Sometimes, the simple way is the best way, and the minimalist ideas are the most practical ones, for example when thinking of consumables, like bookmarks.
Chilly weather has arrived, we spend more time indoors than outdoors – opinions divide whether this is good or bad. There are some bad things in it, for example that it’s much harder to engage the children, however the good part is that you have more time to read alone or in front of an audience (=five children), out loud or in silence, in the original way or from slide, the important thing is the act itself.
Even though the situation when during the family reading time, I only realize at the one-third of the chapter, that this twist seems familiar, and it’s almost impossible that another tale also had a half-blind camel as its main character, well… it’s a bit less nice. The reason must be that someone took out, or just didn’t put back the bookmark, however hard I try to indicate them that without a bookmark, I can’t remember where we finished the story. It’s enough for me to know the names of all five children by heart… especially when I’m angry at them. Then I even mix that up sometimes.
This was the inspiration for me to do some crafting and make a bunch of bookmarks from all the simplest materials that I can find at home. This is the typical kill two birds with one stone situation when I finally can get rid of the months old leftovers meanwhile creating something useful, even though I know that these will also end up in the family blackhole, where the half-pair socks and the tops of plastic boxes are already gonna be waiting for them.
There are thousands of ideas on the web on how to make bookmarks, but after a year of amateur level crafting, I learnt that without testing, nothing is what it seems. This is how we dived into the depths of bookmark crafting and this is what we’ve made! (Source.)
Minimalist bookmarks from paperclips
Ingredients
- big size paperclip
- yarn
- transparent, colorless glass pebble
- patterned rep paper
- glue stick/double-sided adhesive tape
- drawing cardboard
How to make it
- glass pebble bookmark: with the technique we used making the bubblemagnet, create the lens, but instead of a magnet use a double sided adhesive tape. Stick the paperclip to the magnet and then tape it with another stronger piece of paper which has been cut-to- size.
- ribbon bookmark: cut down a 10-11cm long piece from the chosen ribbon. If you want to, cut out two small triangles of the ends of the ribbon (this has only decorative function). Carefully burn the ends of the ribbon with a candle (or lubricate the with transparent nail polish), to prevent them from becoming frayed. Tie the ribbon on the paperclip while being careful, to make both ends equally long, and the adjust the bow into the perfect position.
- pompom bookmark: make tassels with the help of a fork. Make it quite tight, and then tie it to the paperclip using the yarn used for the pompom itself.
+1 idea
as we have started our own little pompom factory anyways, let’s make some bigger ones as well (no special instrument is needed, we can roll the yarn on 3 of our fingers as well). Make the yarn which was used to make the pompom quite long. We’ll use this one to make the other pompom, that’s how the two pompoms will get on the same yarn. (Adjust the length of the yarn to the size of the book.)