Cute as a Button Bookmarks

A hair tie, a length of ribbon, and a button are all you need to make a super cute and extremely effective bookmark. This project is awesome – it’s easy enough for kids, and depending on your choice of materials, can be sophisticated enough for adults.

I spent 5 years as an Language Arts teacher at the best middle school in the world (Go Snow Leopards!). One of the librarian’s biggest complaints, coming in second after “Why can’t they return their books?” was “Why must they dog-ear pages?”

The point of that little anecdote is this: use a bookmark! Not only does it bling up your book (and let’s face it, some book covers could really use a little bling), but it can save the sanity of a librarian near you.

Materials

14 in length of 5/8 in ribbon
hair elastic
button
hot glue gun and sticks

A note about length: I suggested a 14 in length of ribbon for this project. This works well for most books in the library, but if you’re trying for something like a textbook, it might be too short. You can change the length of the ribbon up to match the book you’ll be using it on. Just make sure your ribbon is 1 inch longer than you need the bookmark to be in the end.

Instructions

Start by hot gluing the elastic to one end of the ribbon, about 1/2 inch from the end.

Place a line of hot glue just about the elastic, then fold the end of the ribbon over the elastic.

Next, go the other end of the ribbon. You’ll want to fold that end over and hot glue it. This keeps the ribbon from fraying.

On this same end, you’re going to hot glue your button. I picked a cute little bumblebee.

You’re done! To use your bookmark, loop the ribbon over the book, then hook the elastic around the button. This is what it looks like from the inside: