastic overlaps a little.

6) Sew elastic onto the back of the largest piece of felt.

7) Sew the middle sized piece of felt onto the large piece.

8) Finally, sew the smallest piece of felt onto the middle sized piece.

This is the final result: two very happy little girls, eager to use their new bookmarks.

The boys wanted to make one each as well. Neither wanted to do ALL the sewing, so I modified the activity for them.

For Henry (4 years), I sewed the large piece of felt onto the elastic for him. He then used craft glue to glue all of the pieces together.

For Jack, I asked him to sew the elastic on, then asked him to glue the pieces together. As he is the king of modification and thinking outside the square, his interpretation was somewhat different than I imagined. It just goes to show that this activity can be completed in any number of ways.

All the kids loved having a go at this activity. I think we may make some more closer to Christmas so they can give them as gifts. Isabel wants to make another one for herself. She really wants to learn how to embroider, so I will use this as an opportunity to show her a little, by helping her embroider her first initial onto the small piece of felt. The girls also commented that they could vary the size and shape of the felt to make cute headbands too. Maybe next weekend.