Handmade Vintage Laminated Airmail Envelope Cover Notebooks/Journals - w/ Red-Ruled Onion Skin Paper

I recently acquired these beautiful vintage air mail envelopes with the hope of using them as notebook covers. However, I wanted to do so with the ability to see the interior of the envelopes, but that proved difficult since they are made of thin paper and wouldn’t be good as covers on their own. So I decided to laminate them! While it does take away the paper feel, you can see every part of the envelopes and it preserves the “windows” of the larger notebooks.

These notebooks are made with vintage red ruled Southworth brand onion skin paper. This paper's weight is 9 lbs. I was lucky enough to acquire some of this coveted ephemera and I couldn't resist making some of it into notebooks to share here!

For the larger notebooks, I sewed the signatures so the red ruling goes across the top and bottom sides of each page (the ruling is done on one side, but the paper is thin enough that the ruling ghosts to the other side). The largest margin (top) is double-lined and the smaller margin (bottom) is single-lined. For the smaller notebooks the ruling goes along the left and right sides of the pages (left is double lined and right is single lined).

Since this paper has a cockle finish and is so lightweight, it makes a lovely crinkle and has a fair transparency similar to tracing paper. This paper was originally meant to lower the cost of sending letters and documents. It's a shame this paper is no longer in production. You can write or draw on this in pencil or pen ink. I have found that fountain pens/ink work amazingly on this paper too. The ink won't bleed through, but it will show some ghosting.

Specifications:
This notebook is made from laminated vintage airmail envelopes for the covers and is hand-sewn with white thread. Before I laminated the covers, I added some embellishments like used vintage stamps, etc. to keep with the theme.
There are 32 single pages of old-new stock of red ruled onion skin paper (64 pages double-sided) is each variation.

The “big” journals measure about 8.8-9”x4.5” (could squeeze into a regular traveler’s notebook if you kept it thin).

The two smaller measure about 6.6”x3.75”.

The edges were cut to be even (I usually leave them as they were naturally layered and folded). While all the edges are even, the paper was tricky to cut due to being so lightweight, so there may be some handmade qualities - edging isn't "perfect".

*In the “Big White” notebook, the first page is slightly narrower than the rest (see photo), it did not agree with me during the trimming process, so I had to cut it smaller for it to be neat.

This will be shipped with USPS First Class Mail or Select Ground if your package exceeds First Class weight criteria. I will combine shipping on multiple items in an order and refund the difference. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

I am not responsible for any loss of mail/merchandise during shipping.

Please let me know if you need any other details. I am a teacher so I won't be able to reply immediately, but I will get back to you as soon as I can :)