Simple Fabric Bookmark Tutorial

My oldest daughter Bridget has recently learned to read and to celebrate this milestone, and show her how incredibly proud we are of her, I decided to make her a bookmark.

My inspiration for this project came from this tutorial at Make and Takes - an incredible blog full of truly inspiring craft ideas.

I did make a few alterations to the Make and Takes tutorial so I have provided my own project instructions here.

First I gathered all my supplies:

• fabric
• pins
• measuring tape
• ribbon
• sewing machine

I had a piece of fabric 14 inches wide so I folded it in half with the wrong sides together, decided that this was long enough for a bookmark (7 inches), and cut a strip 4 inches wide.

I then cut a length of ribbon and pinned it to the center point at the top of the bookmark on the right side of the fabric.

After pinning the side and top seams in place, I sewed the edges together making sure that the ribbon was secured in the seam.  I also left an opening along the one side seam to allow for turning.  The ribbon was on the inside of my bookmark at this point, and the wrong side of the fabric was facing me.

I trimmed the edges and turned the bookmark right side out.  After slip stitching the opening closed, I pressed my bookmark and ran a line of top stitching around all four edges.  All done!

When Bridget was reading a Cinderella story later in the evening and she needed to pause for dinner, her new bookmark was ready to hold her place.

A very simple project requiring very few supplies.

And a great way to celebrate and encourage reading.