Free Download - Knitting Bookmarks

Several years ago I announced to my principal that I would no longer act as my high school’s yearbook advisor. I had worked as a high school yearbook advisor for 17 years at three different schools, and had had enough.

“A yearbook advisor,” you might ask, “what the big deal in that? Watch kids take pictures and add captions?"

In reality, acting as a high school yearbook advisor is teaching school full-time while simultaneously running a business.  But, unlike business professionals, a yearbook advisor can’t easily “fire” employees, so she frequently finds herself with a teenaged staff who would rather socialize than get to work and who love the notion of frantic, last-minute deadline completion. Consequently, many advisors who don't deal well with last-minute pressure spend hours and hours every weekend, holiday, and sick day editing—and sometimes redoing or creating—layouts.  An advisor also works to raise money to fund publishing the book—in the form of candy sales, car washes, business ad sales, and even beauty pageants.  (I can’t even type the last two words of my previous sentence without shuddering.)  The advisor also plans all school photos and serves as a liaison to parents (or as the hapless victim of parental browbeating) and must also plan yearbook distribution parties replete with hot dog and hamburgers and a DJ.  (I planned several of those for over 750 students).

See below to access the link to the PDF.

Ironically, after I gave up the yearbook advisor stint, I missed the creative aspects of the job—taking pictures, designing page layouts, etc. My blog, therefore, fills this creative need.  The other day I also fulfilled my graphic design interest by creating some bookmarks. I’d set out to mail a letter to a friend and wanted to include some little token, so I dusted off my layout skills and used Microsoft Publisher (since I don’t have InDesign or a more sophisticated program available to me at this time) and created some knitting bookmarks. You can download them and find directions HERE.

 

 

If you would like to create your own designs, a good source for free vintage knitting pictures is A Good Yarn.   Miss Mary Park offers some wonderful free Victorian clip art as well, and she has even made the backgrounds for some cut-out images transparent, so these are great for layering, as you can add them to a colored background.  Hope you enjoy my simple creations.  I certainly had fun making these bits of ephemera, especially without the stress of a firm deadline looming over my shoulder.