title/body text/page numbers: Ibarra Real Nova
chapter headers/drop caps: Plain Black
106,998 words | 412 pages
SO. so. I was feeling some type of way about the good omens s2 finale and this fic. oh man. it did such a good job both filling the hole and in my heart, AND, ON TOP OF THAT, added such wonderful lore, with some of the best characterisations that I have enjoyed reading in the fandom. It was wonderful, and I honestly don't feel like I need anything else.
as for the design, I had some fun using space imagery for basically everything. honestly I just had lots of fun doing space things regardless. I tried my hand using gutermann thread for the first time for my endbands and dear god did that take ages. I also attempted to use my foil quill and haha. that did NOT go well. at all. regardless, it's such a beautiful fic that I really really wanted to make a beautiful book for it. if you haven't read it, please do!
this bind has been a long time coming but fuck if it didn’t need to be absolutely perfect. you know when you just love a story so much that it feels embedded in your heart? that’s choices for me. making this bind has been my magnum opus and i wouldn’t let myself make it until i felt like i could do it justice.
@earlgreymoony agreed to do the art for this bind and HOLY FUCK DID SHE DELIVER 👏🏻👏🏻
After nearly two weeks, I'm proud to announce the binding of @acernor's Dual Cultivation series is complete!
Here it is! Rough around the edges (I am very much an amateur at this) and the spacing of the words is a little wonky but hey! It's readable, it's a physical copy, and I count that as an absolute win!
Up next is one of my absolute favorites from the TGCF fandom. I'll keep you guys posted;)
A collection of 15 stories by @greygerbil.( Highly HIGHLY recommend their fics)
For the book title, I chose The Shield,The Spear, The Sword and chose another 14 of their stories (it was a struggle not to include all of them but i got tired of typesetting 😅)
I made individual title pages for all of them (pic doesnt include all)
I did keep the drop caps the same in every story as well as the same line break image (a cute little shield,spear, sword combo i made on canva) to add continuity.
I tried a couple new techniques this bind.
Did my first ever rounded spine as well as some (easy and fake) raised bands. This was heavily inspired by those old traditional leather bound books.
My mom has been hoping to get her hands on a hard copy of A Stitch in Time, which, as I'm sure most of you are aware, tends to be pricey if you can find it. (It's currently listed for ~$115 on eBay, and more expensive elsewhere.)
So, I decided to put my bookbinding skills to use and make her one for her birthday.
Notes on the design and construction:
The cover design was inspired by (or rather adapted from via considerable photoshopping) this book cover from 1901 that happened to cross my dashboard in a post with a bunch of other cool old book covers:
I created the Cardassian building silhouettes based on a screencap, and the DS9 silhouette is borrowed from the Niners logo. The orchid on the back cover emerging from the Obsidian Order logo is one I found in Cricut Design Space.
(Feel free to use these in your own projects, if you like.)
The bookcloth is by BOOKCRAFTSUPPLYCO on Etsy (dark green). The cover designs are HTV, Cricut Everyday Iron-On (black), Cricut Foil Iron-On (gold), and Vinyl Frog Metallic Foil (holographic silver). The Cardassian Union logos on the end pages were done using Cricut's foil transfer system (gold). The fonts on the cover are DS9 Title and DS9 Credits from st-minutiae.com.
I designed and hand bound It's Not the Same Anymore into a proper book!! It's been a long but rewarding process from start to finish, and I'm so happy to have a physical version now! :))
Thank you to @renegadepublishing for having so many good resources available for beginner bookbinders. Anyone else who'd like to try, start there!
(Bookbinding progress pics and a bunch of the chapter header images below the cut, for anyone who's curious!)
Right off the bat not gonna tell you how long this took me to finish, cause it's embarrassing. But it's done, it's huge, and it's mine!! More glamour shots and process pics under the cut!
Hand dyed cloth, done with an ice dyeing method; title painted with gold paint, as well as the distressed areas; speckled edges done with acrylic ink and metallic bronze acrylic paint; handsewn endbands made from silk-finish cotton sewing thread; typeset and printed by myself all from Word.
Cheeky little video showing it all off together.
My first and sadly second ice dyeing attempts to get this looking right. First pass was not near what I wanted at all, so we stuck this bad boy back in the freezer.
Steps from trimming the unruly head and tail, to splattering the edges, to sewing the endbands. Took me probably approx 3 hours for each one, and I did 2 copies, so four endbands RIP. (The keen-eyed will also notice the patterns do not match between the two photos of the endbands. That's because I wasn't paying close enough attention and inverted two of the colors between copies. But it's a feature not a bug!)
Crimson Rivers—bound for a friend for personal use only.
I’m so in love with how these turned out and put my entire heart into them. Mistakes were made, screaming ensued, procrastination was a bitch but we did ittttt.
Thank you so so much to @alexsays-no @crownvus @aoarcturus for letting me use your gorgeous work for these binds 😭😭🫶🏼🥹😘🥰 I appreciate y’all so much!
And thank you to bizarrestars for writing one of my favorite stories that have stuck with me since I finished it months ago.
Canon AU -- Merlin's death is only the beginning; with no-one to protect the kingdom, Camelot falls to an enemy sorcerer and Arthur is forced to serve in the court that he once ruled. When an escape attempt goes horribly wrong, Arthur is rescued by someone he never expected to see again -- and it's their destiny to put things right.
fic by winterhill
art by lukita
404 pages / 85,529 words
Title Font: Neoteric, Ever, Celticmd
Body Fonts: Pilgrim, Far From Homecoming, YOZAKURA, Aliya Ramsey
More on the process below the cut!
Ah, this wonderful fic! This was a fic I hadn't read before @runawaymarbles put it on my radar, and it was utterly wonderful! Proof still that the well of fic is deep and vast, and there will always be another beautiful story waiting for you.
I had a lot of fun binding this one; aiming for a tome kind of vibe, with a full Better Than Goat leather case, deckled edges, and gold accents coupled with the Celtic medallion, which boasts both a dragon and a trinity knot. I thought this was fitting, given that the coin analogy between Merlin and Arthur comes up quite a bit in this fic - the idea that, because it's a canon AU, they've strayed away from their destiny, and what that could mean for Camelot. The trinity knot also symbolizes the cyclical relationship between life, death, and rebirth, which is another recurring theme throughout the story.
I also chose some medieval, old-style elements for my typeset, include the side ornaments, and making the margins bigger on the whole. I definitely need to bind more Merlin fic; I forgot how much of a delight this fandom is!