How to Make a Cross Stitched Bookmark for Valentine's Day

Handmade Valentine's Day gifts are a creative way to share your sentiment with a loved one. Not only are handcrafted gifts affordable, but these also allow you to express your creativity. Try making a card for a friend, or even create a cross stitched bookmark, which is a great gift for people who love to read. Notice how you always lose your page while reading, well then you need a bookmark! Cross stitched bookmarks are easy for people of all ages to create, and here are the supplies needed for this craft:

• a scrap of plastic canvas mesh
• pink yarn
• white yarn
• a permanent marker
• scissors
• a bookmark

The first thing I did was to take an old bookmark and a permanent marker to trace around it onto a scrap of the plastic canvas mesh. Next, I cut out the bookmark shape and then I drew a heart at the top. As you can see there are a lot of tracings on this leftover mesh from other projects, but I am only going to focus on filling in the heart shape with white. The color surround the white heart is a shimmering pink yarn I picked up the other day.  The entire focus behind this project is being green and using supplies on hand.

Use the scissors to cut off enough white yarn that will not be too cumbersome to stitch. Personally I like to cut off about twenty inches of yarn for cross stitching, but you have to see what works best for you. Thread the yarn through the tapestry needle and begin filling it in with half cross stitches, which is the stitch that is most common for cross stitching on canvas plastic mesh. There are many other stitches you can use on plastic canvas mesh, and I suggest checking a book out of the library to learn about these other techniques.  See, I told you this was a very affordable, and cost effective gift and project.  How many people can say their gift is a labor of love?

Continue stitch on the white heart using the half cross stitch technique.

During this step in the process I finished stitching in the heart. After using the permanent marker to draw the heart on the mesh I get a feel for stitching on the shape, and next time around I will be able to do it free hand.

The pink yarn I am used for this project has a lustrous shine, which will give the bookmark a truly festive and fun look.  Here I began to stitch around the heart itself.

Since I like to get the back side of the bookmark as neat as possible I have decided to stitch around the white heart, which will cause less bumping on the underside.

As I continue to stitch on the pink yarn I am very enthralled to see my bookmark take shape.  Glance at the photos above to see how easy it is to create this project.

The bookmark will make a lovely gift for Valentine's Day, especially for the bibliophiles in your life!  Enjoy and get creative today!