Day Sixteen: bookmarks

Confession: I really didn't want to work on the laptop bag today. I want it to be finished, and I want to be able to tell people that I made it, but I can't stand the sight of it right now. At a loss of what to do, I read my book for the majority of the day; usually I use whatever piece of paper is in the vicinity as a bookmark (receipts, post-its, other books), but today it happened that a left-over piece of my most favourite damask paper was the closest thing at hand. It inspired in me a brilliant idea: damask bookmark! Since I want to use that paper for every single thing until it's all gone, because I love it so much.

My initial plan was to chop off a bookmark-shaped piece and then slap some packing tape on it, but I thought you guys might call foul on that being an actual craft. So I endeavoured to make it more difficult for myself.

Materials:
- lovely paper, patterned and corresponding solid (HomeSense)
- ribbon that matches (Michaels)
- packing tape [or laminator, if you're so inclined, but I'm not sure if the ribbon would work in that case]
- glue
- scissors/paper cutter
- light cardboard (maybe that is what's known as "paperboard"?)

I decided to make two, since I had two matching solid/damask combinations. I estimated bookmark-size and cut all the paper to those imaginary dimensions - I probably should have used a ruler. Why don't I learn anything from all my mistakes.

Then I glued them together, more damask showing than solid colour. At this point, I ruined the pink one because I didn't use a ruler, so I cut it crooked, and then I didn't like how the paper looked together. I decided instead to make a plain damask bookmark with the pink paper.

Then I chose ribbons that looked nice, and glued them on with a stupid glue stick. I hate glue sticks for stuff like this. The funny thing is, I have wonderful liquid craft glue in my craft box - however I was in the dining room and the liquid glue was in my bedroom. Instead of walking over to retrieve the liquid glue, I angrily used the glue stick. Laziness, thy name is Laura.

Then I trimmed everything to make it uniform, and sealed it with packing tape. This was tricky work, but thankfully I didn't end up with any tape bunch-ups (except on the back, which doesn't matter anyway). Then I thought that perhaps they were too flimsy, so I cut up the cover of one of my scrapbook paper packages and taped it onto the back of each bookmark.

And now I have two beautiful bookmarks. They satisfy my need to make stuff like this - I find scrapbook pages too daunting; cards are the perfect size but I don't like giving them away after I spent all that time on then; these bookmarks I just made use the same principles as making a card except I get to keep it! Until I lose it. Which is why I made two.

Day Sixteen Highlights: brilliant ideas, damask paper, reading for half the day.

Day Sixteen Lowlights: glue sticks, laziness, spending hours making a card and then giving it away and then it ending up in the garbage.

Tomorrow: I'm going to SAY the laptop bag, but in all honesty it will probably not be the laptop bag. Maybe more novel, or a glove squirrel.