Bookmarks and books

My mother-in-law likes books.  A lot.  As in, she works at the Library of Congress.  So for her birthday I knew I had to send her this card, but I also wanted to make a gift set of cards for her using Papertrey Ink's All Booked Up set.  I never know quite what to do with that Mat Stack 1 die, so I went looking for some inspiration and found this lovely card by Stephanie.  After trying about 25 different sheets of patterned paper, this is my version:

 I used mostly October Afternoon Campfire, along with PTI's Distressed Dots and OA Thrift Shop (I think?) for the damask paper.  Hint: place the bookmark in the soon-to-be pocket (not too far down, though), and use some removable tape to hold everything in place.  Then when you sew up the edges, it won't be too tight to fit the bookmark into the pocket. Here are some pairs with their bookmarks:

And here they are all wrapped up (I also made four extra bookmarks for her to use):

Seems like this post is just calling for some book reports, doesn't it?  (Click on the book to be taken to its amazon page)

Book #28: Okay, technically this was probably book #25, but I had completely forgotten about reading it.  I think that says it all about how good it was.

Book #29: The Disappearing Spoon is a collection of stories about the elements of the periodic table.  I definitely enjoyed reading it and feel a little bit smarter, but I would recommend reading it in small doses--he packs a lot of information into this book! 

Book #30: GAH!  I remembered Seabiscuit being good, but I forgot about it being this good. After reading Unbroken to Mr Corgi; we decided to read this next and dare I say it is better than Unbroken?  If you haven't read it yet, go read it!  If you have read it, go read it again!  Three cheers for Biscuit!

Book #31: I bought Lost on Treasure Island when it was on sale for $.99 and I think I overpaid.  Okay, I take that back, the first three or four chapters were probably worth $.99.  Then he started  attending AA meetings to pick up girls, but then he started to attend them to really attend them, and then it turned into pages and pages of bad choices and belly button gazing.

Book #32: I thought this might make a good beach read, but it was pretty meh.

Book #33: Now this is a novel, my friend.  I don't know how he packed so much into 352 pages.  It tells the story of a Newfoundland town over the course of many generations.  If you're reading it on the Kindle, go ahead and copy down the family tree at the beginning.  I did notice it got a lot of mixed reviews on amazon, but I would still recommend it if you like sweeping family sagas.

I love hearing what you're reading, so let me know in the comments!