Tea Box Bookmarks

So the other day I polished off another box of my favorite tea, Scottish Breakfast from The Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Company. I have always thought the box is pretty, so instead of pitching it, I set it on the counter for a couple of days to see if any use for it occurred to me. And I had an idea. Now, this has probably been done a zillion times, but since I don't frequent craft websites or blogs (I have enough to do already!), I had to think of it myself. 

Bookmark! I thought, "Hey, I'll just cut off the front of the box and put a little ribbon on it and have a nice bookmark." I am a voracious reader and usually have several books going at a time so I'm always in need of a bookmark. And we drink a lot of tea in this house. A lot. And tea boxes are often very pretty. I realized that I had just tossed an empty Bigelow Constant Comment box (a favorite tea since childhood--served with Red Hots!) so I rescued it from the trash to include in my project. Happily, it wasn't gross, just a bit mushed on the corners. 

Off I went in search of the perfect ribbon. Found it. And found some glitter paper to glue the box fronts on because I thought they needed a little more weight. Also because sparkly. Here's what I came up with.

As you can see, they're quite large, which I like. I don't know why bookmarks are always skinny, flimsy little affairs, but we're having none of that here. I thought about using my fancy scrapbooking scissors and punches to pretty up the edges and the corners, but I decided I liked the "boxy" look--they being tea boxes and all. The only thing I did was round the corners with a little punch just to give them a more finished look.

Y'all, I have to confess. I'm sort of ridiculously pleased with how these turned out, given how simple they are both in concept and construction. But sometimes our simplest creations give us the most pleasure. I'm resisting the urge to raid our tea cupboard and empty all the boxes so I can make bookmarks. I'll have to make Mr. Wonderful one (if he doesn't steal the Constant Comment one) when he finishes his box of Earl Grey. No glitter paper.