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[sits-bound]

Bound: The Complete Advent Fics by Saras_Girl

I just wanted to make this for my friend @cailynwrites because she's always been so generous with her podfic knowledge and she mentioned once something about loving Saras_Girl's advent fics and BOY am I hoping I didn't misremember that. Oh wait, I know, I think it was her desert island fic. Again, I hope my memory didn't lead me astray. It's just like me to embark on a massive project like this without double checking.

ANYWAY.

This is another tabloid folio-sized bind, just like my GallaPlacidia anthology. It has even more pages! What a beaut.

I made my own bookcloth out of some fabric I'd bought a while back to make a Christmas tree skirt, and then I got a Christmas tree skirt on clearance a couple of years ago so now I don't need to make one. It's fun and Christmassy without being too Christmassy, I think.

I used printable HTV for the title on the front and the spine. I also added in an oxford hollow to give it a bit more support because it is so heavy.

And because the type is pretty small, I included a little magnifying glass in the package. 🔎

I'm just excited to finally get to post this, I finished it a couple of months ago, but I had to wait to send it. It's just as well, now we're that much closer to Christmas!

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I made a cute little bookcase out of scrap book board (and paint) for my octavos and smaller. So cute! I totally winged it.

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Bound: Nothing Gold Can Stay by @moonflower-rose

Yes, again. I bound this for @amandabynds for the same exchange I bound the Summer 2009 series that I posted here. (yes it's all moonflower_rose here all the time)

Okay, so out of the blue one day I decided to google Samspelt, an IKEA figurine that's mentioned in the fic. I've listened or read this fic approximately 394392 times and had not yet done so. And when I did, I had no choice but to buy one off eBay immediately.

So then of course I had to feature him in my binding. But I wasn't sure how. I was very much stuck. But then my dear friend @phoenixortheflame talked it through with me and I decided to make it a fake IKEA catalog page. Which was so fun! Handily, my binding desk is from IKEA, as is my wardrobe, so I made that corner into a little IKEA cover.

This was the photo I ended up using. Even that lamp on the left is from IKEA. And look, all of the books next to Samspelt are MFR binds.

I ended up making my first 3 piece bradel here, too. It enabled me to feature the photo on the cover without worrying about having to line everything up perfectly (like I would have if I'd just printed the whole cover.)

Anyway, I love how it came out! I also sent one to @reveriepi because her podfic of it makes me unhinged.

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Teeny tiny books

Finding myself in a bit of a binding slump (right after buying a bunch of bookcloth and paper in London, no less) I decided to give tiny books a try. I've made an octavo before, but I wanted SMALLER. So I decided to go with a sextidecimo, which is 16 pages per side of a letter size sheet of paper. And I wasn't going to bind a 1000 word fic, no. I wanted a chonk. So I went with a 24k word fic that I'd already bound and had typeset, The Superfluous Man.

And here's how it turned out:

Okay, that was fucking adorable, but why stop there? So I decided to make it a "tiny book", which, well, I dunno, is even tinier. And now I am closer to my goal of a perfectly cubic book. I'm pretty pleased with how the cover came out on this one. I used the foil quill with my Silhouette.

But not there yet, so can I make this even smaller?

For funsies: every size of book I've made so far, from a tabloid folio to "tiny".

(that's tabloid folio, letter folio, legal quarto, quarto, octavo, sexto, and tiny)

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Bound: Rookie Moves by peu_a_peu

Typeset and bound by: me, @phoenixortheflame

About a month ago, my five year old said, "What if you did a bind of Rookie Moves, but instead of Rookie Moves you called it 'Rookie Moooooooos'."

I'm telling you, my kid is a genius.

My dust jacket design came together pretty quickly. I knew I wanted to use black and white photos with punchy pops of colour. I even managed photos ft. Draco- and Harry-coded cows (and if you zoom in closely on the front cover you'll see I gave them some props).

I've been really into printing designs on the inside covers of my paperbacks, and so I thought, why not do that on the dust jackets, too?? This was a last-minute addition and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

Cover material is Verona book cloth in 509 Orange Blast. I've been wanting to use this colour forever, but didn't have the right fic for it.

I was originally going to also put cow print on the front and back covers with HTV, but decided against it and went with just a simple spine title using layered black and white HTV.

This was my first time rounding and backing, and I think it turned out quite well for a first attempt.

There are some mistakes made. I used PVA instead of paste to case it in and hadn't yet gotten to the part of DAS's video where he said to set the shoulders first so the text block doesn't shift. There are some wrinkles in the endpapers on the inside-front cover, but otherwise it looks (and more importantly functions) nicely.

