It's no secret that whilst reading is a vital part of childhood education, toddlers and books don't always mix well. Until very recently the only books within reach of my children at home have been board books, or 'hardies' as our family calls them. 'Softies' as in books with rippable paper pages, were on shelves out of reach. My design books, mostly from my architectural and retail-design days, were in a separate room tucked out of the way. Not far enough out of the way however...
Little Lotti, who's about two and a half, and therefore not really that little anymore, decided that a slightly torn spine of an old book of mine looked delightfully inviting. How she pulled out such a big book which was well wedged in between it's neighbours is a mystery, although, as I write this, I suspect she pulled at the already torn spine, and that's how she got the book off the shelf and how part of the spine ended up on the floor in two pieces.
My girls have a habit of walking around the house with their hands over their eyes (Lotti), or over their ears (Mimi) when they've done something wrong and they suspect "Mummy get cranky." When I saw Lotti hiding behind her hands I knew something was up. I'm about as patient as any mom can be when her husband's stranded in China due to aeroplane strikes, who doesn't get any sleep, and is way behind in her washing... I'd like to say I deep-breathed my way through the moment, turning it into a loving learning-opportunity, and I did. After I had a moment of ranting and raving, which explains Mimi's ear-covering maneuver!
When I realised that the broken spine couldn't be stuck back together I gave myself a 15 minute challenge (I do a similar thing on Polyvore and with card making), to turn the pieces into a bookmark. I laid the pieces onto 4 green scrapbook pages, chose the one I liked best, and using the gilded embossed letters and the title of the book '100 Great Lives' as inspiration, I popped on a gold crown sticker, star and tassel. I used a white self-adhesive ribbon to pull the design down the full length of the bookmark, and I was done; the bookmark is now well embedded in the book that I'm reading at the moment, a book about Einstein and time, suitably enough!
So along the lines of 'got lemons? make lemonade' - got a broken book - make a bookmark... just don't deliberately break the book to make the bookmark... please.
