Advent Blog Day 8: Beribboned Books - A Tutorial

So you've bought a lovely hardcover or leather bound (or leather like bound) book. But it's missing something. Something to make it just that much more special. Maybe it's a gift for your favorite book lover. Maybe it's a gift for yourself. But... It's missing a ribbon bookmark. Sure, you can get bookmarks for books. Some are better than others. My favorite one is a clip with a ribbon attacked. It stays in the book quite nicely. I have other bookmarks. Some are shaped like hooks, others like paper clips, and then of course there's the usual bookmark that doesn't attach in some way to the book. What most of these have in common, is that they can fall out. Drop your book, stick it in your purse or backpack, knock it the wrong way, and your bookmark is no longer marking the book. And then there are evil people who dog ear those books. But I have the problem solved for you! You can make ribbon bookmarks that permanently attach to your book. Think of all those lovely books that you have with a ribbon attached. So now, that bible, that journal, that longed for set by your favorite author, that gift of books you want to give, can be made just a little more personal with some simple and cheap supplies and hardly any time at all! I am adding five ribbons to my bible. I have no idea if I'll ever need five, but it's a bible. You can't have too many ribbons. Most books you'll only want one.

Supplies needed. Book (this doesn't work with paperbacks. But anything else where the spine is separate from the pages will be good). Cardstock - this does not have to be fancy. It could be those subscription cards that fall out of magazines, part of the packaging of something else, old scrapbook supplies - no one will see it. It's just something a little heavier than paper but lighter than the cardboard from moving boxes. You do not need to go to the store for this. It's laying around your house somewhere. Fabric ribbons - if you are a crafter you probably have this. If not, the dollar store has them. I found mine at Michaels for less than a buck. Scissors, ruler, pen (or pencil), glue (any kind). Coffee - because coffee. Or tea. Or wine. Or whatever you want to drink. Computer - because the directions are on it. Unless you can remember them which is likely since it's so darn easy!

Take a sip of your drink. Measure your spine. Well, not your spine. That's pretty hard and really not necessary for this. Measure the book's spine width. You're going to cut a piece of your cardstock a little narrower than the width. That's where the pen, ruler and scissors come in handy. You don't need to have the cardstock the full length. Just make sure it's a decent length so that it can be secure.

Take a sip of your drink. So now look at your book spine from the top. You'll see there's a space between the pages and the spine. Check to see if your cardstock fits in there. You don't need to put it all the way in, you're just making sure it can fit. Now take it back out. Trim if needed until it slides in easily.

Now take a really big sip of your drink. Or two or three. This is the hard part. You're going to cut a slit in your cardstock for the ribbon to go through. You might want to bend it in half to make the slit easier to cut. It's not going to look pretty. It doesn't have to. If you're doing several ribbons you can stagger your slits so they all fit. If you're only doing one, then this is easy peasey. Then put your ribbon part way through the slits.

So this is what mine looked like.

Take a swig of your drink. Now to secure your ribbons, bend them back and glue them to the cardstock. Make sure they're not going in the same direction. You want them bent over the slit to make it stronger. Now put glue all over the back where you just glued your ribbons. You want the entire piece covered in glue.

Another swig of wine - I mean coffee. Position the loose part of the ribbons over the cardstock and slide into the spine. Slide it all the way until you can't see the cardstock anymore. Press the spine into the pages so that the glue sticks.

I hope you're enjoying your drink. All right, so now you have all these ribbons, or ribbon in your book. One more step.

Measure your ribbon out to the corner of the page and cut it a little longer. These ribbons were so narrow that I could only cut a slant, but if your ribbon is wider, you could cut an inverted or outverted v shape which looks really nice. You want the ribbon long enough that you can grab it and take it to the corner to open the book. And now you have a ribboned book! I did it with a couple of other books too.

Wider ribbon and you can just see that inverted V I cut on the end of the ribbon. I picked a color that I thought would go well with the book.

And another one. I think this ribbon is too narrow for the book, but it does its job. So there you have it. A way to make that gift just a little more special. And if you want to go a little crazy, you could add beads, charms, or other doodads to the bottom of the ribbon. I haven't done this because it's not practical for books that sit upright on shelves, but it might be nice for a journal. I wish I could say this is my invention. It's not. I learned it from this video.

Happy ribboning.