Elastic Bookmark Tutorial

I purchased these 2 bookmarks last month on a shopping trip to Spokane. The Northtown Mall has a couple shops dedicated to selling handmade stuff. I'm not sure if they're up all year or if it's just for the holidays, but it was quite fun to browse them!

There is no reference as to who made these bookmarks & no link to where I could possibly purchase more. And I'm not driving the 5 hours, round-trip, to get some more. (This should be a lesson for all you that sell handmade!) So, I decided to whip up some more as gifts & give a tutorial at the same time!The supplies are few: Scissors, a ruler, elastic cording (more about the exacts later on), various charms or beads, & possibly some double rings.

The first thing you'll do is take your cording & cut a 15" length. I made some bookmarks using round cord elastic---which is what the ones I purchased were made from---but I found them to fit rather tightly around the books. So, I used beading cord elastic instead, which looks almost the same, except is not as thick. It worked great!

Find the center of your cording & slide your charm to that point. If you don't have charms you can also fasten beads onto head pins or eye pins & make your own "charm".

Some charms might not have a very large opening for the cording to slide through, so you can slide your charm onto a double ring. (A double ring is sold in the jewelry section of your craft store. It looks EXACTLY like the rings you slide keys onto, only it's itty bitty. I used the 6mm size.) Here I used a shrinky dink charm I made. Keeping the cording secure & even, make a knot right above your charm.

Next, knot the ends together. You may need to trim the ends to even it up a bit. That's it. For reals. No lie.

The way these bookmarks work is SO cool. Slide it over the page you want to mark the place of.

And look, this is me shaking the book----the bookmark doesn't even move! You can toss your book in a bag, travel with it, drop it, & you'll never lose your spot!!

To present your elastic bookmark as a gift, just cut a piece of decorative cardstock or heavy paper to a rectangular shape, (I cut a long rectangle & folded it in half), punch a hole near the top, & slide your bookmark through, looping the bookmark through itself to keep secure. Groovy gifts, sweet stocking stuffers! Have fun! I made 5 of these & it took me, like, 5 minutes.