Author Archives: pamelatowns

Ledger Lover’s Lapbook Journals (1-4)

10 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in Journals

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SOLD OUT: If you love vintage ledgers, interactive lapbooks, and authentic vintage and antique ephemera, this handmade ledger-inspired journal was made just for you. Inside its early 1910 Weekly Time Book ledger cover, this journal packs 8 fold-out panels on the inside covers and four sewn in signatures with 256 pages. All original pages with fancy handwriting, vintage type writing, and blank antique papers come from a collection of more than 20 different ledgers and journals. Other pages in the journal include piano roll, tracing paper, antique book pages, graph paper, Braille, blueprints, atlas, industrial magazine, typing paper, continuous feed printer paper, an interoffice envelope, a vintage waxed paper bag, a retro records folder, and coffee-dyed papers. Found file folders were used to build the flips, folds, and pockets in lapbook panels. The panels have been collaged with authentic pieces of vintage ephemera, handmade labels, and vintage stamps and enhanced with sewing machine stitching.

The video is of the first of four ledger/lapbooks. All four have the same layout, foldouts, and similar ephemera pieces (although not identical).

Each journal is 8.5 inches wide by 14 inches tall and 2.75 inches thick at the spine. The original spine has been rebuilt for strength and covered with dark red vinyl. The black cover boards embossed with gold lettering show their 100-plus years of use with minor marks, stains, and worn corners and edges. The book lays flat opened and closed. A removable elastic chord closure is wrapped around the cover to allow for expansion. Dangling from the closure is a metal label holder and vintage pieces including a round numbered metal tag, a pen nib, a round paper label, and a skeleton key.

Throughout the flips, folds, and pockets of the inside-cover panels and the pages of the journal, there are more than 100 pieces of removable ephemera pieces. Ninety-plus pieces of genuine ephemera from as far back as 1846 include loose ledger pages, business forms, bill heads, post cards, tickets, checks, receipts, invoices, a silver-tone photo, letters, envelopes, blank and preprinted tags, time cards, cigar certificates, Rolodex card, Dennison labels, drug label, certificates, French legal documents, film negatives, library card, keypunch cards, and advertisements. The remaining handmade ephemera include a portfolio, tablets, tags, mini folders, and a stack of paper scraps.

The pages of the unadorned journal provide ample blank space for writing, sketching, and collaging while the lapbook panels provide many places to tuck your own ephemera pieces and keepsakes.