At the sewing studio we are always on the lookout for fun sewing projects for kids. One project that turned out to be a real quickie and managed to keep eleven teens engrossed for an entire hour was a simple felt  bookmark project! We found a version of this bookmark online at: http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/felt-bookmark but I have to say, this group of teens really made it their own!

What you do is take a piece of felt and cut a rectangle approximately 2.5″ inches wide by 6″ long using pinking sheers. The beauty of felt is that because it is not a woven fabric, the edges don’t need to be hemmed or finished in any way. Then you cut interesting shapes out of the inside of your rectangle with a pair of regular scissors. Then you cut 2 more layers the same size as the first. The middle layer is an interesting woven fabric that will “peek through” the shapes you have cut. The lowest layer is another piece of felt. Once this is done, you make the equivalent of a “fabric sandwich” by pinning the 3 layers together.

Then bring it over to your sewing machine. Now stitch around the the perimeter and if you want to get really creative you choose some interesting stitches and stitch around the cutouts as well. Voila! a handmade bookmark that is one of a kind!

One of the kids made felt “kitty cat” shapes and a dog silhouette and sewed those as appliques on top of one of a plain felt rectangle. There are lots of potential creative ways to do this project. As soon as I can get the kids to bring their creations back to class, we will be able to post some pictures.

Happy sewing!