Handmade Journals with Ali Manning

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, This week’s newsletter is coming to you while Ali is very deliberately not at her desk. 🤭 After two years without a proper vacation, she and Andy have finally escaped for a little time away... starting with a quick stop in Lisbon, then heading to southern Spain to meet up with Andy’s mum. Which feels like a pretty good reminder that sometimes the most useful thing you can do for your creativity is go somewhere else...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, One of the hazards of being a creative person is that one little “I’ll just try this” can escalate rather quickly. Lately, our customer support extraordinaire, Abby, has fallen hard for needlepoint. And you know how that goes. One minute you’re just trying a few stitches, and the next you’re visiting your sister in another state and making sure there’s an embroidery shop on the itinerary. 😁 Meanwhile, everything else you...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, We have lost some beloved artists in the past few weeks, including one of my favorite poets, Wendell Berry. I wandered through the pages of a collection of his poems on my shelf and came across this one that I had dog-eared. I want to share it with you today as a reminder that a flourishing life is not necessarily an unharmed life and that our scars become part of our beauty. New on the Blog Want your handmade books to...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, I feel like the universe is trying to keep me accountable. During my sabbatical, I dreamed up ideas and made plans, but the real takeaway from that time was a desire to slow down. I pledged to slow down not just by taking time off, but by reducing the pace of my days and being more mindful of how I fill them. I realized that I talk fast, eat fast, make fast, write fast, and 99% of the time, there’s no reason for the rush...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, There’s something special about the objects we choose to keep. A scrap of paper. An old photograph. A ticket stub. A bit of fabric. On their own, they may not seem like much. But gathered together, they can hold a surprising amount of memory. That idea came up again and again during the Handmade Book Club's recent Artist Spotlight with Jane Chipp. Jane shared how she uses found objects and fragments to tell stories......

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, I’m back from my 6-week break, and I have so many interesting ideas and insights to share with you; I really don’t know where to begin. So, I’ll begin by just telling you how I did and didn’t fill my time. I didn’t set any goals or give myself an assignment for this time; I just allowed it to unfold organically. And what unfolded was reading, writing, rest, and play.I read poems, fiction, and short stories, books about...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, There’s a funny thing that can happen when creativity becomes your job: the thing that once helped you recharge can start requiring energy of its own. Coming up with ideas, making things, teaching, sharing, planning what comes next... it’s wonderful work, but creative energy isn’t exactly an unlimited resource. Sometimes the best thing you can do for it is give it a little room to breathe. Ali returns from her six-week...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, You can learn quite a lot about a creative person by looking at the scraps they refuse to throw away. Some of us save the tiniest sliver of patterned paper because the color is too good to lose. Others keep bits of thread, ribbon, fabric, old book pages, painted offcuts, and oddly shaped pieces of cardboard that may—or may not—become useful someday. To anyone else, it might look like a pile of leftovers. But to us, it’s...

Prefer to listen? (Click here to have this email read aloud.) Hi Reader, Some of the most precious pieces of art we own would never hang in a gallery. They’re the wobbly drawings, mysterious paintings, and wildly enthusiastic creations made by our children. Sometimes we can tell exactly what they were trying to make. Sometimes we smile, tilt our heads, and decide it’s probably best not to ask too many questions. But whether it looks like a house, a horse, or a very emotional potato doesn’t...