Small Good Things

I’m so excited that over the weekend, my friend K and her husband are coming down to Brighton for the first time since we moved here – and then I remembered; she had asked me to make her a bookmark (which was quite a while ago. Oops). I looked around my craft supplies for some inspirations, and I found this mighty tool.

Ta-da! Stiffen Stuff, baby! As you can guess from the name, it’s a fabric stiffener (I got it from Amazon UK for about £8). I have a lot of fabric scraps, so I decided to upcycle them into pretty (and dead easy) bookmarks :)

What you’ll need:

• Stiffen Stuff or other fabric stiffener
• fabric scraps
• scissors
• trims or cords
• puncher
• iron

Instructions:

1) Cut out the fabric into your desired shape. I’m using printed fabric; the birds are heavy-weight fabric, and the owls are light-weight fabric, and they both worked fine.

2) Spray the fabric stiffener until the fabrics are wet. Lay them on a kitchen paper and microwave them until they are dry (mine took about 50 seconds).

See how stiff they are? Brilliant! The light-weight fabrics weren’t stiff enough, so I sprayed some more stiffener and microwaved for another 30 seconds.

3) Iron the fabrics with medium heat for a smooth finish (without the steam).

4) Make a hole with a puncher.

5) Thread trims or cords, and you’re done (told you it was easy)!

I love how they turned out! My friend loves owls, so hopefully she’ll be happy, too :)

Oh, and yes, I named my blog ‘Small Good Things’ after the title of this story (by Raymond Carver). I used to be a total bookworm, and I once read over 100 books in a year when I was studying literature translation. I really miss reading, but at the same time, I quite like spending most of my free time creating something (and on this blog, of course).

I think they may be perfect for stocking fillers as well… what do you think? Anyway, hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

I’m linking the tutorial on Katie’s Nesting Spot, Sassy Sites!, Flamingo Toes and Today’s Creative Blog; make sure you check them!