Slow Christmas

Looking for something to give the bibliophile in your life, or maybe an activity that’s fun for kids and adults? Make bookmarks.

My mom is a thwarted artist, and she’s always drawing on something, loose leaf margins, the back of receipts, whatever’s around.  For years when we were little, on the weekends leading up to Christmas, she would bring home old card stock pieces from work, cut them into rectangles with a paper cutter, and we would sit by the fire or in front of the TV and make bookmarks to give to everyone on our list.

It was the only time of the year where Mom would bring out those precious commodities, the gold and silver markers. When no one was looking, my older sister would pump the tip until gold spilled out in a pool on the paper, and stare at all that mesmerizing gold. As the youngest, I liked to make a show of my neatness, to prove that I could keep up. My other sister had a delicate hand, and hers were ethereal and pretty. But we all loved our mom’s the most: they were exercises in symmetry and repetition, like a cross between M.C. Escher and William Morris wallpaper.

I remember making the bookmarks much more than actually giving them to people. But even years later, I would see a bookmark one of us made in the seam of a relative’s book.

What you’ll need:

card stock (any color, something like this)
markers, one silver, one gold (I like this one)
colored pencils

Cut the card stock into your favorite size (2×8″ works well).  Put down some newspaper or printer paper, so you can draw to the edges with the markers, and go to town. Don’t worry about whether it’s the most beautiful thing in the world – the point is to create and have a little fun. There’s no statute of limitations to the thought being what counts, it applies as well at 3 years old or 30.