Sunday-right-here – I’ve gone about as small as I can go….

28/10/2012 by UKMA 3 Comments

…so I must be DONE.

WOYWWers will remember me praising Di for her sweet little magnetic bookmark – she so generously handed them out at the crop.  I love mine and it is in service as we speak.   I see it three or four times a day, when I snatch a quick chapter or two of my book, so it is constantly in my vision.  As with most lightning bolt moments, it takes a few things to come together to create that creative electricity.  In this case, it was Di’s bookmark + all my playing with calendars + DD’s birthday + DS’s epic forgetfulness. You see, this time I did not take a chance – I reminded him of DD’s birthday in advance … after he had missed his Dad’s birthday, Mother’s Day and Father’s day so far.

All that was rolling around in my head and this is what it came out as!

The smaller one is just over 3 inches (when folded) and just under 2 inches wide. The bigger one is more like 4 inches (folded) x 2 1/2 inches.  I think those are fine sizes for this sort of bookmark,

The sheet comes with 4 bookmarks to a page.   The text is VERY small, but it has to be.

When you print them, you can then cut either just inside the black lines or just outside, either way.  and you can fold them in or out, depending on if you want the calendar part inside or outside the bookmark.

But I also printed them out on plain paper then attached other papers over the top and ran them thru the printer again. It’s a little dicey on heavily textured cardstock, but I found if I rub my thumbnail over it to flatten out the texture a bit, it’s more readable.

Just cut the bookmark then add the calendar bits.  Calendar inside or out, I found it smoother to cut apart the  halves as neither sticking and then scoring both nor scoring each then sticking gave me as smooth a result as I wanted.

I cut two 1/2 strips from an peel-off adhesive-covered magnetic business card.  Stick one in place on one inside edge then put the other magnetic strip over that.

Peel off the backing, then line up the edges and close the bookmark, pressing on the now exposed adhesive

The other option, and why I did the layout as 6 months one way, 6 months the other, is you can simply trim the strip, fold it, add what you like to the inside, add the magnet and you have a super quick one done. This one has the important dates and a reminder – isn’t it lucky (for ME) that the US and UK Mother’s Days are different.  That way I get two every year – which is as it should be, don’tcha think?  Poor Dad – it’s the same both sides of the pond so he only gets the one.

A couple of things:  if you ink edges or stamp, heat set it.  You really do NOT  want to smudge ink all over a book! Keep to flat embellishments.  Anything lumpy is just not going to work, either inside or outside.  And covering the magnets?  You can try, but keep in mind the book page will ALSO be in between so you don’t want to dilute the strength of the magnet by extra, unnecessary interference.  Better a bookmark that WORKS than one made perfectly pretty.

I also did a very small strip, each month all the same way, about 1 inch wide.  I don’t know if they are too small, really. I guess I’ll add them but I probably should have done a little research to find out what was the “standard size” for this sort of thing.  You are welcome to them if they can be of use to you.

 

Here is a size comparison – the light is just about gone here (our clocks went back last night) so apologies for the rubbish photo. I can read them, but I feel like they would work best printed on white, cream, or some very pale paper or un-textured cardstock.

So my calendar play has been getting smaller and smaller as I’ve gone along.  I don’t think I can go smaller without them being unreadable LOL!  So I may have to be done for the year.  But overall I think I’m happy with the variety and m pretty sure I have created all I need for my OWN use and hopefully shared some that will be of use to YOU.