Bookmarks for Ogunquitangle

I’m attending Ogunquitangle in ME this year, organized by the wonderful Jenny Perruzzi over at Your Creative Spirit. Each attendee is asked to bring a little something that can be shared with every other attendee. Something small and inexpensive. A tool you use often, or a bit of craft or art from yourself.

I’ve decided to bring along magnetic bookmarks! I love these little things because they are so small, so easy, and SOOO useful. I use them in my for-fun reading books, in my recipe books, to bookmark useful pages in craft books, and even to keep places in my Dungeons and Dragons books – if you’ve ever played.. you know what I mean! All that flipping between the tables, charts and spell lists. I used to stick pencils or sticky notes in each page I needed, now I just stick in a few bookmarks – easy!

I wanted my gift to be home made, so I devised a simple way to make some cute bookmarks, and I wanted to share that process in case anyone else want to make them!

All you’ll need is:

Scissors
A ruler
Super Glue
Sticky-back Magnetic Business Cards
Ribbons

I found my ribbon in Michael’s $1 bin of seasonal left overs. You don’t need a ton of ribbon, so these were perfect.
Start by cutting segments of ribbon that are 4 1/2 inches long. Each segment of ribbon will be one bookmark.

Peel back a bit of the paper from one of the magnetic business cards, and stick your ribbon down straight along the short edge. Cut along the other side.

Take your bit of magnet with the ribbon and set the magnet onto the remaining magnetic business card. It may adjust a bit to either side to find where the magnets are pulling to each other. When you’ve got that settled and straight, peel back a bit more of the paper and fold over the remaining ribbon onto the sticky side of the magnet. You’ll want it to be snug. It doesn’t have to be super tight, but it shouldn’t be too loose.

Cut along the edge of the newly stuck ribbon and voila, you’re almost there!

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I trimmed the edges of mine all the way to the magnet. Don’t worry about fraying ends, that’s next step!

Now apply just the tiniest bit of super glue to the ends to hold the fraying bits of ribbon together. I used super glue, but if you have another sort of glue that dries completely, that’d work too. Just be sure whatever glue you use won’t be tacky or melt in hot weather.. wouldn’t want those bookmarks messing up a book on a hot day!

DONE! Once that super glue dries you’re ready to bookmark! with two packages of magnetic business cards (10 cards each) I was able to make about 50 bookmarks. I spent about $15 on supplies, which makes each bookmark 30¢! Much cheaper than those 4 packs that cost $5, and more personalized this way to boot!