What better way to show your Mom how much you appreciate her and all her hard work on Mothers Day than with a handmade bookmark. Add it to a hamper with a few new books, a new mug and her favourite sweet treats and make sure she has some 'me' time.
Let's take a look at how we made them and what you can do to personalise your own!
Here's what you'll need :
Materials
Tools
If you search for 'bookmark' on DesignBundles then you'll get a ton of great files come up but for this project in particular we are looking for an SVG Cut File. I settled on this Bookmark bundle by Wispy Willow Designs as it gave a variety of shapes to work with for our handmade bookmarks.
Once you have bought your cut file you need to go into your purchases (under your profile button at the top right of the page) and download your file/files to your computer. Check to see if any of the downloaded files need to be unzipped and then you can upload them straight to Cricut Design Space. I'm going to do 3 different designs for this project so I've added them all to my mat at the same time.
I'm making these bookmarks from faux leather/leatherette I have leftover from a previous project so I'm going to size these files to best fit my material. To adjust the size of your files all you need to do is click on them and then use the arrow toggle on the bottom right of their outline. You can adjust them as a whole (adjust the height and length in ratio) or you can use the padlock button to 'unlock' the shape and adjust just the height or just the width.
Since these are meant as mothers day gifts, let's make them super special by personalising them with a name or message. One of the easiest ways to make your crafts stand out from everyone else's is to use a new font - so many people stick with the Cricut standard fonts or the ones that come with their computer but what if I told you there are tons of premium fonts available for FREE that are super easy to install?
DesignBundles sister site FontBundles is THE place to get stunning new fonts to really set off your projects and work. New premium free fonts are added to their site weekly and are a great way to try out some different styles and learn how to work with new fonts.
If you have purchased a font from FontBundles you will need to do the same as we did with our SVG file and go into the purchases part of your account and click download next to the relevant item, if you are using one of the weekly free fonts you can download it straight from that font details screen.
Find the font in your downloads and unzip it if you are using a Mac or right-click and select extract if using Windows. Once the file is extracted/unzipped, open the folder and find the OFT version of the font and double click. A new window will appear where it will show you the font in alphabet form, click on the install button on that window - that's it! Your new font is now ready to go.
*Important - if you already have DesignSpace open and running when you install your new fonts you will have to close it down and open it back up again to make them active. Remember to save your work first!
I decided that I wanted to try out 3 new fonts on my bookmark designs so I chose Admara, Joy Maker and Toddler.
I added my text, adjusted its alignment and orientation to fit the shape of the bookmarks (this included ungrouping and moving the Admara text closer together to make it a joined cursive font, once I had positioned the letters I then welded the words together so that they will cut as one continuous word)
I decided that the 'Coffee, Cake, Book, Bliss' needed a little extra something so I went and had a look in the Plus files library on DesignBundles.net to see if there was a coffee cup image I could use - I found this collection of Coffee Cup and Tea Mug SVGs which was perfect for what I was looking for.
All I did then was upload the relevant coffee cup SVG, add it to my canvas, resize it and align it with my text, once I was happy with the placement I welded it to my text as I want them all to be cut from the same piece of HTV.
Now that our designs are all sorted we can send the file to cut! To do that we just have to click the 'Make It' button in the top right corner and we are then presented with this screen...
We are using HTV to put our quotes and wording on to our bookmarks so we have to remember to 'mirror' our design as HTV is cut on the back of the vinyl and not the front. Once we've mirrored the text we can click continue and go to our cut screen.
When cutting faux leather on the Cricut you want to make sure to use a standard or fabric grip mat as the blade will make a few passes at the cut which means there is more chance of the faux leather lifting off the mat if not adhered properly. If you find that it does lift when cutting you can always put some tape around the edges of the fabric to hold it in place, the blade can cut through the tape no problem at all whilst still keeping the edges secure.
I find it easiest to line my items to weed up on my cutting mat as it holds them steady whilst I weed the fiddly bits. Once weeded you can line your HTV up on your bookmarks.
We've got our bookmarks, we've got our HTV, now we just need to stick them together!
Check the heat pressing guidelines for your HTV, when pressing on faux leather I tend to take the temperature down a little bit and also reduce the pressing time otherwise you can leave indents on the material where the carrier sheet was. It's also handy to leave the bookmark to cool under a heavy book as the heat from pressing can sometimes make the edges curl slightly.
What bookmark is complete without a tassel? There are two great options we can pick when it comes to finishing off our bookmarks, we can either make our own or use a ready-made tassel. You can get ready-made tassels in bulk from Amazon, the one I've used was part of a kit for making acrylic keyrings so it already came with the additional findings I needed and I just removed the keyring part. If you buy just the tassels on their own then you can attach them to your handmade bookmark with jewellery jump rings and some small nose pliers.
Alternatively, you can make your own tassels!
Take 1 skein of embroidery floss and remove the paper wrap, arrange the floss so that it is all looped nicely. This skein will make us two short and fairly skinny tassels.
Find the end of the floss, unwrap two full loops worth and cut it off - this is what we will use to make our hanging loops and to tie off the top of the tassel.
Decide on how long you would like your hanging loops, I only make them a few cm's long as I want them to fit close to the top of the handmade bookmark) and make a knot in your floss to create the loop.
Open the loose ends of your hanging loops and wrap them around the ends of your skein (it'll look like it's backwards or that we're working on the wrong side but trust me, this is how we get a nice neat tassel!) pull the knots tight so that they are secure.
Hold the loose ends of each hanging loop together so that your skein is now folded in half and chop through the folded skein with scissors - this makes our two tassels.
Then all you need to do is grab your hanging loop and brush the floss down so that it covers the loose hanging loop ends and then wrap your spare bit of floss around the tassel to give it its little top poof!
And there we have it, our finished bookmarsk ready for Mothers Day. This is such a fun craft to do and they can be personlaised with all kinds of things - why not try searching for some 'book quote' SVG files and see what you can come up with!
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