Book Ideas

My daughter is planning to have a Halloween party this year, so I hit Target this week to start getting ideas for decorations (her theme is internet avatars, which is kind of a challenge.) I saw a big book on the end cap of the stationery/party goods aisle, and good citizen that I am, I picked it up to take it back to the book section. That's when I discovered it wasn't a book at all but a book-shaped storage box. Although it was a bit pricey ($9.99) it was the perfect size to store the blank cards and stationery that I usually shove in a pigeon hole in my desk, so I brought it home. For a storage box it really fools the eye, though, and I think with a couple pieces of cardboard, an old hardback book cover and some glue you could make one of these yourself.

The holidays always mean lots of gatherings and parties at our house, and when friends and family visit I usually put out a stack of my books on a table to sign for anyone who wants them (saves me trips upstairs to the book room, too.) I've never found a pretty way to display them other than in a neat stack or a basket, or just in a row on one of the book cases. Then I was washing my cake stand last night and recalled the diaper cakes I used to make for my nieces' and nephews' baby showers back in the nineties, and suddenly a lightbulb went off.

My stand is only standard cake size, so I couldn't pack the books too close together, but fanning them out and adding some pretty bookmarks made a display that would work on the coffee table or as a centerpiece (I was also thinking this would look pretty on an author's booksigning table.)

Mom is always sending me little bits in her letters, and this Current bookmark made me laugh out loud. If we are what we eat, squirrels should be following me around with lust in their hearts. But it also gave me a neat idea on how to hand out recipes for the holidays -- instead of using index cards, why not print them out on cardstock as bookmarks?

Using a slightly-oversize bookmark format would give you enough room to place a photo of your dish on the front side, along with a list of all the ingredients. Instructions on how to make the dish would go on the back. The recipient could then tuck the bookmark into the appropriate place in their cookbook at home (as well as sticking it in their purse or coupon holder when they go out to shop at the market.)

If you mail out Christmas cards every year and want to share a recipe with friends and family who aren't in your area, you could stick the recipe bookmark in the envelope (just use cards that have long enough envelopes so that you don't have to fold it.) This would also be a nice promotion item for authors who want to give out at booksignings the actual recipes for dishes from their novels (Alison Kent, I'm looking at you and all those lovely cupcakes.)

Added: I put together a quick example of a recipe bookmark and uploaded it to Google Docs here if you want to see how I'd do it; the box lines I drew around them didn't transfer during the upload but the front and back of the bookmark are side-by-side.