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Driven by a therapeutic and personal experience, a UK student is creating a unique way for students and artists to express themselves.

Hannah Davis, an arts administration and digital and mass media communications junior, makes her own hand-stitched and bound leather journals and diaries. While Davis has journals and artist books of her own, she said her most personal experience is in the creation of the leather-bound journals.

She currently sells them to artists and students, but starting next week there will be six journals in various sizes, in stock at Kennedy’s bookstore.

Davis has been making the journals for about five months. As she learned the craft of bookmaking, she fell in love with it.

“As a photographer, I don’t get to create as much with my hands, so this gave me the opportunity to take my photographs and turn them into something else,” Davis said.

She took a bookmaking class last semester and continues her work with stitching and binding techniques that she learned in the class. 

“I just kind of ran with it and started making my own,” Davis said.

The process requires patience when poking holes, binding thread and having to start over on occasion when the thread breaks.

She works with portfolios, which are pieces of paper folded together, and that’s how she determines the thickness of each journal. She then marks her holes for stitching and uses a hand-waxed thread to begin stitching.

Next she glues down the tabs of the pieces of paper and glues card stock to bind it together. After binding, she finishes the journals with a soft or hard cover. 

Her journals can take anywhere from three to seven hours, depending on the size. Currently Davis is in the process of making seven journals.

“It’s definitely not easy, but it’s almost therapeutic in a way,” Davis said.

Davis uses fine print making paper that allows artists to use the journals as sketchbooks too.

“I think it would be appealing to an artist because it would give them a more personalized, more unique place to create and brainstorm,” Davis said.

If customers contact her, she can customize journals so the artist can pick the leather color, color paper, or type of paper. Davis said she wishes to “provide a unique experience for whoever is buying them.”

She gets her leather from The Ugly Leather Sale, where she gets a pound of leather at a time. Her mother gave her two bundles at Christmas time so she could continue making her own unique journals.

Those looking to purchase a journal can do at hannahdavisphoto.com or facebook.com/hannahdavisphoto.