#diy bookbinding

[selfmedblves]

Pages 38-41 of Making Stuff and Doing Things by Kyle Bravo

Book Binding for Beginners by Merrydeath Stern

[somemaycallthisjunk]

I'm an artist, and my friend who is obsessed with Skyrim (the reason why I even play the game) had a birthday this month. I was scrolling online to see if I could order something for them and found the cheap, made-to-print spiral notebook version of the Oghma Infinium and thought... I can do that, but better. So I did.

I took a few creative liberties and obviously it's not EXACT but my friend thinks it's cool and I think it's cool so. There it is.

progress pictures from Snapchat (please excuse the typos) below:

[simplybybea]

Fanbinding Battle Lines!

I finished the fanbinding for @septemberrie 's Silrah bodyguard AU, Battle Lines, earlier this week and I forgot (of course) to take photos of the process but here is the end result! This has been a learning experience and there are definitely things I want to change for the next binding (the level of detail in the foil for example! Took me d a y s) and I am excited to try again but I am incredibly proud of this first ever full pdf to hardcover book bind!

Disclaimer that the wings and crossed swords were from a Google png search so I did not design but as this is for fully personal use its OK. Unexpectedly it was the swords that caused more problems at foil weeding! Wild. And there are paired birds on the endpapers!

This was so much fun, and I am now going to be a menace turning all my favourite longfics into glitzy hardback books!

[nocturnus33]

I loved Here's looking at you kid when I read it, especially how the inner life of each character is developed. So when I finished reading it, I knew I had to bind it sooner or later. Seeing the fantastic job @chaoticbindery did encourage me even more. What I love: Not to mention the beautiful typesetting of @chaoticbindery I'm also happy with the monogram that includes Blaise and George's names.

What I learned: It's the first time I've done a larger, more complex design on HTV.

What I need to improve: I have to be careful not to overheat the cover: I noticed the letter H was crooked, that happened because when it was ready, I realized that not everything had transferred well, and I applied heat again, but I wasn't very careful.

Still, I like this one.

@sophsicle

[januarysantoso]

“TOO PRETTY TO BE INSIDE.” (2024)

Final project for Booklab @ UMD. Photos pages from “Miracle Garden” by Farah Al-Qasimi

Full image gallery here

[touchingmadness]

Can anyone tell me how to format Google Docs page when preparing texts for bookbinding? Ideal margins, approximate font sizes, page layouts, etc?

I've tried searching online, but every answer I've found is incomplete or (more frequently) people saying to "just buy x or y program instead." I'm just trying to bind something as a gift and don't usually print things to bind, I'd honestly just rather use what I have available to me instead of buying and trying to learn a program.

[underthestumppublications]

RATE MY SETUP

Printer paper folded and trimmed for 13 signatures, sewn together with thread from a sewing project 5 years ago, cheesecloth from a disastrous attempt at making dandelion infused oil, ribbon from the stash that I bought because it was cute, chip clips 'borrowed' from the fridge.

[borninwinter81]

Another literary recommendation for Good Omens fans!

My Angel friend (see my pinned cosplay photos) made me aware of this one, it’s called The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France, written in 1914.  I had never heard of this book, and as I have not read it yet I can’t go in-depth like I did on my previous literature post concerning William Blake, but the plot it sounds like it would be extremely interesting to GO fans, and likely shares some common ground with its themes. It is on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.

In brief, it concerns the fallen rebel angels amassing an army to retake Heaven, but there is a great deal more to it than that. I can’t really go into details without spoilering for everyone (I’ve already spoilered for myself, as I generally do with these things).

It’s a public domain work so is free to read via Project Gutenberg (link here).

This post is also an opportunity for me to big up my friend – as she is a person of varied and specialist interests, she decided that rather than buying a copy she wanted to print and bind her own.

Here are the results of several hours worth of work following downloading the text.  The title page with the Lucifer sigil inside the apple, fonts, page numbering, formatting etc. are all her own.  I think this looks unbelievably professional considering it was done on a home printer with free software. Next comes sewing it together!

[troythecatfish]

[haerdoepfu]

Making a hardcover cloth bound book

As promised, here's the video of how i made my last books

I forgot to film some steps, including starching the actual fabric and how exactly i made the paste and acryllic base mix, but i basically followed youtube videos by DAS bookbinding on how to do it

And for the stiches, i found Sea Lemon's video (also on youtube) quite useful

[movark]

Trying to format a booklet for bugle calls, but have no idea where to start. Anyone have guides or advice on printing something booklet/zine shaped from some pdf's of bugle calls? Any advice appreciated

[nocturnus33]

Want to learn how to save a fic? Bind it!

Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders. 

[somemaycallthisjunk]

another year another handmade book project for my dearest bestie, @acrowwithakeyboard ! <3

Had to bring back the Oghma Infinium for funsies. Ol Herma Mora would want this to be about him.

Progress below the cut!

I actually started this project almost a year ago (I don't even have my PC yet!) but the ADHD kicked in big time and it was shelved until now. I have half of the progress filmed from back then, but due to personal issues, I simply didn't film my final steps this week.

All that's really missing from the video is cutting the designs out on silver HTV with Cricut, and then once they were ironed on I used watered down acrylic to recolor the backgrounds of the designs. The Dragonborn book has an extra layer of grey vinyl behind it to maybe help with a more 3D effect.

Main materials: -Dollarama sketchbooks (used the paper to make new text blocks) -chip board (reused the covers from the sketchbooks) -cotton fabric (purchased from Walmart and Michaels) -acrylic paint -Mod Podge -Shoe Goo (my favorite glue right now) -heat transfer vinyl

I can't remember where I got the magic symbols (seems like I just Googled transparent .pngs), but I did purchase the symbol of Akatosh from Etsy, and used border pieces from this designer on Cricut Design Space!

edit: found some progress pics while cleaning my photos out. Sharing because showing failure is important too. The vinyl was giving me a really hard time (I had to realign Cricut in order for the design to cut properly).

[nocturnus33]

@omfgreylo Show how to print, fold, and make holes for #fanficbookbinding

[benign-virus]

Gonna save figuring out / remembering how to sew it together for tomorrow, but apparently Today Was The Day to finally just do the diy planner/journal like ive been threatening to do for ages

[nocturnus33]

You van make a book.

Come. Join me in my madness.

*caveat: this works best in small sizes—anything big will probably need a more complex stitching setup, end papers, and sturdier book covers. My tiny books have been measuring about 1.5x2.2 cm, and .4 cm thick