The Sunday Salon: Bookmarks

I’ve mentioned my origami bookmarks before. While I usually use a large note card so I can take notes, I usually make a handful of them for friends or whenever I’m bored, frankly. (I also make origami stars. I’m a worrier!)

I thought it might be a nice change of pace to show you how I make them; while I’m sure the pattern comes from somewhere, I can’t remember where.

First, you’ll need some paper–note cards work best. You’ll also need a mechanical pencil, or, if you’re crafty, a bone folder, to make crisp creases. You can toss in a pair of scissors, if you like, but you can also do the “fold over and over again and then tear it off” trick–it doesn’t matter.

Step one–we need to make a square out of the note card. Fold it over like this, and make a crisp crease by using the clip of a mechanical pencil, a bone folder, or, if you’re not too picky, your fingernail.

Step two–cut off the excess note card. You can either just use scissors or do what I do when I don’t have scissors–fold the excess over and over again until it’s so weak you can tear it off.

Step three–now that we have a square folded into a triangle, we need to fold down both the corners to make a square out of the triangle. Note cards, especially, won’t fold as neatly as I’d like, so you’ll need to hold down the note card while you fold. You can stop here, if you’d like.

Step four–open up the bookmark and fold it the other way. This is accomplished by squishing the corners of the bookmark together. Crease the new folds, and then fold the bookmark back–just squish the corners together.

Now you’re done! No, wait…

You can decorate it, if you like; these bookmarks lend themselves to bug designs and such. If you’ve got a Legend of Zelda fan in the house, you can decorate one like a Bombchu. (They’ll love you forever.)

Here’s the bookmark in action–I find them particularly useful because you can indicate which page you last ended on. I hope you find these bookmarks useful or fun. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

In other news, I finished The Strain, which actually gave me a nightmare last night–although that was probably because I went to bed very late, in order to watch the last episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. I teared up towards the end, I’m not going to lie. That review should be up on Monday. I’ve started on Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire, which I’m looking forward to–bring on the crazy Borgias! I also saw Sherlock Holmes for the second time this afternoon. I have to confess, I’ve never actually read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories; I know, I know, I’m such a heathen! But I might end up doing a Page to Screen on that, since I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Do you have any book-related crafts that you do, or other bookmark ideas?