What Kintsugi, imperfect paper, and an old autumn journal reminded me about making things by hand.
There is a Japanese art called
Kintsugi in which broken pottery is repaired with lacquer and gold. Instead of disguising the cracks, the repair draws attention to them. The history of the object becomes part of its beauty.
I have always loved that idea.
And lately, while working with hand-dyed papers and finishing an autumn junk journal, I realized how often the same idea finds its way into my own work.
Not with gold. Sometimes with coffee. Sometimes tea. Sometimes onion skins or dye. Sometimes with a piece of paper that came out of the process looking nothing like I expected.
And sometimes with an old book that has already lived a life before it ever reaches my worktable.
A Little Gold in the Cracks
Kintsugi isn't really about pretending something was never broken. That is what makes it so beautiful to me.
The break happened. The repair happened. And instead of erasing either one, the finished piece carries both.
I think handmade things can be a little like that.
When we work with natural materials, old books, vintage papers, fabric, paint and dye, we are working with things that have histories and personalities of their own. They don't always behave perfectly.
And perhaps they shouldn't.
Paper Has a Mind of Its Own
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Autumn Whispers — Handmade Autumn Junk Journal
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I have been doing a great deal of paper dyeing lately, and one thing becomes obvious very quickly: paper has a mind of its own.
Coffee settles differently from one sheet to another. Tea leaves soft variations. Onion skins can create unexpected marks and impressions. Dye travels into fibers in ways I couldn't reproduce exactly even if I tried.
Sometimes a stencil leaves a beautiful pattern. Sometimes the paper picks up the texture of something it rested against. Sometimes the most interesting part of the sheet is something I never intended to happen at all.
I could look at those variations as flaws. Instead, I think they are evidence.
Evidence that a person made the paper. Evidence that water moved across it, dye settled into it, bubbles rested and burst against it, and the materials were allowed to participate in the outcome.
No two sheets are quite the same because the process itself is alive with variables.
Then There Was the Old Book
That idea became especially meaningful while I was making my large autumn junk journal.
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Rendered editorial image created to closely represent my handmade Autumn Junk Journal. For photographs of the actual journal and its individual details, please see the product listing
Autumn Whispers — Handmade Autumn Junk Journal
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The journal began with an old vintage book.
I kept portions of the original book, including the first two and last two pages, and built the new journal around the life that was already there.
Inside are 90 pages filled with layers of old and new: naturally dyed coffee and tea papers, onion-skin patterned paper, richly dyed cranberry and dark green pages, printed digitals, handmade embellishments, watercolor paintings, painted journal cards and tags, hand-painted leaves and other little details gathered together into one very full book.
Some of those pages are wonderfully unpredictable.
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Autumn Whispers — Handmade Autumn Junk Journal
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There are six watercolor paintings tucked among the pages, along with other painted pieces and handmade elements. They aren't there simply to decorate the book. They help make turning the pages feel a little like wandering.
You never quite know what the next page will hold.
There Is a Difference Between Carelessness and Imperfection
This distinction matters to me.
Handmade should not mean careless.
I want the things I make to be thoughtfully constructed. I care about the materials, the details and how everything comes together.
But thoughtful handmade work does not have to mean machine-perfect work.
One of the pages in this journal illustrates that beautifully.
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Autumn Whispers — Handmade Autumn Junk Journal
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A few pages were affected during dyeing. Two have corners that are missing or rounded, and another has a more jagged edge.
I considered leaving them out.
But the more I looked at them, the more I realized those imperfect edges brought something to the journal that a perfectly cut page couldn't.
They added to the rustic charm I was trying to capture—the feeling of something that has been kept, handled and loved. They reminded me of the things we rediscover from autumns past: an old book with softened corners, a well-worn recipe, a pressed leaf tucked between pages, or some small treasure saved because of the memories attached to it.
Suddenly, those imperfect corners didn't feel like something I needed to remove. They helped create the sense of nostalgia I wanted this journal to hold.
So they stayed.
Not hidden. Not apologized for. Simply allowed to become part of the story.
Maybe the Evidence Is Part of the Story
The cranberry-dyed pages are another example.
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Autumn Whispers — Handmade Autumn Junk Journal
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The color moves across the paper. The pattern isn't mechanically uniform. There are darker areas and lighter ones.
Those variations tell you how the page was made.
And then there is one of my favorites—the onion-skin paper.
For this paper, I actually left the onion skins against the sheet so they could make their own impressions.
The result isn't a printed pattern pretending to be natural. It is natural.
The marks came from the material itself.
That seems like such a small distinction, but I think it is part of what makes handmade work feel different when you hold it.
You can see the process. Sometimes you can almost reconstruct what happened at the worktable simply by looking closely enough.
And maybe that is why Kintsugi has been on my mind.
We spend so much time being taught to remove evidence.
Hide the crack. Trim away the uneven edge. Discard the page that behaved differently. Start over until no one can tell that human hands were ever involved.
But what if some of that evidence is exactly what gives an object its character?
What if the unexpected stain, softened corner, uneven edge or old book page isn't something standing between us and the finished piece?
What if it is part of the finished piece?
I don't think that means everything imperfect is automatically beautiful. But I do think there are beautiful things we almost throw away because we are looking at them only for what went wrong instead of noticing what happened.
And sometimes what happened is much more interesting.
So I am going to keep making room for those pages. For the old books. For the strange marks. For the edges that tell on themselves. For the materials that refuse to behave exactly the same way twice.
Kintsugi may use gold to honor the history of an object.
Around here, sometimes all it takes is deciding that the history was worth keeping.
Until next time,
Colleen
Butterfly in the Attic
