More Bookmarks

I had the day off today and I would have gone up into my craft room, but we are having a heat wave and I don't have air conditioning in that room.  I decided to try my hand at making some more laminated bookmarks. on the level with the AC.  I really do love that thing.

I used my broken Little Women book as source material.

I loved this book, so it was a little sad to cut it up, but that binding is shot.

But then I also had a bit of a hard time cutting up the Fireside Cookbook that I have, so maybe I just don't like to cut up books (not a bad issue to have, I'm sure).

It's such a pretty book with gorgeous full-page, color illustrations throughout, like this creature:

In case you were wondering what this creature's sign said.

In addition to the full-page illustrations, there are little illustrations that are also pretty great:

But the binding is broken and the book is stained:

I don't know.  One page was loose, so I just cut that one up.  

I love this new batch of bookmarks, but those marbled ones are still my favorite.

Trivia Q:  Name the four March sisters from Little Women.

Lamination

I decided to offer free bookmarks with my little free library, so I ordered a laminator and 500 (!) bookmark-sized lamination sheets.  They both arrived the day before the grand opening (phew!), so I spent two hours whipping up about 50 bookmarks.

Do you remember when I took that marbling class at the Textile Center?  (Refreshers here, here, here, and here.)   I still had a lot of marbled sheets of paper left over, because I've only made cards and stockings (with the fabric).  I grabbed a bunch of sheets, started slicing, and laminated.

They went from just plain sheets:

To bookmarks:

I just placed them in front of the books for people to grab when they open the library.  Until the library's architect and I come up with a better solution, I think this will work well:

What else should I laminate?  I have a broken copy of Little Women so maybe some book pages?  And then I have an old cookbook with adorable illustrations that I've been thinking of cutting up.  I've had it for five (or more) years and every time I go to cut it up, I have second thoughts.  It's sort of wonderful just all together, but the spine is busted and the cover is grody.  Maybe some bookmarks then?  My mom spends lots of time coloring, so perhaps some of her completed sheets can be laminated, too.

Little Free Library!

On Saturday we had the grand opening for our Little Free Library.  About thirty friends came (thank you!) from my neighborhood, my book club, and my kids' school.  We had a ribbon cutting, book-themed refreshments, free bookmarks, and lots and lots of donations (more thank yous!).

My neighbor hand-crafted this beauty and I painted it.  It's pretty adorable!

Open for business!

These hinges are pretty cool, but after about an hour of repetitive opening and shutting, they got a bit loose.  The architect says we may need to exchange these decorative ones for some more industrial strength ones.

We spread the donations out on a table.  I have a whole extra box of books to keep the library fully stocked.

We had fun coming up with literature-themed snacks.  I found little chalk place cards/markers at the store.  They were pretty cheap and fell down a lot, but they served their purpose.  Unfortunately, the words are hard to read in photos, but we served:  Goodnight Gorilla animal crackers, One Fish Two Fish Gold Fish, Lemonade Snickets, Mouse's Cookies, Moose's Muffins, Raisins in the Sun, and Sticks and Scones.  That last one was a bit hard.  My neighbor-architect made the most delicious scones on the planet, so I just googled book titles with scones and that's a real book name.  

As of this afternoon, two books have been taken (yay!).  I'm going to wait a bit before shoving more books in, in case anyone wants to donate any.  I realized that I had stuffed it quite full, so there was no room for random donations.