This Christmas, I prepared something special for my book club friends — bookmarks!
Bookmarks are always a big hit over at Flips Flipping Pages. We have bookmarks for every book discussion we have every month, and we like to give out bookmarks on special occasions, too — we all never seem to have enough of them!
Last year, at the 2009 FFP Christmas party, I set up a bookmark station with leather thongs and charms at our Christmas party so people could make their own bookmarks, but this year, I wanted to try out something different.
Last week, National Book Store launched Work Station, a specially dedicated section of NBS that caters to office supplies — from stationery to computers, safes, printers, scanners, filing cabinets, office furniture, and even Apple products (Glorietta 5 branch, but you can order them at the other Work Station branches in NBS SM Calamba and SM San Pablo, and the stand alone stores in Market! Market! and Glorietta 3. I was invited to the launch (unfortunately I had work that day), but I was way ahead of them — I had raided Work Station several weeks earlier for supplies.
Ok, I have to warn you this will sound uber office geek, but I got myself a laminating machine, a paper cutter, some laminating film, Bostik glue, scotch tape, and a wodge of other supplies I don’t really need (I love supplies!) but I can never have enough of — post its, Dong-A Play-on Markers (my current favorite brand of pens), oh, and how can I forget — gauge 5 plastic cover!
I had a foreign language edition (German?) of The Adventures of Tintin: The Shooting Star that I foraged in a bargain bin eons ago for some loose change, and I don’t know why I bought it at the time, but this seemed to be the perfect opportunity to put it to use.
I cut the strips, which wasn’t so hard because I found that the strips line up almost perfectly back to front.
Laid them out on the laminating film:
Fed the laminator:
Then I cut the sheets into bookmarks:
Trimmed the corners, punched holes, threaded leather thongs, and stuffed them into envelopes made from pages of a manga directory. And voila!
The bookmarks are pretty sturdy, and waterproof too! Now more people want them and I’m out of comics, hahaha! I draw the line at using English Tintin so I will have to find something else to make bookmarks out of :D
Hint, hint:
Nice bookmarks. I also love to make them but I am more on the craft side, Means that I made every detail…and use recycled materials. Nice that you jave equipments
Wow, good for you Ivan. I do like handcrafted bookmarks too, and I would have loved to make them, but I was cramming for the FFP Christmas party/prom night
How much is the laminating machine? And that paper cutter looks pretty nifty, too. :D
The laminating machine cost about P2900. There’s a cheaper brand that costs 2400 but I liked this one because it has hot and cold switches.
The paper cutter is about P1500. I wanted the roller type blade because it’s a lot safer to handle, the blade is replaceable, and there are also different types of blades available separately, like perforators and wave cuts. And it comes with a free corner curve puncher. The hand-crank ones are cheaper, I think the small ones are about P700 or so, but they’re less compact. I also don’t think a klutz like me can handle one bloodlessly, and they may need sharpening when the blade goes dull.
MADELINE BOOKMARK – I WANT!!!! :)
I knew you’d like it, Iya. Am just figuring out the cutting, but will reserve some Madelines for you.
Wow that’s a great idea. I’ve always bought bookmarks instead of making them, this is inspiring! Madeline themed bookmarks for me as well. :)
Hi Madz. Will message you if I can figure out how to do the madeline bookmarks :D
OMG! You bought new toys! And what’s a manga directory? Sounds like something i can play around with!
Seez, the manga “directory” is actually a manga magazine with previews of upcoming issues. I got a bunch of them last year from my friend from Japan (i.e. supplier of washi tapes). I call it directory because it’s as thick as the yellow pages
I’ve always wanted to buy a laminating machine. I’m just afraid I won’t use them like a lot of my other craft supplies.
But now you’ve given me the idea for using them for bookmarks….hmmmm!!! I need more NBS GCs. :)
Hahaha, and here I thought you already had one Gege!
you had me at tintin. then you spring madeline on me! double whammy!
Will save some for you when I do another batch of Madeline :)
What a great idea! I host literacy bookfairs here in Omaha and this would be a huge hit! I wonder how much a laminator is? I suppose I need to be responsible and wait till I get a job hmmm?
Time to hit the goodwills and second hand shops. Thanks for a great idea!