Thursday, August 11, 2011

What's the Strangest Bookmark You've Used?

A quick note: I have company this week, so will be delayed in responding to your comments and visiting your blogs. I will do so as soon as I'm able.

Normally, I will be updating my Project 52 progress on Thursdays, but since I've been preparing for guests (and now hosting them), I haven't made any real progress. Instead, I thought I'd talk about bookmarks.

I can't stand to dog-ear a book I'm reading, which means I am sometimes scrambling for a bookmark. I will occasionally use the book jacket, but only if I'm not that far in; it tends to ruin the book jacket and make it fit weird.

Instead, I will grab whatever seems like it will work. I've used toilet paper, tissues, receipts, napkins, post-its, random slips of whatever paper I could find, photos, a paper tampon wrapper, business cards, magazines, a book of matches, string, ads, clean straws, even a smaller book in a desperate moment. I've also removed the book jacket and stuffed the whole thing into the book when I was too far in and had nothing else at hand.

Lest you think I'm completely uncouth, I do own regular bookmarks, too. I even have one with a picture of my god daughter on it. However, I seem to misplace these quite easily. Right now, I'm using a magnetic bookmark I got from the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center in Divide, CO the other day. We'll see how long it takes me to lose that one.

The problem with using random things as bookmarks is that my children occasionally "save" my book by removing the offending item. At least when it's a real bookmark they know to leave it in there!

I also wanted to pass on a useful post from a fellow blogger, Beverly Diehl. On her blog, Writing in Flow, she posted a helpful tip on how to put a link in your blog that will open a new window, rather than take your reader away from your page when you use the "insert link" option. If this is something you might find useful, see her article entitled Nick Cage & Making Sure Our Readers Are Not Gone in 60 Seconds. Hopefully it works, because I've implemented it in all this week's blog posts!

Do you dog-ear your books? Use the cover? Have you used anything unusual as a bookmark?

May you find your Muse.

13 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Me being me I have a book mark of Daniel O Donnell. who else?

Yvonne.

shelly said...

Hey, I've used gum wrappers to dog-ear pages.

~ April ~ EnchantedDandelions said...

Currently using a paint chip (color cards, whatever they are called).

I have used a little bit of everything... and do sometimes dog-ear (certain books).

Beth Kemp said...

I'll turn the corner for some books (can't really say what the rules are; it's not that logical!). I do have a lovely silver bookmark that goes over the page like a big paper clip, but that leaves indentations in the pages a bit. I often resort to tissues.

jan said...

I not only dog-ear pages, but I underline great lines, circle unfamiliar words, and scribble in the margins--stars, exclamation marks, and smiley faces. Still, I love to use the no-slip head bands you can find at any drug store as my official bookmarks.

Stephanie said...

No dog ears here. I usually use the library receipt. My daughter made me some bookmarks out of random pieces of cardstock. They are on my nightstand.

Andrew Leon said...

Ah, thanks for that bit about the links. Now, I just have to remember that the next time I want to use one! I actually avoid them as much as possible for that very reason. However, for myself, I generally just right-click on links and manually open a new page. Yes, I know most people don't do that kind of thing.

I'm not thinking of anything strange I've ever used as a bookmark. Actually, I had this one bookmark that I managed to hold onto for something like 15 years. I probably still have it in a book somewhere, but it's been missing since we moved last time (8 years ago). I haven't found a new bookmark that I love since then.

mymy said...

i don't use a specific bookmark...i use anything thin that won't 'hurt' the book. lol.

Unknown said...

I've dogeared on occasion, but oh my goodness, I feel so bad about it! LOL I've used everything for bookmarks, though... receipts, gum wrappers, paperclips, coupons. Whoever mentioned the paint sample cards totally made me laugh, because I did the same thing when The Hubby and I were picking out paint for the house. LOL... While he talked to the people at Lowes, I stood behind the shopping cart and read.

Shannon Lawrence said...

Yvonne, of course! Sounds perfect to me.

Shelly, you can add that to my list, too!

April, I've used the paint chip cards before, too. You dog-ear? GASP!

Beth, I had to give up on those bookmarks that clip over the page since they were messing up the pages as badly as dog-earing them. My son has one now and I wince every time he uses it.

Jan, that is a new bookmark by me! I did that to my textbooks in college, but when I pondered doing so with my fiction books I just couldn't stomach it. It was a great help in my studies, though, let me tell you! I kept all the textbooks for future reference.

Stephanie, sweet about the homemade bookmarks. I should do that with my kiddos for fun since we all read. I've used the library receipts, too.

Andrew, now that is loyalty to a bookmark! I am really at a loss as to where the ones I'd been using have disappeared to. Irksome. I also just manually open the links in a different window.

Mymy, exactly what my goal is!

Alyssia, ah yes, add paper clips to my list, though I avoid them for the same reason as the clippy-type bookmarks. I have a home improvement store fetish, so I actually don't read there (gasp!). Instead, I wander through looking at all the groovy things I don't understand and think of all the ways I could put them to use. There are some cool things in there!

Andrew Leon said...

Oh, I don't know how I forgot this since I'm using it in a book right now. I have an unused Spider-Man temporary tatoo that I've been using for a couple of years. I can't remember, now, why I ended up with that in a book, but it's there.

Shannon Lawrence said...

You know, I'm surprised I haven't used a temp tattoo yet, considering how often we seem to have those floating around the house.

Andrew Leon said...

I think temporary tatoos are kind of like a plague of locusts. We have them -everywhere-. And they seem to breed, too.