My name is Bertie Franke and I'm an artist and ceramist born in the Netherlands. I studied Interior Architecture at the Willem de Kooning academie in Rotterdam. As a child I already had a great love for paper. As a youngster, I learned the Japanese art of paper folding from the sisters in the convent where my mother worked. And during my high school years I could spend days creating booklets and notebooks. Since I moved to Italy in 2015, that passion has slowly developed into the production of handmade notebooks and diaries in my own style. I initially started making dotted journals, but soon expanded to a series of notebooks, agendas and watercolor booklets. I like soft colors and binding techniques with character, where you can see on the outside of the book how it is bound. For my books I use eco-leather and beautiful paper with quirky images from an Italian manufacturer.