everykindofcraft | Entries tagged with bookbinding

(apologies for the blown-out coloration on the first pic)

When I first read this short Project Hail Mary fic several months ago, I knew this was going to be on my to-bind list. Especially since it was inspired by one fanartist drawing Grace with earrings!

There have been many fancanons as how Grace will adapt to life on Erid, but the one that struck me early on was how Grace will take inspiration from Rocky's carapace - studded with green from either stones or Adrian's carapace - to make earrings as a mark of being Eridian.

The material? Could be stones gifted from Rocky and co, or pieces of their carapace, to even special metals crafted into celebration jewelry!

Given the short length of the fic, it was easy to make a pamphlet bind that has room to spare for the original fanart. But because of the sheer length of the drawing (and me not wanting to squish Grace's face) I decided to layout those two pages to be horizontal instead of vertical. An experiment that turned out great!

Full credit to @sebastian217 for writing the fanfic and to @stiffyck for the fanart of earring Grace!

( more pictures in the cut )

keystonepublishing

So there I was, scrolling through the drivinglessons tag, and this fancomic came up and immediately grabbed my attention. A comic about Driver and Grace? Where Grace is a science idol? And Driver being a fan?

I immediately sought to make a bind of this fancomic. Specifically, it made me want to try hardcover pamphlet binding after a year since I last did such a format. For the covers, I stuck together pieces of leftover mounting boards and wrapped them with Japanese craft paper (because these boys deserve fancy things). I also sought to add-in the Tumblr post itself as well as some replies and tags from readers, as a way of preserving the fan culture surrounding this crossover.

Since it was so long since I tried hardcover pamphlets, I made some mistakes here and there. I also wished I had more space to put in more replies and tags by readers. But overall, I declare this fancomic bedighted!

Credit to @feriowind for the amazing fancomic!

( more pictures in the cut )

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: That one song during the volcano battle in Ish's Rich and Poor Civilization vid

keystonepublishing

I watched Project Hail Mary and got sucked into the Goslingverse.

There are a number of fics I'm eying to bind, but I already have a WIP list and they will take far too long for me to tackle. Luckily, I was looking up some Goslingverse crossovers and stumbled across this fic from Twitter user tunariceball, who made a wonderful fic about Courtland (The Gray Man) and Grace (Project Hail Mary) meeting each other in prison. The fic also inspired @chicharonie22 to make a fanart of the meeting that I had to include!

I haven't made a simple pamphlet bind in so long, yet I found myself enjoying my time weaving the pages and gluing the front/back cover strips. Such a simple bind, yet such a perfect form for short fics! Perhaps I can make more of these to tide myself over till I have some more free time.

Thanks to tunariceball for the fic and to @chicharonie22 for the fanart!

( More pictures in the cut )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: "The Raven Haired Maiden" from The Varangian Saga

keystonepublishing

I've gotten back to journal writing for the past several months and it's been a calming experience to do in the evenings. However, much of the notebooks for sale in the local hypermarket aren't made for handling fountain pen inks. Much of the better-made notebooks are imported and can cost into the triple-digits, and I don't want to be burdened with another hobby that has a high expense rate.

But I do know of a compromise: work notebooks. The company I worked issues new notebooks to all staff every year, and they're pretty durable. I have several already that are unused, and several more that are partially used.

So what if I carve up the partly-used notebooks so that only the unused pages are left, stick them together, and put them back with a cover?

So I did that!

( more in the cut... )

nuh_s

Cover of book showing wine red damask, a title plate with gold outline, and gold splatter.
Finally done with my biggest bookbinding project yet! One of my all-time favorite fics, Head In The Lion's Mouth by renwhit.

I'm really happy with how this came out. I knew I wanted wine and gold as the color scheme. The wine colored damask was a placemat that I harvested and scraped away a lot of deteriorated batting/filling from the inside. The gold is metallic ink that I mixed 1:1 Brass and Bronze, which ended up with a very nice antique gold look. The Brass on its own looks too yellow, especially on page edges.

The typesetting. I tried out being more creative this time 'round. I put in fancy first letters of each chapter, and effect I like a lot. There are sections of the fic that switch to being right-aligned, so I had to add all of that by hand.

