JW Book Papers

At Jeffery-Whitton Book Papers, we make good quality sketchbooks, journals, and notebooks for artists and writers using traditional bookbinding methods and materials.

The books are flexible, durable, fit for purpose and priced for all budgets.

Our decorative papers are based on 18th Century patterns and styles.

The majority of them are printed and coloured with a mixture of bookbinders’ paste (cooked flour & water) and pigments, which is why they are often referred to as paste papers.

Various methods are used: printing directly from lino-cut blocks onto plain or coloured backgrounds, colouring by brushing colour through cut-out stencils, then manipulating wet paste with cardboard combs, brushes and fingers!

Dutch Gilt

This type of decorative paper was popular during the 18th Century and the early 19th Century.

Dutch Gilt

This type of decorative paper was popular during the 18th Century and the early 19th Century.

This is a very complex paper to replicate; although the process is not particularly complicated it is very precise and requires much preparation, accurate timing and even the correct weather conditions (humidity) for it to succeed.

It is a type of paste paper with the obvious addition of gold. Not real gold, but imitation gold – the ‘dutch’ metal on schlag metal as it properly known. In the original papers this gold has often dulled to a beautiful orangey-brown colour or even disappeared altogether leaving a gentle pale green verdigris ‘shadow’.