How to make bookmarks with your photos

Bookmarks with one of my photos. Ulla Hennig August 2011

Tnis is the first time I used one of my photos for a bookmarks template. The image above has been sized down for the web, but I think you might get an impression of the final product.

1. The first step is to create the bookmarks file. This one has 1400 pixel width and 1000 pixels height, with a resolution of 200 ppi. This resolution will produce a nice print. Either fill in a colour or leave it as it is.
2. Then you draw a line in the middle. Make it thick enough to function as a cutting line. Doing this will produce a second layer.
3. Open the photo you want to use and chose a selection which might look good on the bookmark file. Copy and paste. If necessary, scale the selection. You will have got a third layer by then. Repeat until you have got the same part of a photo below and above the line.
4. Now go back to the first layer. Take the colourpicker tool in Photoshop and pick a colour of the photo. I first had a lighter green but then decided to go for the darker green. Take the colour bucket tool and fill the layer with the selected colour.
5. Voila! You’ve got two nice bookmarks on one file. You can now print it out on a photo paper. Cut along the line with a paper cutter, not a pair of scissors!

Some Rather special Bookmarks

I love to read real books, and I love to put bookmarks between the pages. Bookshops offer wonderful bookmarks, but I wanted to design my own bookmarks, either for me or to give them away as a present.

Zazzle does not offer a proper bookmark template. Most of the people there use the rather tiny business card template, but I was not very happy with that. My favorite books are the big and heavy ones, and I could see the tiny bookmarks getti9ng lost in them.

So I asked some very experienced Zazzlers (a wonderful group of helpful and supportive people on Facebook) and I did a research on Zazzle’s marketplace (for non-Zazzlers: That’s the webpage where the products are shown) and I found three additional ways of creating a bookmark:

1. Bookmarks based on the rack card template. They are big enough, but who wants 50 bookmarks at one time? And 50 bookmarks with the same design? Not me!
2. Bookmarks based on the note card template. Well, you’ve got the two bookmarks on the front if you cut the front page, but what about the back page?
3. Bookmarks based on the postcard template.

I decided to have a go with the postcard template, and here they are, my first bookmarks done this rather special way:

Horror inside Bookmark by ullahennig
Browse more Skulls Postcards