The typeset is all brand new as well. I leaned hard into the cow theme, but tried to keep it minimalist, too. I'm really happy how the newspaper formatting turned out — as well as my chapter heads.

This bind is a gift for a friend. I messaged her yesterday to say, "It's simultaneously the most beautiful and dumbest thing I've ever made."

As ever, a huge thanks goes out to my pals who helped me if not with guidance then definitely with moral support (not to be confused with "morale" support). @sits-bound @maleekamolscreates @epitomereally @citrusses @copticcowgirl @plor-bindery, you are all wonderful.

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Bound (again): Summer 2009 by @moonflower-rose

I made this quarto for a summer-themed exchange for @amandabynds and is my favorite part the pasta salad recipe I got from the comments on the fic? Maybe. I dunno. I really want to make it someday but I need to be invited to a potluck or something because no one else in my house would eat it. So let me know if you're having a BBQ or similar and need me to bring a dish.

Okay, there are other things I like about this, like the public domain painting I used for the cover, and the fact that I spontaneously rounded it, just for funsies. It's cute, huh?

I've also made this as a little chonky tête-bêche.

Oh, and I made podfics of the two fics in the series, Poppiholla and Hoppípolla.

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Do you ever look at some of your old binds, think of the skills you’ve gained, and how you might improve the old binds if you where to ever bind the same story again?

Definitely! It's partly why I made the big GallaPlacidia anthology. Lots of my older typesets have new versions sitting in InDesign, but we'll see if they ever get made.

(Not to mention the techniques I have learned and the tools I have acquired in the past two years!)

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Two years of binding!

I still feel like I'm new to all this, it's hard to believe I finished my first bind two years ago. But then I look at that bind and realize, yeah, I've come pretty far. 😅

I wish I could come up with some stats easily, I love stats, but I haven't been great about tracking how many binds I've done. And for some I've done several copies. So obviously I've made many more books than just the number of my tumblr posts would indicate.

But here are some favorites from the past 12 months (images link to posts):

Rookie Moves by peu_a_peu

Steinway!verse by @toomuchplor

Close Behind by @oflights

22 Cards by peu_a_peu

First Watch of Night by @tackytigerfic

Collected Cricklets by @cricketnationrise

All Our Gifts At Once or, the Young Sea-Man by @tiltedsyllogism

Drarry as written by GallaPlacidia

Soulmates by @dodgerkedavra

Okay I have to make myself stop here or I'll just list every bind I made in the past year! But it makes me happy that so many of my binds make me happy!

Also, I have a few that I'm really excited about that haven't made it to their recipients yet, so this is definitely not exhaustive.

I just got back from a trip to London where I bought a lot of bookcloth and beautiful paper, so I am very much looking forward to making more beautiful books with my new supplies!

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Bound: Nothing Gold Can Stay by @moonflower-rose

Typeset, bind, and illustrations by: me, @phoenixortheflame.

One summer evening, Harry Potter vanished in the middle of dinner with his friends. Four days later he came back. Sort of. Draco Malfoy is on the case.

Well that got out of hand.

So — I planned to bind this for myself and then another for the author. But then, I had to make one for @reveriepi whose recording lulls me to sleep so very often. And one for @sits-bound because she’s a good girl who deserves good things. And of course one for @maleekamolscreates because the fic begins ON OUR BIRTHDAY!

Anyway, paperbacks are dope. Made using the double-fan method. I think I have the process fully memorized now, but if you're interested in learning how, I highly recommend checking out Mally's video on it, which I've watched a dozen times at least.

Cover is 48-lb glossy photo paper covered with soft-touch laminate. The inside cover design is printed directly onto the back of the photo paper and is not finished in any way.

Cover illustrations done by me in Procreate. Cover design done in Canva. Inside cover design as well as full-title page done in Affinity Designer; typeset done in Publisher.

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I made a set for the author and this time I got the searchlight directions the way I wanted them!

Bound: First Watch of Night by @tackytigerfic

When you decide to bind a book using black on black, it's not going to be easy to photograph. Just in case you were wondering.

@toomuchplor and I decided to do a little exchange of this fantastic fic, and this was the one I sent to her.

It's a long, long, long fic (274k) (and yet, I still didn't want it to end) and I couldn't decide if I wanted to bind it all in one volume and attempt to round it, or just leave it flat, even though it would be very thick, but then it occurred to me (or a friend suggested) that I could split it into two volumes!

