Recently, while poking around on Etsy, I stumbled across a listing that made me laugh out loud — a glass pendant from Archipelago Arts that proudly announces "My book club can beat up your book club." The pendant can be worn on the necklace or bracelet of your choice, or the seller will convert it to a stick pin or bookmark for you. Surely every member of your bookclub needs one of these as you prepare for your next rumble. Er… discussion.
In light of Tuesday’s comments about who among us does and doesn’t dog ear the pages of their books, I thought I’d visit Etsy and see what other craftsy creations people are coming up with in the bookmark department these days. You may find ideas for gift-giving or take inspiration from these for your own bookmark creations.
If you’re giving someone a copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird anytime soon, perhaps it’d be fitting to tuck one of Knotty by Nature‘s Bird Bird Bird Linocut Bookmarks inside. Or maybe one of the cute "Birds in the Alley" creations from Mazer Design is more your style? I like their Knuffle Bunny-esque technique of layering drawings over photographs.
If you’ve got scraps of pretty papers and pages of manuscripts lying around your house, you’ve got the supplies for collaged bookmarks like those being sold by Collage Creations. Add a beaded string or a tassel if you want to get fancy.
Not inundated with paper but surrounded by trees? Rustic Blend lives in upstate New York’s Adirondack Park, which supplies ample material for birch bark bookmarks.
Of course if your at-home finds are more technological in nature, you might want to take a page from Debby Arem Designs. Debby does bookmarks made from recycled circuit boards. Good geekery!
Attach fabric buttons to some grosgrain ribbon and you can fashion bookmarks like those available from Jack and Jane. The one pictured at right is their "Helicopter Brigade" design.
I personally love the linen bookmarks from Finnish seller revontulitikku — especially the one stamped with the words "This is where I fell asleep."
If all of these are too bland for your taste or too cutesy for, say, your Stephen King tomes, I recommend doing your own "bookmark" search on Etsy. There appears to be a bookmark there to suit almost anyone — from fans of traditional tasselled types to fans of toe tags. Yes, toe tags. Trust a seller with a name like Oddball to put a new twist on the old mark. (Wouldn’t Quincy, M.E. have loved one of these?)
My bookmarks are ticket stubs from plays and concerts I’ve enjoyed. (I actually find myself picking the ticket stub/bookmark based on the theme of the book I’m reading!)
I had no idea how many bookmark innovations there were!
Hey Alison you missed my favorite bookmark, book jewelry; check them out at: http://www.bookjewelry.com.
Birch bark? Not good for the living tree. Please tell me they use only dead trees.
They’re all cute, but I bet these companies charge an arm and a leg for a simple bookmark! I’m generally a dog-ear person myself, but when I use a bookmark, I’m with Vicki–use a ticket stub, an old subway card, a receipt, whatever you have lying around. Much cheaper! Hope this isn’t a double post, it told me I didn’t type the correct letters the first time around…
Want a complete 2008 calendar? R.J. Archer’s bookmark is great for keeping track of holidays, etc. And it’s a free download in PDF. http://www.SeedsOfCivilization.com/pdf/Tractrix-calendar.pdf.
I love the toe tag! It’s perfect for one of my favorite books, “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach, or any mystery I happen to be reading.
A bookmark can be as simple as a ticket stub or as fancy as you want it to be. Some kids are so proud of their special bookmarks. I know at the public school library where I volunteer, we take special pains to return bookmarks of any sort to a young patron. In terms of sales, a bookmark is a perfect add-on at the bookstore! For picture books, add a plush; for chapter books, add a bookmark! For those kids who have to read 20 minutes a day, the timer bookmark sells especially well at my store. The little magnet clip style ones are great for teens.
Last month for National Poetry Month, I found some lovely bookmarks at Owl Square Press. My kids would love those. But more practical for us is this sort of bookmark, which you can customize as you wish and helps re-use all those envelopes from the junk mail we get. I don’t think I can include the URL, but you can see them at the blog dsharp dot typepad dot com, and search for the May 2 post, “Cutting Corners”. Very nicely done.