The binding! Despite the thickness of the book, I went with my normal method (Sea Lemon's stitch) rather than attempting a curved spine. Unfortunately, somehow when I set the glue on the spine to dry, the text block was weirdly angled and dried uneven. Which meant I spent twice as long (more actually, but I'll get to that) sanding down the edges to be even.

For doing the edges, I tried out applying the metallic ink with a brush (bad idea #1) and sealing it in with beeswax (bad idea #2). It looked good in the press, but when I cracked the pages, it became an uneven ugly mess. That meant...more sanding! Another half hour of sanding later, I did my normal technique of applying the ink with a piece of cloth (so it's drier than with a brush) and leaving it at that.

The title plate. Originally, I wanted to try using an iron-on sheet, but I couldn't get it to peel. Instead, I used normal paper with a single layer of varnish to give it a hint of water resistance and glued it on.

The splatter really added the verve and spunk the book needed. While Danny has wine red blood that splatters on a gold-toed shoe, this book cover inverts it! The wine red is a little more purple than the photos capture.
( More photos... )

nuh_s

Back in school, I read the Holocaust memoir If This Is A Man by Primo Levi, and I printed it out. I had it as a stack of plain half sheets (not signatures) held together with binder clips. Since getting into bookbinding, I wanted to try and make that print out nicely bound, giving it the respect it deserves and making the print out much more readable.

This was my first time doing a perfect bind (gluing the pages along the spine rather than sewing), and I think it went pretty well. I did about 4 layers of PVA glue, and it seems to be holding up well. This was also my first time adding a title to the cover. I used Black Sumi Ink and brushes to do the cover design with rubber bands around the book for the straight edges.

For the page edges, I did an extra sanding with the fine grit that really helped with the uneven flecks/scraps that I had on the last book.

Front cover of If This Is A Man by Primo Levi. It has a tan cover with black lines.

Front cover of If This Is A Man by Primo Levi. It has a tan cover with black lines.

( Read more... )( Read more... )

nuh_s

More adventures with fanbinding! "mulberry down!!" is a short story/novella by Nicole Kornher-Stace. It's original work about portal fantasy and dreams and bonds up on the internet archive here.

Slim bound book with blue tree cover and gilded edges

Slim bound book with blue tree cover and gilded edges

I wanted to try out edge gilding (iron on). Sanding the edges fine and using a tiny iron helped, but it still came out pretty flaky and not even. I'm gonna mess around with the sanding more to avoid weird edges, and I'm gonna try using beeswax to seal it before flexing the pages.

This bind is a little wonky. The spine ended up angled, but I sanded the edges straight and then didn't align the cover properly. I'm still pleased with it though!

More pictures below.

( Read more... )

nuh_s

Yay new crafting community!

I just started getting into bookbinding / fanbinding. I got really into it conceptually a couple years ago and bought all the supplies but didn't really do anything with them until now. I've been using Renegade Bindery's formatting tutorials and Sea Lemon's binding tutorials. It is tremendously fun. I've done the first couple (Fairgoers by renwhit and a collection of King Falls AM fics) with quilting cotton + heatnbond + tissue paper for book cloth, but I recently got a bunch of leather for free, so I may start experimenting with leather covers too using Ingenius Designs' tutorials.

On my docket is
- "mulberry down!!" by Nicole Kornher Stace, already printed and sewn with book cloth prepped, needs edge sanding
- "Ceylon, Assam, and Darjeeling" by Sciosa, currently working on formatting
- Something that will allow me to do a wacky patchwork style cover using scrap fabric sticking to the heatnbond to avoid having to sew it
- Working on figuring out iron-on page gilding. Probably needs edge sanding first as the unsanded paperback I tried it on didn't adhere evenly though the tiny iron helped.
- Acquire acid-free paper for prints going forward

Book with a blue waterfall-esque pattern cover

Book with a blue waterfall-esque pattern cover

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Every Kind of Craft

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Entries tagged with bookbinding

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The Ryland Grace Guide to Becoming Eridian by @sebastian2017 & @stiffyck

Can you sign the inside here? by @feriowind

A Prison Call by tunariceball

Frankensteining a work notebook for personal journalling

Bookbinding: Head In The Lion's Mouth by renwhit

Fanbinding: If This Is A Man by Primo Levi

Fanbinding: "mulberry down!!"

Beginning Bookbinding

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August 2026

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