At the risk of sounding like a banal motivational poster, I appreciate the little things in life. A sunrise, a visit from a hummingbird, a hug from my son, my daughter bringing home a candy bar for me, a beautiful moon, little scraps of paper... Wait, what? Paper scraps? I am unable to throw away the smallest, tiniest most infinitesimal pieces of paper, particularly if they're from pretty paper. I have boxes and bins full of paper. Before you sign me up for Hoarders, I actually do things with all of that paper. One of the things I do is make bookmarks. According to a challenge I participated in on Goodreads, I read 105 books in 2011. When you rarely leave the house because you can't afford to go out, you get a lot of reading done. So, I need bookmarks. I give bookmarks as gifts. Bookmarks hang out on my shelves just waiting for their next transient relationship with a book. I'm kind of a literary pimp. The backing for these bookmarks come from scraps of card stock, big enough for bookmarks but too small for cards. I use an inexpensive glue stick just like kindergarteners use to adhere the paper scraps. I've also collected stickers of all sorts for the last decade, which find their way on to the bookmarks. I'm not as crazy about stickers as this girl who makes the most incredible wallpaper with stickers - but one day I'm going to straight up copy what she's done on a wall of my own. I seal the bookmarks with self-sealing, repositionable laminating sheets. You don't need a machine for those and can find them in office supply stores. Punch a hole in the finished bookmark, put ribbon or string through the hole and thread a bead or several on the ends. I use the kind of black cord you use for making jewelry. There's no way to get this project wrong. You don't even have to laminate the bookmarks, just glue your paper well. Now do you see why I save paper scraps? I'll show you other projects later. I've decided to write a blog post every day in 2012. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it. That, and lots of paper.