Bookmarks for Book Lovers

Bookmarks make great gifts for family and friends and co-workers. Give everyone in your book club a bookmark at Christmas. Slip bookmarks into letters and Christmas cards.

If you're here reading about bookmarks, then I'm guessing that you're a book lover like I am. I worked in libraries for thirty years and never got tired of being around books day in and day out. One thing we would tell children when they got their first library card was "always use a bookmark."

Turning down a corner of a page to keep your place is a no-no and leaving the book spread open, face-down isn't good for it either. There are lots of lovely bookmarks available to buy or have fun making some. I keep a selection of bookmarks on hand so I can match the theme of the bookmark with the contents of the book.

Here are some lovely bookmarks for your own use or to give as gifts. In addition, I've included instructions for making your own classy looking bookmarks. It's easy.

I come from a family of readers and chose librarianship as a career. We must treat our books with respect and keep them in good condition for future readers.

This easy craft makes use of last year's Christmas cards that you just couldn't throw away. Turning them into bookmarks creates something special to tuck in with your Christmas messages. Hand them out at your book club or donate a stack to the public library to give to their readers.

Sort through the Christmas cards looking for good designs. Don't use ones that have handwriting on the back of the picture. Once you have the best cards selected, cut off the back of the card. Now the front part is ready to make into bookmarks.

Bookmarks are usually 1 1/2 inches by 6 or 9 inches. A little more or a little less is fine. Often you can get two bookmarks from one card. Use care to divide the card so the picture on the bookmark makes sense. You don't want to cut right down the middle of figure just to get two bookmarks.

Don't just cut out the bookmarks willy-nilly. If it's a Christmas card, don't cut it so Santa is half on one bookmark and half on another. The object isn't to get the most bookmarks, but to get the most attractive ones. First visualize the design on the card cut into 2 or 3 strips.

Cards with a general design convert easily into bookmarks. Use the paper cutter to cut bookmark-sized strips from the card design. This can be done also by marking the lines for cutting using the ruler, pencil and scissors.

It's tricky to use cards with words in the design. Here are examples of successful bookmarks that include words.

Most cards lend themselves to vertical bookmarks.

A few have good horizontal designs that transfer into a nice bookmark.

• Cutting around the graphic adds a special touch to a bookmark.
• You can laminate the bookmarks if you have a laminating machine. This is equipment that a scrapbooker might have.
• You can use embroidery silks or thin yarn to tie a tassel on the bookmark. Make a hole with a hole punch to attach the tassel.

Of course, these same instructions would work for other greeting cards, so take a look at your stash of birthday, Easter and other cards that are gathering dust in the closet or wherever you have them hidden away.

A Brief History of Bookmarks takes you back to when bookmarks first developed the time of the earliest books, over Victorian times up to the present day.

Here's one more way to make bookmarks, using cross-stitch.