Do you have a thing for plumb bobs? Watering cans? Snakes or shooting stars?
You’re in luck. You can have any one of them carved into a cherry bookmark by a Cumberland business called Wood Wizard.
Those suggestions come with a wink, wink. Most of the laser-cut bookmarks made by Wood Wizard feature more traditional designs, such as butterflies and kitties. The wood is a rich color – it’s Thomas Moser’s leftovers – and finished with boiled linseed oil.
So, is it difficult to sell bookmarks when people may be reading the latest bestseller on a Kindle? Not necessarily, says Wood Wizard owner Michael Nichols, who studied art and photography and worked in sales before taking over the bookmark business in 2013. While he does sell his bookmarks at a few bookstores, he’s also in gift shops, galleries and national parks. And it’s not just book readers who buy them.
“It’s an affordable piece of art,” he said. “There’s time and effort that goes into it.”
Nichols makes custom promotional bookmarks for private companies and non-profits, and sometimes people order them for special occasions. He’ll design a birthday bookmark, for example, with the person’s name and date of birth, and perhaps a design that means something special to the honoree.
His top sellers include a sitting cat, a lighthouse, a lobster, a moose head and a dragonfly. But many of the designs he has available were created by the previous owner, and to say they are eclectic is an understatement. There’s a tooth – gift for a dentist, maybe? – and an “ant-carpenter” – that’s a carpenter ant holding a tiny hammer. Someone ordered the housefly once and called it a black fly.
Nichols’ bookmarks cost $5 each at retailers (they are $6.50 through his website, woodwizardme.com) and are sold in L.L. Bean in Freeport, the Maine Potters Market in Portland, Lisa-Marie’s Made in Maine in Portland and Bath, the Center for Maine Craft in West Gardiner, and Mung Bean, a gift shop in Boothbay Harbor.
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