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I have a roughed in case, and a 3D printed enclosure for the video player.

Guys, I might actually end up with a fully bound fic, complete with video inset, by like, end of the month, if work doesn’t get too stupid.

Next steps: gluing that ridiculous chunk of signatures into a solid brick that I can cut into with a knife, sourcing a piece of leather for the final casing, and probably building a sewing stand so I can reinforce the spine on the final version, because it’s going to need it. Also need to figure out what I’m going to use to serve as a page turner for the video inset block, so it’s easier to read past.

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Epic: The Musical

by Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Handmade Lyric book WIP

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Sacred Bodies - VER

Thank you @sticksandsharks for the kind permission to bind your work. I love it very much and am happy to be able to hold a copy of it in my hands.

Full clothbinding with paper onlays

Materials used

Case covers - 1mm grey board spine stiffener - cardstock cover material - Colibri book cloth (forest floor) paper onlay - marbled paper (80gsm) by Renato Crepaldi title - gold foil, hot stamped

Inner book textblock - Schleipen Fly 05 (115gsm) endpapers - marbled paper (80gsm) by Renato Crepaldi endbands - linnen core (10/3) wrapped with marbled paper

Format: 9,5cm x 13,8cm

See WIP pictures here

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My personal goal is to try and make fanfic binding as accessible to everyone as possible, so here are some resources on how to make a fanfic hardcover for under $25.

This is a barebones bind for the broke college students and such. Happy to field questions, too!

Here's a proposed budget breakdown:

Loosely organized thoughts:

Fanfic bookbinders often share typesets amongst each other. Never pay for a typeset for a fanfic.

You'll hear a lot about grain direction for your printer paper, but as a newbie on a budget without your own printer, settle for some nice 92 bright paper. If you like the hobby, splurge after but expect to pay at least 2-3x more for short grain paper.

Printing is a pain because some copy shops won't let you print intellectual property smut, and it's very expensive. You are better off bartering instead or looking for a free printer on Buy Nothing.

You know the thick paper wrapping that comes with online orders? It's a good weight for endpapers if you need to scrounge. Paper grocery bags or gift bags (birthday presents) might work, too.

Ask your local library to give you covers from books they are throwing out. Ask for outdated textbooks (those covers are built like tanks) or three-ring binders that are too busted to be binders anymore.

Obtain a used book that was mass produced (so your destruction of it does not impede anyone's access) and maybe even become a little vindictive with it.

If you can afford it, I recommend the Olfa SVR knife (~$10)

If you can afford it, upgrade your ruler to a t-square.

I really hope this resource is helpful! I want to stress how possible this is and encourage people to cherish what they love through art.

If you are interested in fanfic binding and have a little more disposable income, I have an affordable Fan Fiction Bookbinding Starter Pack that I carry on my site. I pack them myself and drop them 1x/month on the 15th.

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Book Decoration: AKA All The Ways I Don't Use a Cricut

(this post is for people who don't want to buy an expensive cutting tool, or for those that do have an expensive cutting tool that would like to mix things up a little)

1. Print That Shit

If you're already printing your own textblocks, an easy step for titles is to print them. Above is a title printed onto an "obi" of decorative paper. I measured out where I wanted things on the finished book and laid it out in Affinity, then printed it on a full sheet & trimmed it down to wrap around the book. A more simple method is to print & glue on the label into a slight indent in the cover (to protect it). A third option is to do the spine in bookcloth, while you print on paper for the cover and then glue that paper onto the boards (this usually looks even better when it is a three-piece bradel bind).

2. Foil Quill / Heat Pens

The heat pen is one of my go-to tools, but it can be a bit touchy about materials. The most popular version is the We R Memory Keepers' Foil Quill (which is one of the most ergonomic), but other pens exist that can get you to a higher heat temp, finer lines, or more consistent foil. For example, I have a pen created by a local Japanese bookbinding studio that fares way better on leathers than the WRMK quill & with a finer tip, but it's hell to control. Best results in general are on paper or smooth bookcloth (starched linen, arrestox, colibri - even duo will work but its less solid). The fuzzier a bookcloth is, the less your foil quill wants to deal with it. This means the heat n bond method of making bookcloth does not play nice with a heat pen usually, but there are two solutions: 1) use this tutorial on paste + acrylic medium coated bookcloth instead that will get you a perfect surface for the heat pen, or 2) use the pen on paper & then glue onto the cloth. I did a video tutorial for both foil quill use and this type of homemade bookcloth for @renegadeguild Binderary in 2023.

You get the most consistent results by tracing through a printed template that is taped in place, as I do in the video above.

3. Paint That Shit

Acrylic paints will do you fine! The above is free-handed with a circle template, because I wanted that vibe. If you need straight lines that won't seep, lay them down with tape first & then paint over it first with a clear Acrylic medium, then your color. Same goes for stencils. Two more examples of painted bookcloth:

4. IT'S GOT LAYERS

By using layers of thinner boards, you can create interesting depths & contrasts on your cover. You can also make cutouts that peep through to the decorative paper behind. The most important part to this technique is the order in which each edge is wrapped. To get a good wrapped inside edge, you will split the turn in into tabs to get them to conform to a curve. You can also layer multiple colors of bookcloth without multiple layers of board, as seen below left, so long as you mind your cut edges for fraying.

