I’m a huge bookworm, but I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with bookmarks. The pretty ones are appealing, but when you actually start using them they either 1). stick out of the book and get bent, 2). get sat on and destroyed, or if they’re the clip-on types, 3). leave marks on the precious pages of your book. So despite all the different bookmarks I’ve wanted and used, I usually just resort to a random scrap of paper or receipt to keep my page.

For anyone who’s had similar issues, Japanese twitter user @rukow994’s mom might have the perfect solution.

It’s simple but ingenious, and we decided to try it ourselves. Here’s a step-by-step how-to for the bookmark we’ve all been waiting for:

1. Choose a piece of paper.

2. Fold it in half.

3. Fold it in half again.

4. Open it back up into a rectangle.

(Ignore the extra creases)

5. Fold the right corner up (just the top layer).

You should now have a little pocket on the right side.

6. Fold the left corner up (both layers).

7. Tuck the left corner into the right pocket.

8. Done!

For this we used 15 × 15 cm (6 × 6 inches) origami paper, which made for a relatively large bookmark.

But we made some smaller ones too, which we liked a little better. If you use a square piece of paper you’ll get a perfectly square bookmark, but it’ll work the same with rectangular paper.

Even if you fill your book with these bookmarks, it doesn’t get that bulky. We also tried turning our book upside-down and shaking it, but they didn’t fall out.

What’s great is that even though they’re colorful and useful, they’re easy to make and extremely cheap. And because they fit onto the corners of any piece of paper, they can be used for textbooks, journals, and anything else you can think of!