With school in swing and tree-leaves turning, we thought a few bookplates (or Ex Libris if you want to be fancy) would fit nicely in with end-of-summer-beginning-of-fall reading. Inspired by Brother Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach, we'd like to give you a few, jolly, downloadable bookplates. Here's what you do:

1. Purchase labels. We wanted a nice, hearty sticker so we purchased Avery® 3-1/3" x 4" white shipping labels (product 8164) from Office Depot. Keep the blank stickers you don't use because we will find more excuses for them in the future.

2. Download templates. Avery provides templates for your labels. Search for product 8164. Follow instructions for your particular computer (Mac & PC are different).

3. Safe images to desktop. Click on the images below or drag them to your desktop.

4. Load images to template. Open up your Avery application. Select "blank" template. Click on the label you want to put an image on. Click the "browse" button and find the images on the desktop. Adjust the image to fill the space of the sticker (you will need to rotate it 90º - look for the rotating tool).

5. Print.

Of course, if you don't want to use stickers, simply open the images in a preview-type of application and print them. You'll need to cut them out yourself, as well as glue them to your book. Either way, it's a great way to make the Jolly Troop stick to your reading.

-rfb