So that's what I did. You know what was really cool? I divided it at the halfway point, after chapter 10, which worked out well. The page count was very similar, and the second volume had 11 chapters, so it was all very even.

But what I discovered was that the last line of chapter 10 is the same as the very last chapter of the book! I don't know if it was a coincidence or on purpose, but I thought it was neat. (I suppose that could be considered a spoiler which is why I'm not specifying what the actual sentence is, so please put this out of your mind if you haven't read this yet and you find yourself at the end of chapter 10.)

So anyway. Okay. I now had two volumes and had to decide how I wanted to differentiate them. I was going to do one white and one black, and while that would have looked cool, I fear it would have insinuated some kind of meaning (light vs dark) that isn't necessarily like, the first half vs the second half. And one of the ideas that had been knocking around my head was "searchlights". So that's where I went with the covers. I wanted all black, and I found a great sparkly black HTV (sorta starry nightish, you know) and went from there. I'm quite happy with how it came out!

Except I meant for the two searchlights to be facing away from each other when you put both volumes next to each other, but if that's the only mistake I made, I can live with that.

I'm especially proud of the silhouettes on the spine, they both started as photographs that I pulled into Adobe Capture and was able to turn into SVGs so they could be cut by my silhouette. And I'm extra proud of my Silhouette for keeping Harry's glasses intact. (I tried just finding clip art of silhouettes (too many uses of that word here) but for whatever reason, most silhouettes are of businessmen?!? Anyway. It all worked out.

The title pages for each volume are slightly different too. The first has one figure, the second has two. Just a little thing.

The bookmark charms are a little 1 and 2 I made with shrinky dink material.

More details:

This is the HTV I used The body font is Arno Pro (my beloved) The cover font is Montserrat The chapter and drop caps are in various forms of Lulo The small caps at chapter starts is Rig Shaded Images came from Pixabay

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Book 27 ✅ this fic is the only first-person anything I would reread and still adore. The characters are true to their backgrounds and grow as people believably. The OCs are incredible. The setting and worldbuilding are unique. Favorite throwaway detail that I based the entire typeset design around is that magical hipsters in Brooklyn ride vacuum cleaners. Hello??? Obsessed. Highly recommend The Man Who Lived by SebastianL. This was my first time playing with real leather and I have a lot to learn!!

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Shelf reorg.

The big Galla bind is too heavy to sit upright. Any advice from binders how I can support its weight and display it upright? Maybe a small block under the text block to prop it up?

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half a year ago, @phoenixortheflame and i worked on an art and ficbind for isn’t a kingdom by @garagepaperback . two (eons) days ago, i finally had my hands on it and, what a stunner.

filmed the book, of course. so here’s the bind—in motion.

Links:

1. See phoenix’ post and more details about the bind

2. Read isn’t a kingdom by garagepaperback

3. In case the video up there isn’t hd

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Bound: Recursion by @tessacrowley

This is my very first bind. As in, the very first thing I have bound EVER. (!!!)

📇 Typeset, cheerleading and priceless technical support: @phoenixortheflame

🎨 Unreal, stunning art: @itsphantasmagoria

📔 Gorgeous front cover design: @cheriecherishchen

📚Bind: me!! #froidefillebinds is just one of those hashtags I am just SO proud of 😅

Thank you for the blanket permission Tessa!

Story time under the cut 🤍

Guys 😭😭😭

I've honestly dreamt of the experience of reading-fanfic-as-a-book for SO LONG. And when I saw Phoenix’s bind of this fic I just decided - yep, that’s it. I’m fucking binding that and reading it like a book that I bought at local bookstore because it fucking deserves to have this form and physically being on my shelf.

Why have I decided to choose a 100k+ work as my first project ? See, I didn’t ! It was stronger than me ! I just had to have it!

Counting the pages and figuring out how to print and (what’s the word for putting the pages in right order? Anyway, doing that) imposing has taken me days. Once I figured it out my printer has rebelled and the ink run out. OBVIOUSLY. But once I figured it out… The printing became totally addicting. Just one more signature 😅

Why did I think that 5 pages per signature would be perfect amount which resulted in 20+ signatures to be sewn in the very first binding project? I don’t know, okay. Mistakes were made 😅

Turns out I love the sewing and hate the fucking knots. Wax threads only from now on.

Glueing the spine was nerve-wrecking bc I hate the permanence of the glue in general. But I made it!

Designing the cover took me ages and I was this close to buying a circuit or whatever this fancy equipment for making gold cover titles is named. Thankfully, Phoenix helped me out with suggestion of a half bind and soon after that the case was done!

