Estonia

Every year, in Tallinn, Estonia, it is celebrated the Treff Festival, an international puppetry festival with puppetry demonstrations and theatre performances. This bookmark came from there and, besides showing a little puppet, shows the beautiful Tallinn Town Hall ♥. 

Bolivia

Today I show you a colourful bookmark from Bolivia, from the Department of Pando, in the North of the country. It was a present for a good friend, Rosa :). Thank you so much! ♥

Peru

The condor passes could be the soundtrack of this pretty bookmark from Cusco/Cuzco, the historical capital of the Inca Empire. A traditional Andean music to introduce this beatiful handmade painted bookmark ♥.

Thanks Hagay for this so nice present!. 

Malta

This beautiful bookmark from Malta shows one of the national symbols of this island, the Maltese Cross ♥. Thanks Hagay for this so nice gift :)

China

This little bookmark from China shows one of the most important symbols in this country: the dragon, symbol of the Emperor and symbol too of wisdom, wealth, power and good luck ♥. 

Barbados

Cloudy day today here. Looks like it will rain ... and I  find this bookmark from Barbados, with these sunny photographs and paradisiacal beaches... and sun... sun... sun...  **big sigh**

:)

Bulgaria

We start the week with this handmade cross stitch bookmark from Bulgaria ♥. 

Andorra

This  bookmark is from Andorra, from the National Library sited in Casa Bauró (Bauró House), an ancestral house. This bookmark is about "Ex-Libris Casa Bauró", an annual publication produced by this library, where you can see everything published in Andorra throughout the whole year.

It is a simple bookmark but it was designed with a great care and a very good taste. The paper quality is awesome. I like it very much ♥.

India

This handmade bookmark is from India. It is an elegant and smart way to preserve something so short-lived like these little flowers. It is delicately made, very beautiful indeed ♥. 

Kenya

Giraffes are not beautiful? Indeed. This handmade painted bookmark is from Kenya and it is not only marvellous made but is capable to show us the majesty and elegance of this big animal. Look the sparkles on the eyes :)

It is one of the most special bookmark in my collection ♥ .

Bahrain

The Hand of Fatima is a beautiful symbol in many ways. Not only the beauty of the different representations but its meaning: the Hand of Fatima is a protective symbol that brings us luck, health and good fortune. Sometimes the hand has an eye that protects us against the devil eye. I love this very pretty amulet-bookmark very much ♥ .

I have to thank Sri, a very pleasant person who lives in Bahrain, for his help to find a bookmark from this country. It is always so nice to meet people so kind and so helpful. It is one of the great things of projects like this one :). Wonderful world!  

Lithuania

This bookmark was a unexpected gift from other bookmark collector, Liudmila, time ago. It is a touristic bookmark from Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania and it shows us a part of the beautiful castle in this city ♥. 

The book which was my model is "Purest pleasure. A book of garden gossip" by HLV Fletcher. 

Nepal

I still keep the big and curious envelope where three little nepalese bookmarks travelled to my home four years ago. They came from Patan, in the Kathmandu Valley, among snow-covered mountains and astonishing temples ♥.

Switzerland

It was not easy to select a bookmark from Switzerland because I have a very pretty bookmarks from there, but, finally I chose this beautiful one because used old bookmarks have a very special aura that I love ♥.

Looking this bookmark I realize how practical the Swiss people must be. In a very little bookmark they are capable of showing quite a lot of information about their country: an alpine landscape with the typical architecture, the Swiss flag, the country's name in three different languages and, furthermore, three different alpine flowers: the famous Edelweiss, the Alpine Rose and the Spring Gentian. Information and beauty, all together ♥.

Malaysia

Lina is the artisan and the owner of Sincerely Sakura. She designs very cute bookmarks related to her country, Malaysia, and, about all, the traditional custome, Baju Kebaya.

I am very impressed about this bookmark I received last week. It is delicately made ♥. 

Liudmila Cernikoviene - An interview.

There is a Lithuanian bookmarks' collector, living in Norway, that has one of my favourite blogs about bookmarks. Now, she was interviewed about her and her collection. Very interesting! I recommend reading it ♥.

You can read the interview HERE.

Hugs!

:)

Sweden

This bookmark is one of the most beautiful and special ones I have in my collection. I would love to know more about its story, about its age or, even, about the cross' decorations. The only information I have is that this bookmark belonged to a Swedish woman who was living in Spain. I think it is a beautiful treasure ♥. 

