Hi, I’m Lou.
I was a mechanical engineer in the Navy for 17 years, but an injury has taken me down a different path. Unable to work due to chronic pain and physical incapacity in a career I had been building for half my life, I have had to find another way to bring purpose and meaning.
I have always been a memory collector. I have boxes of cards and photos mixed with keepsakes and mementos - business cards from favourite cafes and concert tickets, intermingled with friendship bracelets and notes passed in class.
Thanks to my high school bestie’s mum (a beautiful artist named Susan) who generously taught me everything she knows about book binding, I now have the skills to make beautiful books and boxes in which to store everything, in a user-friendly and accessible way on my bookshelf, rather than having to rummage through boxes in the garage to reminisce.
Susan helped me bring my ‘the one filled with love letters’ idea to life for the first time, making the cards and teaching me how to bind them together for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. Now, I can’t get enough. I’m hooked on book making.
A focus for me (apart from figuring out how to create the most exciting colour//binding combos under the sun) has been the sustainability of my product. I am not perfect and certainly not here to green-wash, but I am trying hard to source high quality, local products to work with, that still provide you, my lovely humans, a value-for-money book which facilitates a beautiful user experience.
In addition to my engineering qualifications, I have a grad cert in Sustainability which helps me understand what to look for when assessing the materials I buy. I am also working toward what I consider best practice in each of my value bubbles above. Not every component of my product is yet where I want it to be environmentally speaking, because I also value aesthetics and functionality over a purely environmental-leaning version of sustainability; I do still choose to use ribbons etc. which are polyester and can’t yet be easily recycled. That being said, I have minimal waste due to my ability to create new products from my scrap paper and thread, and fabric offcuts, and I am always on the lookout for new products to propel me toward my overall aspirations. I will endeavour to provide you accurate information about each of the materials I use in your specific book. And I am always open to having a chat!