Yours in Ink, Volume I-A – a leather collection for handwritten letters and hand-bound books

Yours in Ink – Volume I-A.

A September study.

A small leather collection about handwritten things – letters folded and sealed, pages sewn into books. Five designs, each pressed into leather the way a seal is pressed into wax.

First, we addressed the luggage tag like an envelope – a postage stamp under its cancellation waves, and the parcel marking below rewritten: HANDLE WITH LOVE.

Black-and-white HANDLE WITH LOVE postal stamp artwork for the Yours in Ink leather collection, Volume I-A.

It looks great when stamped on gray sand, the color of good paper, and on warm red, the color of sealing wax.

Gray-sand leather luggage tag stamped with HANDLE WITH LOVE postal artwork from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

Poppy-red leather luggage tag stamped with HANDLE WITH LOVE postal artwork from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

The black tag carries the marking in gold, the way binders once lettered their spines.

Black leather luggage tag stamped in gold with HANDLE WITH LOVE postal artwork from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

Next, we cut the keychain as a wax seal – a scalloped rim of pressed wax around a small heart, with SEALED FOR YOU running the ring. On warm red leather the seal returns to its own color.

Black-and-white SEALED FOR YOU wax-seal stamp artwork for the Yours in Ink leather collection, Volume I-A.

Poppy-red leather keychain stamped with the SEALED FOR YOU wax seal from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

On the black fob the seal is struck in gold.

Black leather keychain stamped in gold with the SEALED FOR YOU wax seal from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

Then, the design the collection is named after. A pointed nib touches down in the journal's corner, and the line it draws becomes the baseline under YOURS IN INK.

Black-and-white pen-nib and YOURS IN INK stamp artwork for the Yours in Ink leather collection, Volume I-A.

It looks genuinely beautiful – on deep brown, the shade of iron-gall ink, and on navy, the blue-black of a bottled ink.

Dark-espresso leather journal stamped with a pen nib and YOURS IN INK from Volume I-A.

Blueberry leather journal stamped with a pen nib and YOURS IN INK from Volume I-A.

For the toiletry bags, we borrowed the bookbinder's needle: one continuous thread through its sewing stations, knotted off at each end – set above the words BOUND TO LAST in the bag's lower corner. The bag itself is stitched for the long haul.

Black-and-white bookbinding stitch route and BOUND TO LAST stamp artwork for Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

It comes in warm tan and in chestnut with its pull-up character.

Caramel leather toiletry bag stamped with BOUND TO LAST bookbinding artwork from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

Sicilian-brown leather toiletry bag stamped with BOUND TO LAST bookbinding artwork from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

And finally, DEAR YOU. The catchall tray opens like the first page of a letter – a greeting at the top, empty ruled lines below. One corner of the page is folded down, and whatever you set there at the end of the day finishes the sentence.

Black-and-white folded letter page and DEAR YOU stamp artwork for the Yours in Ink leather collection, Volume I-A.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the golden tan leather.

Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with the DEAR YOU letter page from Yours in Ink, Volume I-A.

We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.

If you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.