Keep track of your reading with this cute DIY Felt Cactus Bookmark! Perfect for kids to make and gift their friends or to stuff stockings this holiday!

When we think of socks and stockings, the first thought that comes to mind is how they mysteriously go missing during laundry. Legend says that every sock that goes missing comes back as a Tupperware lid. We don’t know how true that is, but there’s no denying socks have a mind of their own!

However, come Christmas and suddenly they get a whole new significance. The tradition of the Christmas stocking began during the times of St. Nicholas, and was believed to be filled based on your actions the past year. If you were good, you got cool gifts; if you weren’t, you’d get nothing but coal!

These days, family members often put up their stockings together in one place, for Santa to fill them at night. Parents are often on the lookout for cute little gifts to put in the stockings, trying to find something other than candy – Halloween wasn’t too long ago!

If you’re looking for a stocking stuffer that’s actually useful and won’t cause cavities, we’ve got just the thing today – a DIY felt cactus bookmark! This is super easy to make by yourself, and will fit perfectly into a stocking of any size. It’ll also encourage your child to become a regular reader – now which parent doesn’t want that!

DIY Felt Cactus Bookmark for Kids

Supplies required:

• Colored felt fabric
• Needle and thread
• Pencil
• Hot glue gun
• Paper clip
• Scissors

How to make the DIY Felt Cactus Bookmark:

1. Download and print the template for the felt cactus bookmark. The template has the parts for the front and back of the cactus, the pot and the flower.

2. Trace and cut out the parts of the template on felt of your chosen colors. Select green colored felt for the cactus pattern, brown for the pot and any colored felt of your choice for the flowers. Trace the template patterns on the selected felt fabrics and cut them out neatly.

3. Place the 2 pot cutouts together and stitch along the 2 sides and the bottom side of the pot cutouts to join them together. Here we’ve used a flat blanket stitch around the sides. Remember to keep the top end open.

4. Grab any one of the cactus cutouts and prepare the needle with black thread. Stitch straight lines along the cactus cutout, vertically. Work simple running stitch along the lines.  

5. I worked 3 lines of running stitch on the cactus cutout. The stitched piece of the cactus cutout will be the front side of the cactus plushie.

6. Place the 2 cactus cutouts together and stitch around the sides and top. Keep the bottom end open. You can either use cotton or scrap felt to fill the cactus felt pattern. 

7. Fill the felt cactus pattern with scrap felt through the bottom open end.

8. Fill the felt pot with scrap felt too if you wish to.

9. Insert the bottom end of the felt cactus pattern inside the top end of the felt pot pattern. Make sure that both parts overlap each other by a cm. Apply hot glue to close the open ends and join the pot with cactus. You can also stitch them together, if you wish.

10. Stitch or glue the small flower cutout on the top-front side of the cactus plushie.

11. Attach a paper clip on the backside of the cactus pattern. Attach a small piece of felt to cover the top glued side of the paper clip and make sure to keep the bottom side of the paper clip intact, so that it can be sued to clip papers.

And your DIY felt cactus bookmark is ready!

We can’t get over how cute these little felt cactus bookmarks are! You can also change the flower on it to give each bookmark a unique look. These would also make great party favors for a cactus-theme party or for a study session about desert habitats. You can also skip the clip and attach a little ribbon to turn it into an ornament, a key chain or a bag charm. So many things to do with a cute little felt cactus!