Gifts
Sometimes you need a blank book to fill with ideas, an album to fill with memories, a box to fill with treasures. All of the natural materials in these gift items are collected in ecologically sensitive ways (no living trees were harmed in the making of these books!). Antique photos are rescued from shops and yard sales; notepads are made with upcycled office paper.
Autumn collection
Blank journals for the nature lover, the poet, the dreamer. These books are each individually hand bound, covered in full leather, and inset with a genuine fallen leaf. Text blocks are hand-sewn using linen thread and a range of wove fine art papers, including Somerset, Arches, and Fabriano. All are sized for easy portability at 5-1/4 x 7-1/4 inches, portrait orientation, with 64 pages (32 leaves) or 96 pages (48 leaves) and endpapers of fine art paper or hand-marbled or handmade paste paper by artisans around the world.
Birch collection
Bark is stripped from fallen birch trees, then carefully separated it into layers to be used on handmade journals, albums, and boxes. Japanese tissue or gold joss paper line the boards, so the gold or colored tissue are revealed through the birchbark’s natural pores and fissures. These books are particularly well suited as wedding albums and guest books.
Maple journals
These writers’ and artists’ journals have 96 square hand-torn pages in soft covers, sewn to a spine piece cut from fallen maple bark and tied with a ribbon. The text blocks are hand-sewn from fine wove art paper suitable for ink or pencil; journals can also be made to order with watercolor paper. The flexible covers make these books well suited as scrapbooks, too. Available in a variety of sizes, with leather cover and ribbons or using vegan materials.
Cartes de visite collection
Cartes de viste, mounted photographs, were popular beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, and generally collected in large albums. As family histories are forgotten, the cards are often disposed of and turn up in antique shops and at yard sales. I use these photos as covers of blank 96-page journals (Italian paper suitable for ink or pencil) and lids of keepsake boxes, in the hope of finding new homes for the individuals they portray. Custom books and boxes available using your own family photos.
Contact me with inquiries about a custom gift item.
