Paperclips be gone: Make your own ribbons!

No more paper clips!

All too often a book that needs ribbons will come without. This effects Bibles, prayer books, and many nice hardcovers. The first set of ribbons I created were for my Monastic Matins (Lancelot Andrewes Press). However this set will be for the Parish Book of Chant, published by the Church Music Association of America.

I'll say up front that the PBC is very slender so we can only squeeze two ribbons into it. Actually we are only using one ribbon as you will see momentarily. Let's get started.

First, select your ribbon. Size your ribbon according to your book. For a Liber Usualis you can use thicker ribbons perhaps. But this one requires slender. I chose a standard blue ribbon from Wal*Mart.

Measure out a piece twice as long as as the book is tall plus six inches. You can see the example in the photo above. This will give us two ribbons plus some extra to hang out the bottom.

Next, find yourself a card of some sort. This can be an old business card or a tag from a store. The price tag works best for this book because it already comes with a hole. If your card doesn't have a hole in it, you can use a hole-punch to do the trick. The price tag requires a little widening with a pen.

Now fold the ribbon in the middle so it makes a loop. Push it through the hole you just widened or created like this:



Take the loose ends of the ribbon and put them through the loop. You are essentially tying a knot here. Tighten them up but don't pull too hard or you will break the hole. Then you have to punch another one and repeat the process.



It looks like this when you are complete:



Now comes a tough part. You are going to want to size up the spine of the book and cut your card just slightly thinner. The PBC is very slender so this one is pretty tough to do. I did it by eyesight but you may want to measure. If your card is too fat it won't fit but if it is too slender it will constantly fall out. So get it right!



You could probably already tell where I'm going with this, but here it is anyway. Slide the card down the spine. See the "V" the ribbon makes? Put that toward you so the ribbons will fold over towards the pages. It is much nicer that way.



Now clip the excess off the ends and voila! You've got ribbons in your book!



One more thing. If you have a wider book and you'd like to add four or six ribbons to it just add more holes and space them out appropriately.

My apologies for the iPhone photos. Would you believe I still haven't put new batteries in the camera? (believe it.)