A Secret Prize Hidden Inside

Continuing with this weeks theme of ‘trying something new‘ and ‘firsts‘…

In a post from April 21, 2009 titled “Another Idea…” I wrote about my desire to “ship gifts and packages all over the world, artfully wrapped in my self-designed paper, including a personal note written on a card from my own line and shipped in my signature boxes, with eco-friendly packaging, and a secret prize hidden inside.”

I haven’t gotten around to designing my own gift wrap yet, my own greeting cards or my own signature boxes yet, but I did use eco-friendly packaging to mail all The Dreaming Cafe random drawing winners their own copy “Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love”and it did include a personal note from me AND a secret prize hidden inside.

I always knew I wanted to do this and this was my opportunity.

But, what to include?

It had to be inexpensive, but nice, a ‘keeper’.

Then I had a brainstorm!! I was shipping books and what do you need when reading a book? A bookmark!! And, what better way to remind people where their book came from than a Dreaming Cafe bookmark!!

Brilliant! One problem. I didn’t have any Dreaming Cafe bookmarks.

Plan A: Go online and see what was available. I had an idea of what I wanted the bookmarks to look like, but needed printing costs. Conclusion: Too much $$ and not enough lead time.

Plan B: Make my own. (you can read keep reading to see how I did it, or just scroll to the bottom to see what they look like.)

Now, not having any graphics software I really had to work hard. I used Microsoft Word, Microsoft Paint, a Snippet tool, a free photo editor and some plain old ingenuity.

I started with some pictures I had taken of a blue sky and fluffy white clouds. I then washed the picture out to lighten the images so they could serve as a background. I added some basic text that I copied on top of the image and printed them out on 4″ x 6″ photo paper. The next day I borrowed a giant cutting board and laminator from work. (I paid for the laminating paper. I just borrowed the machine.) I had printed the front and back of the bookmarks separately , so I had to cut them and put them together. After several tries I finally got them to laminate properly without being crooked. Then I punched a hole in the top for a tassel.

Now, the next big problem.

How do I make a tassel and with what? I also wanted some type of charm on the tassel. So, I took a trip to the craft store where I found some very cute baby, metal tags with inspirational words stamped into them and they were on clearance! Next I found some tassel like twine and headed home.

Making tassels…not the easiest thing in the world if you’ve never done it. But, I figured it out.

And, in the end I was quite pleased with the results and my first ever secret prize hidden inside.

Making these bookmarks was something new, something I had only imagined and never tried. I am glad I did. It was a pure indulgence of my creativity and I loved every minute of it!!

If you’d like your own Dreaming Cafe bookmark email me and send me your mailing address. I only have a limited number, so it will be on a first some, first served basis.
You can contact me at: Sandy@TheDreamingCafe.com

Bookmarks from The Dreaming Cafe