The Anatomy of a Handmade Journal

How we make our unique handmade journals

We've been taking notes in scruffy notepads for years, and after a foray into mono-printing we realised that our interest in papercraft and paint could be combined to create a beautiful journal or notebook that would be a joy to return to again and again.

Our journals come in a variety of colours, and two flavours: Christian or Poetry. We make an A4 and A5 Christian Journal, and A5 only for the Poetry version. All our journals are hand made and wrapped in black tissue paper for despatch. Here's how we make them:

1) Assemble the pages

We pre-print some of our pages on an inkjet printer to add words and prompts, Then we gather a range of other papers, card, tags, book pages and labels, plus covers, cutting each element to size. We sort them into piles which represent one journal, so that we can colour coordinate all the paper elements.

2) Print the pages and covers

We use a gelatine mono-printing plate, stamps, stencils and matt acrylic paint to add printed details to each page of the journal.

3) Allow pages and printed elements to dry, and sort

As each piece is printed, we interleave it with deli paper, and leave the whole colour-coordinated stack to dry overnight. Then we carefully pull the deli paper away and hand sort the journal elements into order.

4) Trimming and binding

We take the stack of dried journal elements and trim any that are out of alignment, binding them using a spiral binding machine.

5) Photographing and listing

Once the journals are finished we take 5 or 6 photos of the inside pages, and list them on our web site.

Interested in a journal? Visit our shop to see which colourways we currently have in stock.

You can also commission bespoke books for a special occasion such as a wedding, birth of a new baby, anniversary or other special family event. Get in touch to discuss your requirements.