A Girlguiding craft
Felt bookmarks
We've loved receiving photos of all your crafty creations from previous issues and checking out your suggestions for magazine crafts!
We've loved receiving photos of all your crafty creations from previous issues and checking out your suggestions for magazine crafts!
For this summer issue of Girlguiding magazine, we’re bringing you a felt bookmark craft. You can either embroider your decorations or use fabric glue instead to add a personal touch to them.
They’re the perfect quick craft for you, or you can make them as a thoughtful gift for a leader in your life. They also make for a great fundraising craft to try out with your unit.
Follow the step-by-step instructions and handy tips below to create your own felt bookmark.
You will need:
- Felt sheets in different colours.
- Embroidery thread in different colours.
- Scissors.
- Soluble stabiliser (if embroidering).
- Ruler.
- Marker pen.
- Embroidery needle.
- Fabric glue (if not embroidering).
Let's make a bookmark!
Step 1
Grab your felt, and using the ruler and your pen draw a 8cm X 8cm square. Once your square is done, draw a line through the middle to create 2 identical triangles, as shown in the photo (we’ve used yellow felt in this picture to better show how we’ve done it). Once you’re done, use the scissors to cut the triangles.
Step 2
If you’re choosing to embroider your bookmark, use one of the triangles as a stencil to draw a triangle of the same size onto the stabiliser. Then cut the triangle and draw your desired design on it.
Step 3
Once you’re happy with your design, stick the stabiliser onto the felt triangle.
Step 4
Grab the embroidery thread and needle and begin to embroider your design. We’ve used a mix of stitches for ours, including a lazy daisy and French knot for the flowers, a back split stitch for the lettering and a fly stitch for the tops of our strawberries. Once you’re done embroidering, run the triangle under cold water to dissolve the stabiliser and set aside until dry.
Top tip
If you’re using a light coloured felt, you can skip the stabiliser and draw your design directly onto it. This means you won’t need to run it under water, and let it dry, saving you some time!
Step 5
When your embroidered triangle is dry, grab your second triangle and place them together on top of each other, with your design facing out. Use a blanket stitch across the outer edge to join the two triangles together.
Or try fabric glue instead
Embroidery not your thing? You can use fabric glue to stick your design onto your bookmark, like we’ve done with the Brownies frog!
We’ve used felt in different colours to make our frog design, which was very ambitious of us – our recommendation is to create a design with bigger elements if using felt, as it can be a bit tricky to cut felt into smaller pieces.
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