Handmade Gift - Ribbon Bookmarks

Books are a great gift and I love to give my daughters books on the subjects they love.  On their last birthdays I ordered book sets from Amazon.  My oldest received the Divergent series which she loves and my youngest Percy Jackson.

Along with the books I wanted to give them a special bookmark.  Something a little nicer than your standard cardstock variety.  I've wanted to make ribbon bookmarks for quite some time so that is what I did.

I have quite a bit of ribbon in my stash as well as lace and beads.  The wide ribbon was part of that big bag of craft supplies I bought at our favorite thrift store two years ago. 

I cut the wide ribbon to a length just a bit longer than the books I bought, in this case 11 inches.  The same thing with the flat lace and narrow ribbon.  I layered the pieces and pinned the together.  With matching thread I did a simple straight stitch down the center to secure it all in place.

I pressed the bookmark with a warm iron and turned the ends under twice, pressing them into place and secured the ends with another straight stitch.  To embellish them further I used embroidery thread and beads.

I looped the thread through the hem at one end, strung the beads and secured them with a knot at the end.  Total time spent on this project was about ten minutes to make each bookmark.  I think it took me longer to pick out my materials and decide which ones to use than to actually make them.

Fun to make and a little fancy too.