St James End couple bring back traditional crafting to a tech-ridden world

With the rise of social media, traditional journaling is now considered well past its peak.

Despite this, St James End couple Jason and Samantha Lineham have run their traditional leather book-making business from the comfort of their home for over 23 years.

Jason Lineham of Earthworks Journals discussed how he felt about the evolutionary change to journaling “There may not be as many people committing their thoughts and memories to paper in the traditional manner, but social media could be seen as the new journalling.”

“It’s estimated that around 80% of people in the UK use social media, that is a huge amount of people recording their lives; far more than ever kept a diary”

“If it wasn’t for people recording their day to day lives we wouldn’t be privy to the minutiae of those lives”

However, despite this shift, Jason’s preference to journaling has always lied in handwritten documentation “As good as social media is as a way to record our lives, it has its limitations in that it’s not usually the place to air your deepest thoughts”

“A journal is a place to write those thoughts which you’re not necessarily comfortable with sharing”

“If you imagine any conversation, there are those words which are spoken and those words which remain unspoken – the journal is the place for those unspoken words.”

The internationally-known business began back in 2000 by Northampton craft-loving couple Jason and Samantha “We have both always had a love for traditional crafts”

“When we first met way back in 1991 we began making things together.”

Samantha and Jason both fell in love with art and journaling at a young age “I have always loved writing and have kept journals, on and off, since I was young. Samantha, as an artist, has always kept sketchbooks.”

In 1996, Samantha completed her Fine Art degree and the couple decided it was time to start their life as craftspeople.

Jason explained his love of traditional crafting “We made all sorts of things from natural materials, mostly wood and wool.”

“Part of our range was books with wooden covers and leather hinges; this naturally led on to making books with leather covers and we continued to develop these, concentrating on them more and more”.

The couple make all their products by hand. When sourcing their leather materials, they are taken from small local companies across Europe, making sure the workers are guaranteed a fair wage. The paper used is 100% recycled and unbleached.

/https://earthworksjournals.co.uk/