Traveler's Notebook swap with Ray Blake

Over a week ago I entered into a swap with Ray Blake. I would send him one of my Traveler's Notebooks with inserts and he would send me one of his. 

Since my note book arrived today, I can safely share the pictures of the book and inserts without spoiling the surprise.

Ray asked for one of the mink oil tanned notebooks.

So I made one for him and I made three inserts to go with it.

If the notebook seems a bit dusty, that would be because it is. Since after tanning with the mink oil, the leather covers have to be kept under either talcum powder or corn starch for ca. 24 hours, to absorb the excess oil. This can then be brushed off.

The edges are treated with beeswax.

The first notebook is fairly plain, with lined paper in grey, well he's a man, so I didn't want to do anything frilly.

I let myself go a little with this one but still, I think it would work. I love the green and I made the elastic around the notebook to go with it.

Which of course I shouldn't have done... because the alcohol ink I used to stain the elastic turned out to stain the leather of my husbands TN. I told Ray as soon as I found out, so he knows he has to replace the elastic closure.

Luckily he was very cool about that!

The green insert also has a removable tab, which slides under the binding of the booklet and can be placed where ever it is needed.

I also made a plain third lined insert, but I have no pictures of that one. I wrapped it all up with one of my new post and business cards. I used one of the pictures of a page I made for the Round Robin Journal swap for these cards.

So now all I need to do is sit tight and wait for my lovely TN from Ray to arrive. The inserts for this TN are ready and I know what I'm going to use it for.

Oops, here I go, from 1 post per week to two posts in one day, life can be funny sometimes.

Thank you for watching and I wish you a Lovely evening.