The world’s most unique handmade papers
Made by hand in the Himalayas, one sheet at a time, in a tradition more than a thousand years old.
KMVCO LLC
Come join the adventure of handmade papers
KMVCO focuses on creating and partnering with the best handmade paper artisans in the world, honoring a tradition of over a thousand years in papermaking.
Why handmade paper? It has a touch and feel like no other. It hearkens back to the days when almost everything of worth was made by hand, by artisans — and we celebrate the uniqueness that comes with every sheet.
Used for journals, invitations, wedding announcements, printed projects, and art, handmade paper gives a stunning look and an incredible feel to anything it touches.
The Craft
From the hillside to your hands
Created from the warmth of the sun and minerals from the earth.
No two sheets alike
The inner bark of the lokta bush is harvested by hand, cooked into a mash, and spread across boxed screens to dry in the Himalayan sunshine. The screen leaves its fine pattern in one side of the sheet. The other side, left to settle on its own, keeps the flecks and grain of the raw fiber.
Edges can be cut clean and uniform, or left with the soft deckle that only handmade paper has.
Color from the earth
Our papers come in a wide range of colors, most of them drawn from vegetable-dyed sources, then block printed by hand in patterns rooted in local craft traditions.
The result is paper that is as much a finished object as it is a material — equally at home wrapped around a gift or framed on a wall.
Made to be used
Handmade does not mean precious. Our sheets are cut and calibrated for everyday laser and inkjet printers, so a letter, a menu, or a certificate can carry the same weight in the hand as the work it records.
The paper is fibrous and resistant to tearing — durable enough for the terrain it comes from.
Why Handmade
A thousand years of getting it right
Tree-free
Lokta is a bush, not a tree. A good cut sends up three to eight new shoots, and the plant returns to full height in about five years.
Acid-free
No bleach, no harsh chemical treatment. The oldest surviving lokta manuscript is estimated to be well over a thousand years old.
Made by hand
Harvested, cooked, pulled, and dried by artisans in the high villages of Nepal, then carried down the mountain on the traditional paths.
Made to last
Long lokta fibers give the paper a strength and a hand-feel that machine-made sheets cannot reproduce.
The Company
Kathmandu Valley Co.
KMVCO LLC is the company behind Kathmandu Valley Co., where our papers reach the people who use them — journals, card stock, stationery, printer paper, envelopes, and gift wrap, all made from handmade lokta and cotton rag.
In life, it’s the stories we remember. Each handmade item we make carries one, and gathers another from whoever picks it up.
Handmade paper has a touch and feel like no other.
Work With Us
Tell us what you’re making
We work with designers, printers, stationers, and makers, and with the artisan papermakers who supply them. If you have a project, a wholesale question, or a paper you haven’t been able to find, we’d like to hear about it.
Get in touch