6 new journals

Some ‘plaguish’ stomach flu has zapped me of energy and zest of any kind, excluding lemon or orange. Confined to my quarters, I’ve managed to still be a quasi-busy bee today. I’ve caught up on all my mags, consumed an inordinate amount of peppermint tea (and little else)…and I’ve been making handbooks to the sixth degree. All 6 new journals are listed on La Paperie & Cozy Shop now, and I’m working on a few more to include within the next few days. They're all leatherbound, 320 pages, and stitched with longstitch through a pierced cover. All photos of the books are also on my Flickr bookbinding album.

As I hold in my hand each blank book that I make, I can almost imagine literary greats and intellectual minds of centuries past writing in handmade journals like these… a note, a reference, a mind meander …excerpts of thoughts to include in their next manuscripts. Jane Austen writing notes as she walks in the pretty wilderness behind her house, annotating her next great work, Pride & Prejudice. Or a young Charles Dickens reminds himself in his journal to incorporate the comic villainy of Mr. Jingle in his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. That is why each book I make will bear a different name of an author.

Each journal includes a well-known quote from a well-loved novel on the first page by that author…whether it be the likes of Austen, Dickens, Bronte, Hemmingway, and so on. I will also give customers the option of personalizing a custom book to incorporate a favorite author of their's, or a friend’s, for that special one-of-a-kind gift.

PS: I ordered a new scale...hope it will be here soon so I can start making more soap!