Go Ahead, Judge Me: Feeling Crafty: Bookmarks

Ok, I've been stuck waiting for my next book to arrive. I won't lie- it's killing me. I've decided that perhaps I should not have gone the cheap route by ordering them online. I just don't have the patience to wait. Fortunately, this weekend I was fairly busy with my family. Yesterday I was busy doing other things as well. So the absence of my book from my mail box hasn't been TOO terrible... Until today. Are there things I could be doing? I have two very small children- there are MANY things I could be doing. But what I really want is my book in my hand, in case I get two seconds of quiet time. So to assuage my impatience, I decided to try out a Pinterest craft I've been meaning to do for ages.

This is the original picture from Pinterest. When I saw this, I thought, "I could make that." And today, I decided not only to make this, but to make it better! Since this was just a photo with no tutorial or anything else, I had to make it up as I went. I assume that this particular book-page flower is attached to something like a bobby pin or paper clip. I'll be honest- those two items terrify me thinking of them on my book pages. Books are sacred at my house. No one touches them, lest they wish to suffer Mommy's wrath. So something as harsh as a bobby pin or paper clip is almost certain to do damage to the pages over time. I had to ponder what I was going to do about this problem, so I started by gathering up some supplies. I wasn't certain what I'd end up needing so I just grabbed up a bunch of things, but I did end up using velvet ribbon for my bookmarks.

As I said earlier, books are sacred objects in my home. This presents a bit of a problem, since the flowers are made of book pages... Fortunately, I still have an old textbook from college hanging around. And not one I ever found important. In fact, this course was the bane of my existence in those days, but I digress...

The items I ended up using are as follows:
- Water
- 2 Teabags
- 1 Fairly Large Book Page
- 1 Object for Larger Circle (I used a baby bottle lid)
- 1 Object for Smaller Circle (I used a spool of thread)
- Scissors
- Hot Glue Gun
- Hot Glue Sticks
- Lighter
- Ribbon (I used velvet ribbon)
- Beads (I used a pearl and a round burgundy bead)
- Other Decorative Notions (I used more ribbon and beads)
- Needle and Thread, as Needed

Since this textbook has very white, crisp pages, I needed to age them. So I began by putting a few inches of hot water into the sink, and adding the teabags which I allowed to steep for about fifteen minutes.

After allowing the tea to seep into the water, I gently placed my book pages into the water (I only used one sheet for the entire project). I allowed the paper to soak for about 30 minutes, then laid them out on paper towels to dry. If you want a deeper aged effect, I would recommend soaking longer. My pages barely changed color in those 30 minutes.

After my pages were completely dry, I began to trace out some circles. I used one larger circle (lid of a baby's bottle) and one proportionately smaller circle (a spool of thread).

After tracing out enough circles (I ended up using 3 large circles, and 4 smaller circles per flower), I cut them out and used the remainder of the page to cut into strips.

Large Circles

Small Circles

Strips

I eventually ended up cutting the strips above in half to make them narrower. Begin by taking the strips and curling them into a roll, adding strips as you go. You do not need any glue yet- if you hold tightly enough, the strips will not separate from each other.

After your roll is as wide as you'd like (mine was about the size of a nickel), use a tiny drop of hot glue to glue down the fly-away end.

This was what my roll looked like on top of the smaller circles:

Next, I cut slits into both the larger and smaller circles, leaving the center intact.

This step was made easier by stacking all of the circles I planned to use together according to type, large or small. This way, I only had to cut slits one time for each size circle. These slits go all the way around each circle.

Now, the easy part: Assembly! In essence, all you need to do is hot glue each circle to another. Begin by gluing the roll to a small circle, then glue on another three small circles. As you glue each one, make sure enough glue flows up around the previous circle so that you can bend the slits up a bit and have them stay put.

I used four small circles for each flower.

Next, do the same thing with the large circles. Glue what you've created so far to one large circle, and continue in the same manner as before.

Voila! You have a paper flower!

Now that this is done, you need to prepare the ribbon you've chosen for your bookmark. Cut your ribbon to the length you want and heat seal the ends with a lighter. Next, attach the flower to the ribbon for your bookmark with hot glue.

After this is done, use a drop of glue to attach the center bead.

Now, feel free to embellish as you please! I used beads and a bow to put stoppers on the opposite end of the bookmark to keep the bookmark from sliding out of the pages.