Glueing in the case… I miscalculated the spine height. And had one of the endpapers glued in totally all over the place so I had to rip it off and find a new one (ended up even prettier hihi). The case is still pretty uneven but hey, now I know, right? 😁

And then… I could take my book, which I made with my own hands, in my own living room. Which was actually gay time travelling love story and read it in a train. And by the sea on vacation.

I am hooked. Watch this space bc I am now addicted to buying all sorts of termoactive foils and pretty canvases and new pretty threads. And seeing fics come to live obviously 🤍🤍🤍

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Bound: Far From The Tree by aideomai

Typeset and bound by: me, @phoenixortheflame Ft. art by: mims bindery

The arrival of Harry Potter’s children—snapped back in time, the children themselves guessed, twenty or so years—was the most interesting thing to happen at Hogwarts for years.

Wheres my Soup-pocalypse bind came together in a mere few days, this one I agonized over for months.

You win some, you lose some.

I made this bind for @maleekamolscreates as part of our twins exchange, which we set in motion the day we found out we share a birthday.

I didn't plan to make another sci-fi themed Drarry bind, the chiyogami endpapers kind of dictated the direction. And I couldn't not use these endpapers. I mean... come on.

I opted for a nearly entirely monochrome exterior, save for the title which is layered offset HTV. If you look closely, you can see a wavy texture on the bookcloth mimicking the pattern of the endpapers, which is just matte black HTV.

I don't love the way the HTV turned out, and if I had to do it again I would have left the cover entirely blank. Maybe include a black-only title on the spine. But conceptually I dig it, and hopefully Mally does, too.

The edges are painted with black acrylic ink and the endbands are hand-sewn with black silk thread using DAS's Two Colour Front Bead Headband tutorial.

I finally managed to find short-grain cream paper in Canada (ty, Canada Papers!), which really elevated the typeset in my opinion.

Typeset art is by mims bindery (ty, mims!).

There are two pieces for this bind: the twins and a second piece (so avert your eyes if you don't want any spoilers!)

I opted to use red thread for the text block because, uh, it looks cool?

I was a big baby during this whole bind, so I must thank my emotional support crew who helped me troubleshoot and talked me off the ledge more than once: @citrusses @epitomereally @sits-bound @jtimu

I also DM'd a bunch of other pals with cupped hands begging them to feed me morsels of praise throughout the process, so ty @faiell @its-the-allure @smehur @edieblakee @the-forbidden-forest. ILY ALL VERY VERY MUCH.

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Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You) by firethesound @firethesound

This fic... THIS FIC. If you know, you know. It’s one of my all-time favorite fics, and I had to pick it for the #TreatYoShelf2025 exchange. The story is about grief, and it DESTROYED me (and I dragged some of my friends down with me, cause why the fuck not, right?).

As I read it, the whole concept basically came to me all at once, because there’s something so surreal about living in a world after the love of your life has died. Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory fits this story so fucking perfectly, I can’t even explain it, and in a way, I feel like I don’t have to.

I sobbed while reading, talking about, typesetting, and binding this fic — and I even teared up while taking pictures of it. Talking about self-care, huh? Cry it out and give yourself time. That’s what I call self-care. Do things you love, for yourself, and let yourself feel all the feelings. Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to cry when you need to. Time will heal. It doesn’t last forever. Nothing does. No one does. It does get better.

Anyway. First time using printable Canva and just — Look. At. This!!! Don’t even get me started on the perfect charms I managed to find for this project, or the drawings I did for the typeset. And again — if you know, you know. (The mugs!!! The jumpers!!! The ring... Fuck, I’m actually crying again as I type this lol.)

Typeset and artwork by @jessonel :)

Except for the part that is clearly Salvador Dalí, obviously, hah.

More photos here (fucking Tumblr limit)

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LA, Who am I to Love You? by @epitomereally

The third of Dr. Epitomereally’s graduation presents! Like epitomereally, I love LA, and this fic is just grounded in the real places of the city (including a few of my own haunts).

This book’s design started with the title page. LA at sunset, with that photograph, gave me the idea for the ombre color cloth and my own paste paper endpapers, which are purple at the top and dark blue at the bottom. The city skyline on the cover also serves as the section dividers, and I traced it from an actual photo of one of LA’s many skylines.

I also did cloth jointed endpapers, which are really growing on me as a technique. The end bands are silk—mostly two-bead on front, but I cheated and slipped in a little orange at the center. Then, for each chapter, the opener is a photo from the actual places mentioned in the book. And, of course, I had to include the playlist epitomereally put together for the fic.