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Easy Sew Valentines Bookmarks: Fun for Kids!

Easy Sew Valentines Bookmarks: Fun for Kids!

It was only a matter of time, friends. Given my life-long love of both reading and stitching, I’m actually surprised it’s taken me this long to come up with a craft project that puts them together!

Lately, my daughter’s been showing more interest in sewing ventures, and I thought it’d be fun to encourage her stitching skills with some very simple patterns she could follow on paper.

So with Valentine’s Day around the corner, I had the idea of stitching simple hearts onto paper for Valentines cards this year. But alas, we all know what happens to all those boxes and bags of Valentines cards that come home from school each year–by March, most of them have found a tragic demise in the trash bin!

That’s when I came up with the idea of bookmarks. I figured that if we made Valentines that are actually useful, that would increase their chances for survival!

I started rummaging through my supplies of embroidery thread from old cross-stitch projects and picked out all the shades of pink and red I could find. A quick perusal of my ribbon stash rewarded me with Valentines hues as well. And I still had kraft paper on hand from a notebook project I did a few months ago.

(Yes, I have a pretty significant craft stash at this point in my life. I’m pretty sure I even have leftover purple cardstock somewhere from the wedding programs we made for our wedding 18 years ago!)

With all the supplies I needed on hand, I set to work. I decided to punch holes in the paper with a push pin so my daughter would be able to easily follow the pattern and have an easier time sewing. And since I have Photoshop handy, I designed a quick template I could follow so I wouldn’t have to freehand all the designs. (And you can grab it as a free download below!)

I ended up with three designs, printed them off and set to work punching out holes and stitching up our photo-types. Pre-punching the paper made the sewing part easy-peavey, and I’m so pleased with how cute they turned out!

My daughter and I decided the striped pattern would take too long to mass produce for classmates, but we’re in the process of stitching up some three-heart and hearts-on-a-string designs that she can give to her teacher and friends.

Want to give these bookmarks a try yourself? Just grab the free templates by clicking the box below  and read through the simple directions that follow. You can add your own creative twist by stitching with different colors or using different colored cardstock for your designs.

Happy stitching!

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Supplies Needed:

  • embroidery threads (I use DMC floss)
  • kraft paper, or colored cardstock
  • large-size needles
  • downloaded pattern template
  • ribbon
  • scissors
  • thumbtacks/push pins (If you don’t have push pins on hand, the end of a paper clip works too. Just unbend so you have a sharp point.)
Kids Sewing Project

How to Make:

Step 1: Cut out the templates and cut your kraft paper/cardstock into bookmark size. (I made mine 6-3/4″ by 2-3/4″.)

Kids Sewing Project

Step 2: Place your paper template over your cardstock. Using your push pin, poke little holes through both pieces of paper, following the template design. I placed a scrap piece of cardboard under my paper to help protect my work surface.

Kids Sewing Project
Kids Sewing Project
Here’s what they should look like after the patterns are punched

Step 3: Cut a length of embroidery floss and make a knot at the end. Depending how thick you want the stitches to look, you can use from 2-6 threads. (I stitched the “hearts-on-a-string” pattern, and the stripes with 2 threads, but used 6 threads for the three-heart pattern and the large heart on the striped design.)

Valentines Craft

Step 4: Stitch the design going down one hole and then up through the next. (This will leave a space between every stitch on the front side of your bookmark.)

Kids Sewing Project
Here’s the front side after stitching up the line one way.

Step 5: When you reach the end of your shape, reverse direction and stitch back the way you came, filling in the spaces. At the end of your stitches, tie a knot on the back side of your bookmark and weave your thread through a few of the stitches on the back before cutting the thread.

Kids Sewing Project
Here’s the front side after stitching back up the pink line and filling it in.

Step 6: Punch a hole in your bookmark.

Kids Sewing Project

Step 7: Add ribbon. To attach the ribbon, cut a 6″ length of ribbon and fold in half. Pull the two ends of the ribbon together through the hole of your bookmark toward the front side. Pull through about an inch. Now pull the loose ends of your ribbon through this loop.

Kids Sewing Project
Note the loop of ribbon on the back side of the bookmark.
Kids Sewing Project
Now you can pull the ends of the ribbon right up through that loop.

That’s it! Now you have a fun Valentines bookmark you can tuck in your favorite book or share with a friend. Hope you (or your kids) enjoy this fun little project and have fun spreading some love!

Comments (4)

  1. Avatar

    These bookmarks are flipping cute. Thanks for the post.

    Feb 25, 2019 Reply
    • Avatar

      Thanks! Hope you have fun sewing them up. 🙂

      amyjoy
      Feb 25, 2019 Reply
  2. Avatar

    I printed the templates, but there’s no instructions on how to finish the bookmarks.

    Linda Stewart
    Sep 13, 2019 Reply
    • Avatar

      Hi Linda: Instructions are in the post. Sorry, but I don’t have a separate printable sheet with instructions, but you can still print the post if you want something physical to refer to.

      amyjoy
      Sep 13, 2019 Reply

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