Off-The-Page - Book Marks

I don't know what it is about Summer, but it inspires me to read and read and read. I do love a good book and once I get into a book it is nearly impossible for me to prise my nose out of it until I finish. I will sit up all hours of the night reading if I am really engrossed in the story. I get swept away. I laugh with the characters and I cry with them. I really get into it.

As you would've seen from my earlier post about My Year in Books Project, this year I am creating a mini album to document the books I read... the heart wrenching stories and the trashy ones as well... (and yes their will probably be a few Mills & Boon in there for good measure.) 

It seemed only appropriate then to make sure I had a nice book mark to record my place and where I am up to. I am SOOOOO NOOOOOOT a page corner folder down person. I detest that practice in fact. So a proper book mark, or two, it had to be.

I made both a traditional book mark, complete with beaded tassel and a non-traditional book mark based on an idea I saw online.

 

The non-traditional book mark was based on a blog article I read, when someone crafted a book mark out of the corner of a used envelope. I wanted to create something a little more special for myself, yet also nice and simple to make.

I just used a scrap of cardstock from my stash and cut it into a rectangle about 2" x 5" (from memory). I marked the centre along one of the long sides, then folded both ends over to create an apex at the point I had marked. The folds formed a 90 degree triangle.

I then taped a triangle of scrap paper across the back with double sided tape to hold the two ends down and stop them from unfolding. (Sorry didn't take a picture of that). Finally I added a rub-on to make it look a little less plain. Simple to do and took all of 10 minutes. Of course cutting the corner off an envelope would only take about 2 seconds, but where is the fun in that??

Oh and the really great thing about this non-traditional book mark is it tucks in nice and tidily within the pages of your book, so you don't need to worry about catching your book mark on anything and pulling it out so you lose your place anyway.