Folded Butterfly Bookmark

This can be done with any regular weight paper.

I have a bad habit of saving calendars (and occasionally catalogs) because I hate throwing out pretty pictures even though I'll never have the wall space to frame them all, so I thought this might be a fun way to turn them into something a little more usable on a daily basis.

Paper

Scissors

(ruler might be helpful too)

Start with a rectangular piece of paper that’s about 1 ½ times longer than it is wide. (Example is 4”x 6”) If you're starting with a square you can fold it into thirds and cut off one of the thirds.

Hold lengthwise in front of you, color side down. Fold in half, color side out, fold pointing up.

Fold in half again, towards the left.

Squash the top half of this fold out and down so it makes a triangle at the top, center lining up with the center of the fold.

Fold that flap back to the right. Repeat opening, squashing and folding back down with the left-hand half You’ll get a mountain shape.

Now fold the two top flaps up to meet in the middle, and the two bottom flaps back.

Flip it to the side, you’ll have same shape but now with two stumpy contrasting color legs.

Fold the inner corner of one of the legs up so that the triangle crosses slightly over the bright side. Make a matching fold from the inner corner of the other leg.

Unfold, then gently push in from those folds in to create little triangular flap between front and back on both sides.

Rotate so the point is facing down.

Now gently pull one of the top flaps down towards the center until the middle small triangular flap is pulled flat. Do the same on the other side.

You have your butterfly with its corner pocket ready to hold a note or your place in a book!