DIY easy felt bookmark |Keeping it Real

Hello, and welcome! Today I'm going to show you how easy it is to make a cute felt bookmark - which, trust me, makes a great gift or party favor for both children and adults.

What you need:

two pieces of not too thick (and not too soft) felt in a color of your choice (or two colors, if you want front and back to be different). Mine were about 4 x 20.5 cm, which makes a rather long bookmark, appropriate for hardcovers or those larger children's books. If you're making a bookmark for paperbacks, for example, you may want to reduce length a bit.

I used this felt I got from Amazon, which is perfect to create these bookmarks and the little felt purses I love to make:

a piece of ribbon - this is optional and only needed if you want to create a small ribbon loop at the top of the bookmark. 8 - 10 cm of ribbon is sufficient.

embroidery floss or thin crochet yarn (for sewing around the bookmark), either in a matching or a contrasting color - again, this is optional: you may choose to machine sew all around instead, or just glue the two felt pieces together, for a no sew version

embellishments - for reasons I'll explain below, I chose this felt owl cutout, but anything goes here, as look as it's not too thick to place inside a book

fabric glue (optional, but helps to secure the ribbon in place while you are sewing the bookmark)

How to:

I find it's a lot easier to sew these bookmarks if the ribbon is already in place, so fold your piece of ribbon in half and glue both ends between the two pieces of felt. You don't need to actually glue the pieces of felt together but if you feel more comfortable doing so, add a few drops of glue here and there (just don't glue the felt too close to the edge, otherwise it will be difficult to pass the needle through).

Now sew all around. I used a blanket stitch (again, for reasons you'll see below), but the type of sewing is really up to you:

And now all that is left to do is to add your embellishments. I just glued on the owl in place.

And here's the reason why I used a blanket stitch and the owl: because I wanted the bookmark to match this small felt purse I made a while ago - it was actually listed in my Etsy shop back when I was selling physical items, and then just ended up stored with the rest of the unsold inventory.

Now the bookmark and the purse will be a gift set for a birthday that's coming up soon.