Making Leather Harry Potter Bookmarks
Toward the end of 2022, I re-discovered how much I love to read, specifically physical books. Unfortunately, I kept loosing my place anytime I was interrupted. So, I needed to solve that problem.
Honestly, my motivation to make things had been low all year as well and, when I posted online about it, my friend Ethan Carter suggested doing a small, quick project to re-kick my motivation, which is fantastic advice that I’m going to take.
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Tools Used
Sharp Knife (a ceramic blade worked well)
Metal Straight Edge
Pencil / Permanent Marker / Grey Marker
Drafting Compass
Chisel (optional for small cuts)
Blue Tape
Sanding Pad / Sand Paper
Marking Calipers
Small Mallet
Stitching Prong Punches
Awl or Ice Pick
Leather Stitching Needles
Stitching Pony (or hand screw clamp)
Burnishing Tool
Materials
Leather
Leather Paint
Contact Cement
Stitching Thread
Wax
Tokonole Burnishing Gum
Beeswax
Scrap Paper (for layout)
Steps for Build
Cut Out Pieces
Laser Engrave
Apply Paint
Glue Up
Stitch Seams
Apply Finish
1 - Cut Out Pieces
Before cutting any leather, it can be helpful to draw and cut out some paper templates. Paper is much less expensive than leather, so you can take your time to get the bookmarks to look exactly how you want.
For mine, I wanted one bookmark that would sit on the corner of the page and another that would “clip” on the side and point to the last read line. Once both templates were cut out, I moved on to the leather.
Layout the templates on the leather. One method is to use a light pen like a silver sharpie to mark around the template, then cut on the inside of the sharpie line. Another method is to tape the template to the leather and cut along the template line. I used both methods and marked the main leather piece to cut out the pieces.
Use a sharp knife to cut out the leather, using a metal straight edge for the straight cuts. For the curved cuts, take your time and be careful. For all of the cuts, take multiple, shallow passes to get through the leather. It will take a little extra time, but should result in a clean cut.
To partially cut the lightning bolt, instead of using a knife, I used a sharp chisel with the template taped to the piece. This let me not mark up the piece while also keeping the cuts precise to the design.
2 - Laser Engrave
Now here is where I cheated just a little bit. I wanted to theme the bookmarks to Harry Potter, but am terrible at applying very fine details by hand. Since I have a laser, I chose to engrave the bookmarks with my two designs. This left me a guide to use for the paint.
If you don’t have a laser, but have a tool like a Cricut cutter, you could cut the design out on some vinyl and use that as a template on the leather pieces.
3 - Apply Paint
With my engraved leather in hand, I grabbed my smallest brush and some gold leather paint. Having a guide engraved was incredibly helpful. I found that I didn’t have to be as careful with the paint as initially thought and could simply flood the engraving with paint, wiping off the excess from the surface. As long as you do this quickly with each piece, there shouldn’t any residual paint on the surface and the engraving will pop a little more. The same should work by paining with a vinyl template.
4 - Glue Up
The corner bookmark has two pieces that need the ends glued together. Mark where the two sides should join together and tape off where you don’t want glue. There are leather glues available, but contact cement seemed to work just as well. Apply the glue to each side on the backside of the leather, give the glue a few minutes to tack up, then careful squeeze the pieces together. To make sure the glue cures, clamp the pieces together for a bit.
If I were to make the bookmarks again, I would apply some leather finish to the non-glue inside before applying the glue. This is much easier than waiting to apply the finish and burnishing it after the pieces are glued and stitched.
Before stitching, I used some sandpaper to even out the edges of the curved piece to ensure both pieces were even.
5 - Stitch Seams
We need to stitch the glued seams to add some strength, but stitched edges also look more clean, so we’ll also stitch the edges of the square lightning bolt and the curved edges. For the curved piece, we’ll need to stitch both sides of the open curve without connecting them.
Start out with some calipers to mark the stitch line you want to keep along the edges of each piece. Using the stitching prong punches, mark out the holes. My set had a few different punches with varying prong counts. I used at least two prongs as much as possible to keep the spacing consistent. The two prongs was good to stay on the curve, but more prongs are better for the square piece. The single prong can help if you need to adjust the spacing to be more even when finishing a row out as well.
Since this was my first time stitching leather, I’ll leave the tips on stitching to more seasoned makers. However, I will say to take your time and it can be helpful to watch someone’s video, stitch a scrap piece, then re-watch the video looking for more information. I wish I had done this, but my scrap piece was part of the curved bookmark. My square bookmark stitching wasn’t perfect, but looked much better.
6 - Apply Finish
Leather needs to be conditioned a bit before we can call them finished. The edges get a light layer of Tokonole Burnishing Gum. Once it partially dries, a leather burnishing tool can be rubbed quickly along the edges to burnish the edges.
I’m not sure if it’s the “correct” method, but I also applied the burnishing gum to the unfinished sides of the leather bookmarks. This got rid of the fuzzies and made the whole thing feel more slick and finished.
On the surface, I applied some waterproofing wax as well. Applying it, then once it dries a bit, buffing off with a rag or shop towel. We don’t really need the leather to be waterproof, but the finish helped darken the leather a little, which made the gold paint pop a little more.
Overall, I’m happy with how the bookmarks turned out. The stitching wasn’t bad for my first attempt, but definitely a lot of room for improvement. If I were to make these again, I would also either use a different font that was less thin for the engraving. The idea is promising, but the words don’t pop as much as I wanted them to.
These will be just for my use as I continue to read more books this year. If I were to make these as gifts for friends who also love reading and Harry Potter, I would definitely take the shortcomings of these initial ones and work to make the next ones even better.
