Creating your own polymer clay bookmarks can make such a great handmade gift or craft for any book lover! The possibilities are endless with how you style and design your bookmarks.
Getting started with creating your own polymer clay bookmark is very simple with the right tools and these simple steps.
Tools and Supplies for Creating a Clay Bookmark
Make sure you have these supplies and tools to get started with this very simple polymer clay bookmark design.
Tools for working with the Clay
- Polymer clay (Sculpey Souffle is my favorite)
- Tile for baking polymer clay - Large Tile - Small Tile
- Polymer clay pasta roller
- This hand drill
Supplies for the bookmark
- This polymer clay bookmark cutter
- These faux leather Tassels for your bookmark
- 8-10mm jump rings
- (Optional) These polymer clay letter stamps
- (Optional) Use your imagination for any other clay image transfers, stamps, or polymer clay embellishments to add to your bookmark!
How To Rollout Your Clay For A Bookmark
The thickness of a bookmark is a big deal for most book lovers. Having a thin clay bookmark that doesn’t make your book bend or ruin your pages is easily achievable by adjusting the thickness of your polymer clay pasta roller.
When rolling out your clay, adjust your polymer clay pasta machine to a setting in the range of 5-8. Typically you will make earrings at setting 1 on your pasta machine. So a bookmark will be quite a bit thinner than your typical earrings.
After each pass in the polymer clay pasta machine, test for your desired thickness. (I think I usually settle on setting 7, and my machine goes up to setting 9)
Cut Out The Clay With a Polymer Clay Bookmark Cutter
Once you have your clay to the desired thickness you are ready to cut the bookmark with your favorite polymer clay bookmark cutter. I often use this simple and classic polymer clay bookmark cutter in my Etsy shop to provide the base for my bookmarks.
First, rollout your clay onto a tile surface. I often like to use a tile surface because polymer clay sticks so well to a ceramic tile that it won’t pull up after you use the bookmark cutter. Because the clay is so thin, this is even more important that you use a surface will keep the clay still while you use the bookmark cutter. (I also pat the clay down first before using an acrylic roller)
Use this polymer clay bookmark cutter from my Etsy shop to cut out the bookmark.
Design the Polymer Clay Bookmark
Once you have your clay cutout into a bookmark shape, it’s really up to you how you want to design your bookmark! I like using any one of these types of polymer clay techniques on bookmarks,
- Creating a clay slab and then using the bookmark cutter
- Polymer clay image transfers (see how here!)
- Polymer clay stamps and lettering
- Clay textures
- And even applying vinyl (but I do this step after the clay is baked)
Letter Stamp A Clay Bookmark
For this clay bookmark tutorial, I will be using polymer clay lettering stamps! I don’t remember where I got my clay letters, but here are clay letter stamps that would work really well for your clay bookmarks and many other projects like earrings, keychains, necklaces, and more!
TIP! When you use clay letter stamps, you need to make sure to mirror the word. Unfortunately you will have to be good at spelling for this part haha! I like to build the words starting from the last letter and make sure letters like E, B, G, etc. are the mirrored direction!
Stamp your clay bookmarks with your favorite phrase! For this example I used the “ONE MORE PAGE” phrase.
Here are book phrases that would go well on a clay bookmark:
- One more page
- One more chapter
- Bookmarks are for quitters
- Here is where you fell asleep
- To be continued…
- I like big books and I cannot lie
- There is no friend as loyal as a book -Ernest Hemingway
- All you need is books
- Life is better with a book
- Ask me about my books
- Books, coffee, rainy days
- Once upon a time
- I’m all booked this weekend
- Reading, because reality sucks
- I read past my bedtime
- She fell in love, but he was fictional
- Main character energy
- Hold my spot
- Lost in the pages
- Now, where was I…
- The best story yet
Baking Your Clay Bookmark
Now that you have your clay bookmark designed it’s time to bake! You can bake the clay bookmark to the directions of your clay. If you are using Sculpey Souffle, it’s usually 275 degrees for 30 minutes.
I like to bake my bookmark right on the ceramic tile, and then let the clay bookmark cool completely before lifting off the tile. Since the bookmark is so thin and polymer clay is very flexible, letting the clay bookmark cool allows it to settle in a flat shape and not be warped by moving it around before it cools.
Use a dremel tool or sandpaper to sand the edges of your bookmark. If needed, lightly rinse off the dust of the bookmark and dry with a paper towel.
Add a Tassel to a Clay Bookmark
Once your clay bookmark has cooled and is sanded I like to add a tassel to the top of the bookmark. This adds a little movement to the bookmark, and provides an easy way to find your bookmark when it’s being used in a book!
I like using a larger drill bit for my jewelry hand drill (the drill comes with multiple sizes) when creating a hole in the bookmark. Using a larger drill bit creates a larger hole and then provides the movement needed for the jump ring and tassel to move around. Using any smaller hole the tassel will be too stiff.
- Push the drill through the clay bookmark.
- Then use the 10mm jump ring in this kit. Using jewelry pliers open your jump ring and put it through the bookmark.
- Before closing the jump ring, slip a tassel onto the jump ring.
- Using jewelry pliers, close the jump ring.
TIP! Make sure your jump rings and your tassel finishings match. Sometimes I accidentally buy silver finished tassels but only have gold jump rings. It’s nice to have them match. Also I like using silver for Christmas themed with the green and red colors, but it’s really up to you!
Here Other Tassel Ideas You Can Use For Your Clay Bookmarks
I like using the small faux tassels because they are so useful when creating keychains or other crafts, I always have these on-hand. However, there are other creative ways to create a bookmark tassel or topper.
Here are some ideas for you,
DIY tassels with yarn, by Think. Make. Share. Blog
Fabric tassels like these acrylic bookmarks made by Magnolia Marsh on Etsy,
Now You're Ready to Read With Your New Clay Bookmark
Or your at least ready to admire your work! You now have a very simple, classic, and cute AF bookmark ready to gift to your bestie who loves to read. I know I’ll be giving these to my sister, she’s obsessed with books!
Helpful Bookmark Tools for Polymer Clay Makers
I hope this polymer clay bookmark tutorial gave you inspiration for how you can create and design your own clay bookmarks! My Etsy shop has several polymer clay cutters made for polymer clay makers and to help further your creativity with polymer clay.
Here is the polymer clay bookmark cutter in my Etsy shop,
