Learn to Make Some Origami Heart Corner Bookmarks

This post contains tutorials on making origami corner bookmarks along with some historical facts on how bookmarks came into being. Read on till the end, for you will find some suggestions on how to decorate these origami bookmarks and their alternative uses too.

Origami Corner Heart Bookmarks

Recently, I read an interesting article on the origin of bookmarks and came across some interesting facts that I thought I should share here:

• The oldest existing bookmark dates from the 6th Century AD and it is made of ornamented leather lined with vellum and found in Egypt.
• The Royal Museum of Brunei showcases an ivory bookmark made in India. It is embellished with a geometrical pattern of pierced holes dating from the 16th century which has been used in Qurans.
• In 1584, Queen Elizabeth was presented with a fringed silk bookmarker by Christopher Barker who had acquired a patent as Queen's printer in 1577 which gave him a solo right to print the Bible.
• You will be amazed to learn that there is a book entirely dedicated to bookmarks by AW Coysh 'Collecting Bookmarkers published by David & Charles, London in 1974.
• In the Victorian era, the ladies taught their daughters embroidery and by this means many bookmarks were produced which were intended for use in prayer books and resulted in a favoured gift those days for friends and family members. Those home-made bookmarks were often produced from pieces of ribbon embroidered by hand or more usually to which an embroidered perforated card or small watercolor drawing was stitched.
• Bookmarks in shapes and sizes and in materials like gold, brass, bronze, copper, celluloid, leather and ivory were produced after the 1850s by specialized companies too. Many were shaped like knives or swords because at the turn of the century many pages in books were not completely separated so they would be also used as paper cutters.

Here are the tutorials, on how to make some easy bookmarks from not gold or silver but from paper, after all, that's the most easily available material nowadays.

I have tried to compile instructions for three types of origami corner bookmarks, all in the shape of hearts using different origami folding techniques. Each option will take only a few minutes to fold except for the option-2 which requires a little patience.

Tutorial 1: 
This one starts with a square sheet of paper using the waterbomb base. Once you have made the waterbomb base, its easy from there.

Origami Heart Corner Bookmark - Option 1  

Steps:

1. Start with a square sheet of paper and make diagonal folds
2. Turn over the paper and make a horizontal crease
3. Push the sides along the horizontal crease. You will get a triangular shape, that is termed as a waterbomb base.
4. Fold in the corners to meet at the centre to make a crease. Then fold both the corners upwards touching the crease made.
5. Fold in again along the crease made.
6. Fold the top tip backwards to get the shape of the heart 
7. The heart bookmark is ready for use.

Tutorial 2: 

This option is not as complicated as it looks, so don't get daunted by just seeing the pictures. Do give it a try. This one also starts with the waterbomb base. Follow the instructions closely and you can make this pretty bookmark easily.

Origami Heart Corner Bookmark - Option 2 

Steps:

1. Start with a square sheet of paper and make diagonal folds
2. Turn over the paper and make a horizontal crease.
3. Make another crease at the bottom by touching the edge to the centre.
4. Like in option-1, push along the sides to get the waterbomb base.
5. Now lift open the flap following the crease.
6. You will get a flap that needs to be folded down.
7. Fold in the flap downwards.
8. Now lift the bottom flap and fold into half and crease properly.
9. Open the flaps and squash them.
10. Now fold in the small sides into triangles as shown in the picture. 
11. Fold the bottom tips for the heart shape.
12. Now lift the entire flap upwards.
13. Once you lift it upwards you will get a clear heart shape and your bookmark is ready.

To use it, you need to put a tape on the inner side or else the folds will open up. You can also put a sticker on the top to avoid opening up the folds.

Tutorial 3: 
This is the easiest of all the three alternatives and doesn't use any complicated folds. Kids can easily give it a try. You need a rectangular sheet for this bookmark.

Origami Heart Corner Bookmark - Option 3

Steps:

1. Start with a rectangular sheet with its length double the size of the width.
2. Fold the paper into half horizontally.
3. Fold in half along the vertical axis. Crease well and unfold.
4. Now fold in left side along the central crease made in the last step.
5. Fold in the right side also.
6. Turn it over.
7. Fold down the top to about 1/3rd the top area.
8. Fold in the top edges to get a shape of the heart
9. Turn it over and the heart corner bookmark is ready.

Left inset: Apply a tape at the back of the joints
Right inset: Paste a sticker on the top of the joints

To use it, and avoid the folds opening up, you can either apply a tape behind at the joints or just paste a sticker on the top of the joints as shown in the picture above.

Suggestions and tips:
Each of the above corner bookmarks, take only a few minutes to make and can be used conveniently for bookmarking purpose. You can use colorful papers or gift wrapping papers to make them. They can be decorated further with stickers, buttons, sequins or stars as shown in the picture below.

Suggestions to decorate the bookmarks

Alternative use of the bookmarks:

These origami heart corner bookmarks are pretty indeed and can be used alternatively for decorating the corner of pictures in your scrapbooks or photo albums. It can also be used for decorating the corner of the posters or pictures.  I often use them at the corner of book covers to prevent the corners from getting damaged.

Alternative use of Corner bookmarks:
For protecting the picture corners
in photo albums or scrapbook

Alternative use of Corner bookmarks:
For decorating posters or pictures

I hope you will try making at least one of these pretty heart bookmarks. Do give it a try. These bookmarks are good handmade gifts for your friends especially those who are avid readers or for school children who need these bookmarks to mark the pages for later reading. Instead of folding the pages to read them later, you can use these pretty bookmarks so that you can return and find your page with ease. So make them and gift them to your friends or use them yourself. 

Happy bookmarking!

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sources referred:
http://www.miragebookmark.ch/wb_history.htm