Hocus Pocus Book of Spells Leather Journal

The big one. Thirteen inches by ten, dark brown water buffalo leather, a third eye worked into the cover, and 200 pages of deckle-edge cotton paper inside. This is a book you leave open on a table rather than one you carry.

Crazy horse is a finish rather than a way of tanning: the hide is dyed and then driven full of hot wax and oil. That is why a scratch pulls the color back and shows lighter underneath, and why rubbing the mark with a thumb warms the wax and darkens it down again. It is a hide meant to be handled.

What You Are Getting

13 by 10 inches. 200 pages of 125gsm handmade cotton paper, unlined, acid-free and tree-free. Thick enough that most inks stay on their own side of the sheet, though handmade cotton is absorbent by nature, so try a wet nib on the back page before you commit to it. Wrap-around cover with an antique clasp.

Good to Know

Leather is a hide, so every cover takes the grain and the dye differently and no two are the same. Marks and creases are not faults in a journal like this; they are the reason it looks the way it does in a year. A brass clasp stiffens for the first few weeks and then settles.

A deckle edge is the soft feathered edge left where wet pulp seeps under the frame instead of being trimmed square afterwards. It is why the block looks uneven, and it is the point rather than a defect.

Cotton paper is made from cotton fiber rather than wood pulp, which is why it takes ink differently and why the sheets vary slightly in texture across the block.

Use It For

A grimoire or book of shadows that stays on the altar, a sketchbook, or a scrapbook. The size is the whole argument: you can lay out a full spread, tape things in, and draw across two pages without the binding fighting you.

Pair It With

Something to write with: the Quill Pen and Stand in Sparkling Gray or Lavender Gold. To close a page or a letter, Wicca Sealing Wax. The Seven Chakra Stone Diary is the next size down at 10 by 7. More in journals.