The A6

About a year and a half ago I fell in love with the idea of traveler's notebooks. They are basically leather (and sometimes fabric) covers filled with replaceable notebooks. In the beginning I only saw the official ones made by Midori, but soon I found out that there are tons of amazing people out there who make custom ones referred to in general as fauxdoris and often specifically named after the maker.

That's how I came into contact with Anja Verkooij of Adori Made With Love. She makes the most beautiful leather covers that you can order in any kind of colour and size custom made. The first adori she made for me was the beautiful aquagreen and blue journal cover that housed my journal last year. You can see it up close in this post from last november. I simply named that one The Adori, because it was the only one I had at the time.

I since have however ordered three more adori's from her (addicted? me?) in different sizes and for different purposes, none of them for journal use by the way.

The second one I ordered from her is the one I want to show you today.

Say hello to the A6! Yep, that's what I'm calling it and the reason should be obvious: it's an A6 size. Nice and small to fit in anything on the go. I ordered custom made inserts for it too, some with mixed media paper and some with watercolour paper. I wanted to have this cover be an on the go sketchbook, especially for those long crossings on the ferry when I visit the main land.

Unlike the Adori journal I wanted this to be a very basic cover with no extra charms or pendants or decorative items. Those would only get caught on things in my bag. The only thing I added was that little leather butterfly with my name on it that Anja kindly included in the packaging.

I picked the colours myself too which is the extra cool part about ordering handmade stuff. You can have an idea in your head and pay someone else (who knows what they're doing) to make it for you. This was a colour combination Anja hadn't tried yet and I feel it turned out fabulous.

I keep two inserts in it, one of each type of paper, so I can draw and sketch and colour and also paint when I want to. 

So now the A6 lives mostly in my backpack for when I go on trips to the mainland. I do not work in it very often and I have very limited supplies with me when I do. But it's good to know it's there.

Here are some of the pages I have filled so far:

The last two are in the watercolour insert (done in watercolour obviously), and the rest are in the mixed media one (done with faber castell pittpens).

I am absolutely in love with this little book as I am in love with all my dori's. I intend to do a post some day where they all feature together, but that's for a yet to be determined time in the future.

For now I wish you all a wonderful and artsy weekend. Make it a good one. :-)