with Gwen Studios
Now that it is time to head back to school, I am making a few versions of bookmarks using ribbons from Gwen Studios. These bookmarks would pair well with gifting a book as well. My family often gives what we call a moment gift consisting of a good book and a bag of M&Ms. I think we now need to add a handmade bookmark to the gift.
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As a design team member for Gwen Studios, I was recently sent this great box full of ribbon samples. There are satin and grosgrain ribbons. It was fun choosing different widths and colors to work together for the bookmarks.
Gwen Studios ribbons can be found at Walmart and Michaels. To see all the back-to-school themed projects made with Gwen Studios ribbons, make sure to visit the Designer Crafts Connection website.
Ruffled Ribbon Bookmark
This first bookmark I am calling a ruffled bookmark because of the folded/ruffled green ribbon. The brown and burgundy ribbon had the ends melted with a lighter to keep them from raveling. All the layers were glued together using Fabri-Tac.
The central ribbon that appears to be ruffled was actually folded and glued. Each fold was glued twice – front and back. You could choose to sew instead of glue but I didn’t want a line of thread to show so I glued it.
Blue Fringe Bookmark
The blue bookmark was similar in that it used three layers of ribbon. All the ends were sealed with a lighter so they don’t fray except the end of the blue ribbon. One end of the blue ribbon was fringed. To do this, the very thin edge of the ribbon needed to be cut away where the fringe is. This made making the fringe easy to do.
The blue ribbon bookmark was put together using double-sided tape. The glue will also work but might seep through the light-colored ribbon so tape was used instead as a precaution.
Magnetic Bookmark
This is a magnetic bookmark. It only uses one piece of ribbon.
I stamped the yellow ribbon with bees using Staz-on black ink in a random pattern.
To use magnets, I used a thin advertising magnet that is easily cut with scissors. Since the ribbon was light-colored, the ad showed through the ribbon so I painted the advertisement side with white paint.
Once the paint was dry, I glued the magnets to the back side of the ribbon leaving a very small space between the magnets. In hindsight, the double-sided tape might have worked better.
The excess ribbon was folded and glued to the magnets creating a nicely finished folded edge. Because the magnet I used wasn’t that strong, I left a small area of each magnet exposed. It would look a lot better to cover the entire magnet so using a strong magnet really would help.