5. Inlaid... anything

Mirrors! Marbled paper! I saw someone do a pretty metal bookmark once! The key is creating a little home for it to live in, which is pretty similar to the above layering method. On one layer you cut the shape, & glue that layer onto the bottom solid board before covering. You can do the top layer as an entire 1 mm board (like I did for the mirrors) or a sheet of cardstock, like I would use for inlaid paper.

6. Decorative Paper

Decorative paper is always helpful & adds to the paper hoard... & its effects can be layers with other techniques, as below. Marbles, chiyogami, momi, or prints & maps of all kinds can be great additions. Some papers may need a protective coating (such as wax or a sealer).

7. Stamps (with optional linocut)

While I've not used many more regular rubber stamps, I do know some who have, successfully! And I've used one once or twice with embossing powder (see photo 3 up, the gold anchor on the little pamphlet bind). What also works is to carve your own linocut or stamp, & then use block printing ink to ink it onto your fabric (as i did above). A bit time intensive, but it was nice how easily reproducible it was, and I liked the effect I got for this particular bind.

These methods are not exhaustive, just ones I've used, and there are of course many others. I haven't gone too into detail on any of these for the sake of length (& post photo limits) but feel free to ask about more specifics. Usually I'm using them in combination with other options.

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I made that :)

A while ago but thought I'd share here :))

The headbands like on the last pic is hand sewn .... Almost made me ho crazy but worth it

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nobody tells you this but you can just write a really long fan fiction and then steal adobe indesign and then teach yourself how to typeset and then learn about all the different breeds of printing paper and then spend an hour and 150 sheets of paper printing your fan fiction and then painstakingly fold, arrange, and sew the 150 pages together and THEN glue the cover onto it and then you can have a hard copy of your fan fiction. to give to friends or to one day become an item on a “dubious thrift store finds” social media page.

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Another Anatomia journal is complete! Crafted with meticulous attention to detail, this Renaissance inspired leather journal embodies the essence of anatomical art and knowledge.

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Okay, I love making a nice thick book, but there's something about boxes that is just SO rewarding. Now, who here has heard of a peller pop-up box? I have to add a disclaimer that even of this post, I have made... three whole boxes, ever. But my personal take is that what's the point of diving into a craft if I'm not gunning for a target far above my skill level? The ambition gives me a thrill, I don't have to feel bad if I fail, and if I succeed, the rush is SUBLIME. And now I have a box with a mechanism (a ribbon) that pops the book out of an inner sleeve when I open it. I'm in love.

This was a learning process and a half! The only instructions I can find for this are some handwritten notes from a class in 1990, and the person who posted those notes also posted a number of critiques of the technique as described in the class. Also, the class notes (and addendums) come from an expert perspective, catering to experts. I'm an enthusiastic amateur who's still learning basic competence with leather. I was smart enough not to do a leather slipcase, but overconfident enough to cover my spine and edges in leather, haha. But even though I have a LOT of notes for what to tweak next time, I love it SO MUCH

I arbitrarily decided to work with my millimeter binding of 'and love unbolts the dark' by blackkat for this experiment, because it's small, it's one of my favorites, I had more of the leather I used for its edges, and I thought I had more of the cover fabric and it would be a good match to one of my yellow marbled papers. As you can probably tell from those photos, things didn't quite go that route!

First, I couldn't find the fabric. It might be in here somewhere, but I have FAR too much fabric, lmao. But I did find a lot of this dark green one, in the same line, and with some lovely color overlap, and a nice aesthetic match for the leather. And then I also realized that the marbled paper was a Lot in comparison to the rest of what I was pulling together. So I left it as a liner for the inner slipcase, to tie into the yellows of the original fabric. Then I dug up an embossed teal paper that matched the dominant palette of the new fabric, and went for broke. And I love this so much, truly, it was a headache trying to wrap my head around the instructions and I still have some minor complaints about the process, but I am so, so pleased right now. I would joke about how little time it will be before I do this again, but... I've already started

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This is a bind I want to revisit this year. My first attempt at River Song’s Diary. I went for something with a little extra magic, but distressed because it has seen an awful lot of time and space. This was done with blank parchment paper on recessed cords with laced on boards. It has a hollow spine with those big chunky false bands. The leather is hand dyed, the endbands sewn in silk, and the top and bottom edges painted. Definitely one of my favorites I made last year. This year I think I might go for a newer look— but the question is, blank or lined pages? I can’t decide.

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A exchange with a fellow binder TSPbinery in Instagram. She made a rebind of my favorite book childhood Alanna by Tamora Pierce. I love this one so much it’s beautiful. I made her a copy of Tales from the house of the Moon. This one was so fun and I can’t wait to do it again.

