Make your own bookplates!

Wow, has it REALLY been that long since I posted last. Yikes. A lot has changed since then: my husband and I both got great new jobs, we bought our first house, and life has been hectic and wonderful in the meantime. The kids are GREAT!! and life is good. :) Oh, and we welcomed a dog and cat into our home.

I wanted to start posting again because I'm going through a really creative time, and I'm constantly wanting to make something new. With the advent of Pinterest and my discovery of Craftgawker, I'm finding more and more inspiration. I just wanted to start using my blog again to document some of the fun. :)

So, what have I been up to? The first craft I want to share is an idea for bookplates.

I adore bookplates, mostly because I adore books! While at the store recently looking for labels to use to print my own bookplates, I found these fantastic labels by Avery. These are perfect not only because they are an ideal size, but because you can pull them off the backing to package them as individual bookplates. You can box these up instead of giving a sheet of labels. They come apart very easily and they look pretty danged professional, too, if you ask me. :)

As you can see from my photos, you can use any artwork you'd like (I just picked a couple of coordinating pictures from Publisher that I liked in the first two, and an image from a website I love and wanted to advertise in the second) then personalize it to your needs. Some have the intended owner's name, some have blank lines to write on. Microsoft Publisher makes it easy because it already has the template for the Avery labels available. You just customize and print! You get 8 bookplates per page. Can you imagine all your kids' books with these in there? You could even customize it to look like a library check out list and have your kids sign when they complete a book. What a cute way to save those memories!

Now, you may be curious about the third picture. I'm a member of a website called Bookcrossing.com, which encourages people to share books and track where the books end up by registering their books with the site, adding the tracking number to the book on a label (like mine), and sending it off into the wild. Check them out if you're interested. I think it's a really fun idea, and I just released my first 3 books! I can't wait to see where their travels take them!

I hope you like the bookplate idea. If you try it, let me know! I'm on Pinterest and would love to see what you come up with! See you with another episode in my crafting adventure soon!