The name Gällivare is engraved on the reverse and, searching on the net, I found this is a town in the very north of Sweden, just about 100 km of the Arctic Circle. This town is the home of a devotional Lutheran community, The Laestadianism, founded in the XIX century by a noted pastor and afterwards extended to many countries.

Maldives

I don't know if this is a serious bookworm, but I am sure that if you find it meanwhile you are enjoying diving you are in serious troubles lol.

From the Maldives and from the Hilton Hotel this curious bookmark :). I got it through other bookmark's collector :). 

Spain

My country. How to choose only ONE bookmark from thousands and thousands of Spanish bookmarks I have in my collection? It wasn't an easy task, believe me. I have changed the idea so many times that I think I needed to make this post to finish with this headache LOL. But, finally, here, the chosen one. A beautiful rose made in Spain by RAS. It is a pretty bookmark, a birthday present from a good friend, Alia ♥.

Austria

Grüss aus Salzburg, Greeting from Salzburg. Today I show you an old bookmark from Austria ♥.

Indonesia

This handmade bookmark was bought by a good friend, who always remembers my collection in his trips (Thanks Hagay!). This bookmark is so pretty and so exotic! It seems that is made of paper (I thought that) but, looking more information on the net, I found that these kind of bookmarks are actually made of a very thin cow skin.

The figures make reference to Wayang Kulit, a shadow puppet theatre typical in Indonesia, that was designated as a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO in 2003.

This bookmark is beautifully handmade, a pretty component of my collection ♥. 

Mexico

This is one of my favourite bookmarks, which has been in my collection for more than 10 years. It is a handmade painted bookmark from Mexico. As you can see, it is a very beautiful and colourful bookmark ♥. It is one of my treasures.

The paper is a very special one. It is called "Papel Amate" (Amate Paper) and it is made by hand from the bark of three different trees: Amate, Jonote and a mulberry. The craftsmen use a millenary Mexican technique. I encourage you to search more information, for example this video, to see this amazing process.

Argentina

This Argentinian bookmark brings the sound of a tango, can you hear it too?. Thanks to this beautiful bookmark I discovered the Batik technique, which I have not heard before. If you have curiosity you can find lots of videos in youtube, like this amazing one.

This bookmark has been painted in a fine fabric and glued to a card. It is beautifully made. I love it ♥. 

It was a gift from a friend. Thanks Hagay! :)

"Hecho a mano" means "Handmade"

Latvia

Although Latvia is an European country and it shouldn't be difficult to get a bookmark from there, it was not so easy (for me, at least). I don't know if collecting bookmarks is an usual hobby there but I have not met any collector from this country in all these years I have been collecting. But, luckily, I found a couple of shops in Etsy and I was in love with this linen bookmark with a typical Latvian garter.

By the way, I have just visited the online shop, Linenquality, and she has added some new and very pretty bookmarks ♥.

Zimbabwe

A beautiful and friendly girl from Zimbabwe sent me this amazing bookmark from her country. I absolutely love it ♥.  I am very grateful indeed for her kindness and her time. Putting it in my project's album made me so happy :).

Vietnam

Yesterday morning I received this pretty handmade bookmark from Vietnam. I don't know if it reminds me the paper dolls I played with when I was a child, but the matter is that, when I opened the envelope and saw the bookmark, it was love at first sight ♥. 

The women who made this bookmark have a very good selection of bookmarks in their Ebay's shop. I recommend you to take a look :). You will love them.

The welcome speech

There are many things that connect and distinguish us through the thousands and thousands of km the earth has. Our features are different, traditions, habits, time zone, way of dressing, music, language, scripts, meal... many are the differences. But, among the things that connect us, among so many things we are similar  concerning books. There is not country in which there are not books. So, in this way, like one of those childish jokes ... what a Spanish and a resident of Samoa, Oman, Armenia, Chile and Kazakhstan look alike? Or from Cuba , Cambodia and Suriname? ... They use an element to mark the pages of a book: a paper, a train/bus ticket, .... or a ♥ bookmark ♥ . 

The objective is this: get a bookmark for each country in the world and complete an imaginary globe in which the countries are represented by the colors and textures of a bookmark .

I start with optimism. I think today I have 68 bookmarks from 68 different countries. It won't be easy, but I will keep a very high optimism :)