Handmade Wedding Bookmarks

I just completed an order of handmade classic bookmarks for a bridal shower, and love the way they turned out.  What makes these so unique is that each bookmark is quite a labor-intensive work of love, as the quality materials include: scissors, hand-cut quality cardstock, archival black ink, individual letter/number small rubber stamps, and baker's twine--as well as good old-fashioned time, energy, and a good eye for word placement.  Printers are not used in my shop offerings.

I thought I'd give you a little peek into the handmade process of these bookmarks.  First, I cut the cardstock into bookmark-sized strips.  Then each bookmark is hole punched and strung through with baker's twine that I cut and tied into simple tassels.  The next step is stamping the bookmarks with individual letters/numbers to form words using archival, permanent black ink--since the words are stamped letter-by-letter, letter placement and ink saturation varies per word on each bookmark.  The unique lettering placement seen in my hand-stamped items contrasts with the streamlined aesthetic of commercial printing: I like to describe my work as a little bit of handmade in a computerized world.  Bookmarks dry for a few days before being securely packed and shipped out.

Handmade Classic Bookmarks

To be honest, some people would likely be driven mad by this lengthy handmade process for such a small item: the precision in cutting straight lines to form bookmarks, in saturating each rubber-stamp letter with ink every time it is used, in cutting and tying knots and then stringing them through individual bookmarks--and especially, in stamping letter-by-letter words that a printer could print out in a mere few seconds.  For me though, this creative act of sitting down and completing orders such as these is, interestingly enough, rather calming and nearly meditative.  And the fact that these handmade bookmarks will be mementos for a celebratory event of a lifetime?  Amazing!