Ever since she was a baby, my husband has read her a book right before bedtime. Now that she is moving on to longer and wordier books, sometimes it takes several nights to finish a book. For the last year, she’s taken to using little strips of tissue to mark her place. It’s not a big deal, but the tissue bits tend to get crumpled and torn, and make a mess. She’s gotten free paper bookmarks from various events, but their current locations are a mystery.
Every few months, I get together with my crafty girlfriends, and we spend the day eating and working on craft projects. For my project, I decided to surprise my daughter with magnetic bookmarks.
This is a quick and easy project, and it can be as simple or as fancy as you want. I got a few pieces of plain cardstock (they were on sale 5 for $1), stickers, and a magnet roll (less than $1). The magnet comes with adhesive on one side.
I cut a strip of paper that was about 2 inches wide. I used a paper cutter since I have sucked at cutting straight lines ever since I was a kid. I wanted to make the bookmark more durable, so I found a roll of duct tape. I got this duct tape last summer for another project, but it happens to match my bookmarks quite well.
I carefully taped one side of the cardstock. Then I saw that I was not careful enough, so I used the paper cutter to trim the edges that were uneven.
Fold the strip in half.
Decorate with stickers.
Cut 2 small pieces of magnet off the roll, and stick them on the ends of the bookmark.
I ended up cutting the ends to make them curved. I kept the decorating minimal and just used stickers. But there are so many other fun ways to decorate, like, glitter, paint, stencils, stamps, ribbon, etc. I think this could be a future project for my daughter to do, to give away to her friends.
Yay, they don’t fall out of the book!
