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Button closures are a special feature of Books by Mindy journals.

Hand stitching is a unique feature of Books by Mindy journals.

Mindy Pollack punches a hole in a journal cover for a cord closure at her home in Guilford on May 19.

A selection of handmade journals by Mindy Pollack are photographed at her home in Guilford on May 19.

Mindy Pollack's tools of the trade for making her handmade journals are photographed at her home in Guilford on May 19.

GUILFORD — Lawyer Mindy Pollack remembers bringing distinctive, colorful journals to professional meetings for note taking.

“I would open a bright red or blue notebook in a meeting and people would smile and ask where I got it,” she said. “It was a conversation piece.”

It was her peers’ reaction to the notebook that spurred her passion for hand creating one of a kind journals.

“I started thinking, ‘How can I make them as if it were me? I want to have to have a handy book to take notes in, but I also want something that’s attractive. I want something that’s going to lift my spirits,’” the Guilford resident said.

Before she embarked on making them, she asked her colleagues at the insurance company for input.

“They gave me very strong feedback — bright colors, like reds, greens, yellow, blues,” she said. “Then they said, ‘contrast.’”

She decided that “color is going to be my thing.”

So, in 2003, when she was working part time and her son and daughter were young, Pollack took up the craft.

“This gave me the creative outlet I needed,” she said.

She honed her skills at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven under Paulette Rosen and also took a class on working on leather at the Guilford Arts Center.

“Her enthusiasm, dedication and sense of color is what has always stood out for me,” said Rosen, who has taught at the Creative Arts Workshop for 25 years and is currently head of the Book Arts Department at Creative Arts Workshop.

The hobby was put on hiatus for a number of years, after Pollack went back to work full time.

It was just last year, when the 66-year-old retired, that she took all her supplies out and Books by Mindy became less of a hobby and more of a business venture.

Pollack’s journals can be purchased exclusively at Mix Design Store on the Guilford Green.

Mix owner Maggie Moffett recalled the first time she laid eyes on Pollack’s work.

“One day she comes in and she has this bag with her,” recalled Moffett. “She said, ‘I just want to show you something. My friends all say they’re great, but I don’t know.’”

“She pulls out these journals and I said, ‘Mindy these are phenomenal. Your friends are right and these need to be out in the world!’” Moffett said. “Mindy was just so modest.”

To look at her journals all together is to look at a kaleidoscope of colors. They covers are handcrafted out of brown, red, yellow, green and blue leather, vegan leather and marbled paper, with leather ties and unique button closures.

All of the work is done by hand, from cutting the leather or vegan leather, to marbling the accent paper and sewing the books together.

Pollack assembles the journals at her southerly-facing kitchen counter. She has an unobstructed view of the Monroe Cottage, locally known as the Grass Island Shack, across from the Guilford Town Marina.

“It’s delightful,” she said.

While some of the writing paper is bound into the book with glue, others are handstitched to the leather.

“I poke holes in the right places, based on the design I want to use,” she said. “I poke the holes in the paper, then the leather or faux leather, and then I sew each one of those in.”

This creates a unique, colorful pattern on the spine of the journal.

All of this sewing is done by hand. “It has to be,” said Pollack.

While she does all the sewing at her home studio, she assembles her journals at the Creative Arts Workshop.

“All the gluing of all the papers inside here,” she said, pointing to the interior of one of her journals.

“And the presses, where I can press it down hard and get the bubbles out and where, if something isn’t even, they have big, huge, humongous paper cutters that just slice right through all this,” she added, pointing to the thick journal.

There are three different sizes — 8 ¼ by 5 ¾ inches, 6 ½ by 4 ¾ and minis, which are 3 ¼ by 2 ½ inches, with 192 pages in each.

Each journal has a unique paper on the inside, much like an end page in a picture book. Most of these papers are hand marbled.

“It’s a very elegant paper,” Pollack said about the marbled stone effect.

“I started making it after we had taken a family trip to Rome,” she said. “I went into a book bindery where they had marbled paper. I said, ‘That’s it. I’m coming home and I’m doing a lot of these because I think they really add something, give it that little extra simple elegance.”

Pollack travels to Chena River Marblers in Amherst, MA to work with expert marblers.

“One of the fun things is to keep trying to get better at what you do,” the 66-year-old said. “Even if you’re retired.”

She is looking forward to a two-day session in July to learn “over marbling.”

“You do a couple layers,” Pollack said. “So, it won’t be just one sheet where I lay the paper down and my design comes up. I’ll wait for that to dry and then I’ll do another design over it to clash or connect or contrast, whatever, with that lower color.”

Pollack’s journals are unique. No two are the same.

For Moffett, they are a popular addition to her store.

“One of the things that my customers love about them, no surprise, is that no two are the same, so you know you are really getting a one of a kind item, be it for yourself or a gift for someone,” said Moffett.

“They’re intricate and unique but still approachable,” she said. “I think so much of what I come in contact with, in the design world especially, are things that are either too nice or too simple. To have both is pretty spectacular. They’re elegant, but a simple elegance.”

“Things that have something really tactile is very, very intrinsically satisfying to many of us,” she said. “So, I think that stands in great contrast to all the screen time and digitization of things.”

Guilford resident John DellaVentura, a Mix Design customer and Books by Mindy fan, agreed.

“When Maggie is selling, especially a local product, from a local vendor, we love to support,” he said.

“I’m still old school,” he said. “I still like to take notes and have hard copies of different notebooks.”

DellaVentura said he uses the notebooks for “everything from work to personal ideas, to brainstorming.”

He prefers the mid-size journal so he can carry it comfortably. Currently he is working on filling three journals.

“The last one, I’ve been sketching drawings for my garden,” he said.

Moffett added how great they are to hold.

“From the moment you buy one, you feel like it’s already broken in, yet it still keeps its form,” she said. “It’s relaxed but beautiful.”

“It’s rare to find something that can be so incredibly useful and still feel special every time you use it,” she said. “That’s something that she does masterfully.”

When people hold her journals in their hands, Pollack wants them to think, “’I love the color, it cheers me up. The paper inside, the contrast and the color, just make me smile and the design of it, the stitching on the side, the button, give it that elegance, that sophistication.”

Moffett is currently working on filling her fourth Books by Mindy journal. She refers to it as her “literary catchall. It just takes whatever I need to put down.”

This includes lists, orders, quick sketches”, she said. “Always in my bag!”

Pollack said “it’s wonderful” to see people enjoying her work.

“It gives you a sense of validation, absolutely,” she said. “It’s also that feeling of ‘good, somebody’s enjoying something I put together, I created.’ That’s just a nice thing.”

Rosen talked about how it makes people feel to have a unique item, like one of Pollack’s journals.

“I think people do feel that it is special,” she said. “That is makes everything more special, when there is a card, when there is a handmade book, when there’s nice paper.”

“All of those things contribute to a sense of specialness about whatever it is your endeavor is with that writing,” she added. “I think it’s really appreciated by people, a lot.

“I think the book and books in general become even more valuable and even more precious, even more appreciated when we’re spending our lives with screens,” she added. “So, I think Mindy is really contributing to that goodness in the world,”

Books by Mindy Instagram booksbymindy; Mix Design Store, 29 Whitfield St., Guilford, 203-453-0202