I recently bought two batches of vintage bookplates from Two Art Directors and a Photographer, an Etsy shop worth checking out if you’re a fan of vintage curiosities.
The question is, how to use these?
Options:
1. As bookplates. Likelihood: Slim. I only loan out books to family and friends who I can hound without compunction should the loan turn onerously long. Better yet, I only loan to people who won’t mind if I waltz into their house and take it back while they’re out for a walk, book bounty hunter style. So, there’s really no need for a bookplate. They know when they have one of my books. Lord, do they know.
2. As place cards for a seated dinner. Practical and lovely, plus the guests could take them home and use them for their intended purpose. Likelihood: Slim. The last time I hosted a dinner with assigned seating was . . . October 7th, 2007. Our wedding. It just doesn’t happen very often.
3. As food labels on a buffet, or tied around the necks of drink decanters. Hole-punched and tied with twine. Likelihood: Exceedingly high, though the drawback would be one-time use as opposed to frequent viewing. Still, this will probably happen.
4. As wallpaper in a small bathroom, or on a randomly-shaped slice of wall somewhere. Likelihood: Hmmm. I’d better start collecting now. The inside of a drawer or the back of shelves might be a better place to start. I could also see topping a dresser or desk with them in a guest room, and then covering with a layer of protective glass.
5. As a gift tag. Likelihood: High. Plenty of people to whom I give gifts would dig these, and might re-use them if I wrote their names attractively enough.
What else, dear readers? I sense other good uses right under my nose.
Bonus for the crafty set: Design*Sponge offers free bookplate templates for download and printing here.