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notebooks with cross stitch embeds i made this year, faves pt 2. open spine style is coptic stitch, closed spine style is french link.

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the king of elfland's daughter by lord dunsany

this is one of my dad's favorite books so i put this together for his birthday! i've been on a real public domain kick lately haha

the cover is italian marbled paper (i think i bought it on etsy) and talas bonded leather in "arista navy". i was a little worried about using leather (or leather-like material) for the first time but it was fine! you don't even need fancy tools with the bonded leather.

text is set in 12/15 centaur! title text is called "argos george", and i got the title page image from a free old art website (had to convert it to true black and white) - it's the 'flammarion engraving' which is a mysterious illustration by an unknown artist... but perfectly suited to the vibe and plot of this story!

i also did a fun little experiment with the endpapers... my closest color match to the covers was a fragile mulberry paper, which i had (pretty unsuccessfully) used before on a different bind. i didn't want a repeat of that mistake, so i glued a piece of textblock paper half on to the mulberry, so i would end up with a little sandwich of endpaper: half fully reinforced to glue to the case, and half flying beautifully loose and free with an extra flyleaf, so the mulberry paper could show its true beauty haha

anyway it worked perfectly so this bad boy is beautiful AND strong!

i was also a little worried since i did the endpaper gluing with Yes! paste and the rest of the bind with PVA; something about the chemical makeup of those glues makes them completely cancel each other out and turn into glue cottage cheese if they touch. but i was able to keep them separate enough to avoid any incidents, so it was a great success!

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Breakaway | Glacy

(ID in alt text.)

I had a blast participating once again in @pilesofnonsense's Rusty Quill Big Bang event as a bookbinder/artist! This year, I collaborated with Glacy on AO3 and bound their TMA fic Breakaway. It's an ice hockey AU with underlying spooks and horrors, and I had a lot of fun reading it and working with it! Definitely go check out their fic!!

An additional shout-out to @shadow0haven who designed my new bindery logo! You can see it on the back of the title page in the fifth picture, and I love how it looks in my books <3

More information about the bind and my process can be found beneath the cut:

For this bind, I decided to go hard on the hockey theme. The team mascot is a revenant, so I went with a title page and cover design styled after a hockey jersey. The cover is made entirely of bookcloth, with the different colors and details cut out of different colors of bookcloth that are then pieced together like a puzzle. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out! It took a little bit of fiddling to figure out the correct cut settings on my Silhouette, as well as the level of detail I could achieve, but I love how the whole cover has a cloth texture like a jersey would.

The construction of this book was a bit of a challenge. Because I wanted to put grommets in the edges of the cover and thread a shoelace through them, so the spine looked like a hockey skate, doing a regular coptic stitch bind--where the covers are sewn onto the text block via holes punched in the cover board--would have interfered with the ability to freely manipulate the laces.

I eventually settled on a hybrid coptic-sewn board binding style. There is an additional folio of cardstock sewn onto the ends of the text block that the boards are then glued into, thus directly attaching the boards to the textblock and providing more structural stability. Usually, with sewn boards, a spine piece is then glued around the spine to cover up the exposed sewing; instead, I glued the bookcloth to the cover and then carefully cut slits in the cloth on the spine side and fed it in between the lines of sewing. It worked out incredibly well, creating the illusion of an open-spine coptic-stitch book without actually stitching on the chipboard itself; I wish I'd had the foresigh to take process pictures.

After that, it was relatively simple to punch holes for the grommets, insert them, and then thread the laces through. Next time, I would use a thinner chipboard and punch the holes further from the spine to allow the cover boards to close more flatly, but overall, I'm very happy with how the various design elements came together! The shoelace is removable and/or adjustable if desired as well.

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More Than Genetics

By Llwyden ferch Gyfrinach

X-Men (Movieverse) | Logan/Kurt Wagner | 90,746 words | 33 chapters | Published 2013-11-11

Happy Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day everyone! To celebrate this years FFWAD, I decided to bind this fantastic fic for an author who has just been a joy to work with through this whole process! The finished product is currently on its way to its new home!

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Bound some sketchbooks to hopefully sell at the picnic this weekend

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Ficbinding: Salvage by @muffinlance (typeset by @no-name-publishing)

I've recently been getting back into AtLA fic as my kids are watching the series. I was already thinking about binding Salvage when I realized that @no-name-publishing had already typeset it; thank you for letting me use your work!

The marbled paper on the cover is a piece I made myself a few months ago, but unfortunately I only had one letter-sized sheet and couldn't do a standard paper w/leather spine cover. But restriction breeds creativity as the saying goes, so I cut the paper on the diagonal, and built the rest of the cover around that.

I decided that a wave pattern would look cool to fill the remaining space, so I cut a stencil with my Silhouette and painted the design with Angelus leather paint, which I used for the first time here and can't recommend enough for applying titles/designs on leather covers. The endpapers were done with the foil quill attachment; both designs are from this artist.

I have told my eldest that she can read this if she's very careful with it :D