My daughter is in a preschool class at a nearby Montessori school.  Back in December, she thrilled us by starting to sound out and read words.  Despite having known her alphabet since she was a toddler, I could never get her to understand how to put letters together to form words.  But thanks to the efforts of her teachers, it finally clicked.  It was like the floodgates had burst open.  Once she started getting the simple 3 letter words, she kept going full speed ahead.  Now, she is talking about chapter books, and it’s only been 3 months since she learned how to read!!

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!