For Christmas 2023 I made some bookmarks for our family and guests, as small gifts to put into Christmas Crackers.

I like Christmas Crackers as a traditional bit of table dressing and fun at Christmas, but anyone who has ever bought a box would likely admit that even those advertised as ‘luxury’ crackers are filled with trinkets that will be forgotten and end up in landfill.

My grandmother started making her own Christmas crackers a few decades ago, and I have done the same for my family. I like to make a few personalised, useful items to put into crackers that will hopefully be used through the year.

These acrylic bookmarks are each made only with the addition of small scraps of adhesive vinyl and a tassel. I cut the dark, matte gold vinyl into a loose shape and mounted it on the back, where the colour from the adhesive side, true to the vinyl colour, shows through. I then used a brighter, metallic gold vinyl to cut each person’s name, which I stuck onto the front of the acrylic bookmark shape. I could have layered the two vinyl colours, but I liked the very shallow dimensionality that the separating acrylic shape gave to the two layers. I then added a tassel to each and they were finished. A simple but useful cracker gift.