double entry ledger

i've always wanted to find old ledgers. you know the kind with yellowing pages, the lines are pink and create columns for accounts. to stumble onto a ledger filled to the brim with cursive handwriting would be amazing.

a few weeks ago, i went to an estate sale out in the mission district. the house was an old one, with beautiful wood furniture, a closet full of dresses and it had this air of being stuck in time somehow. it's hard to describe i guess but it was a lovely little home. i found stacks of old letters, a lot of them were written in italian which i immediately had to decide which ones to buy! and then i found a sturdy blue hardcover ledger. when i opened it, not a single page was written on. it was old but new.




and then i realized it would be a perfect journal for me. i had just filled up my beat up composition notebook and it was time for a new journal. the ledger has sturdy lined pages that lets my pen just flow. and the pages don't crumple, because it's quality paper.

because the cover was kind of plain i did some decorating. i gathered up the vintage envelopes i had collected from previous vintage paper fairs and some canceled postage stamps. i gessoed the covers first, so they would be rough and ready to take the matte medium, which is the glue i use for collage. i glued on the envelopes,arranging them carefully and then added a few stamps here and there. it still didn't look finished, so i created an airmail envelope border with this patterned japanese tape.