Handmade notebooks, Japanese silk and sourcing materials - an interview with Maria Le Van
Stationery FreaksShow Notes
In this episode we interview Maria Van Le of LeVan Books.
Maria makes her own beautiful notebooks - of which Helen has purchased a few. They are exquisite, hand made and use some top notch material. In this episode: Helen talks about her 6 ink pens - and decides she needs more (or not). Maria talks about her passion for glass ink pens, water colour painting and using her own books Maria explains how she started making books for her daughter and her friends, before making them for other people Maria is self taught and a perfectionist - always ensuring her books meet her own high standards - therefore delighting the customer Maria mentions Shepherds book binding (bookbinding.co.uk) - a cool store where she gets many of her materials from. Rob realises Shepherds is not too far from his office….credit card ready Maria explains how long books take to make and how precise she needs to be We discuss GSM paper thickness and their different uses. Maria also shares the 5 things she would take to a desert island Maria also shares why she set up the Etsy store and how you can get your own custom notebook Useful Links You can find Maria on Etsy at LeVan Books - https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LeVanBooks?ref=usf_2020 Fancy having a go at making your own notebook? Here’s a kit (affiliate link).
More from Stationery Freaks
After a few months away — and a very welcome "petition of one" from Stacy in Florida — Rob and Helen are back. Rob has been building a public commonplace: twenty-five years of learning, typed onto index cards (possibly breaking his typewriter in the process) and slowly taking over his studio wall. Helen has been redistributing her notebook collection to a room of grateful authors, which may or may not count as cheating in the great notebook challenge. See original hoarding cast here and a revisit to the challenge of using notebooks here. Along the way: why old publishing offices were built around attention rather than productivity, a typewritten daily planning ritual that's quietly replaced Todoist, the strange magnetism of Midori paper, a beautiful Japanese storage haul, giving away index cards to parents and why the whole world seems to be drifting back to analogue. It's like old times. Which is rather the point of the cast. It's good to be back. If you'd like to see images, and more about the show - check out the companion newsletter to this episode. https://stationeryfreaks.substack.com/
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