Just a collection

[sunshine304]

MTH Fanbinding: Winter of the White Wolf Vol. 7 by K. LeCrone

It took me a while, but I've finally manged to finish my @marveltrumpshate offering (auction 1051) from last year. @klecrone won my fanbinding auction and asked me to bind what is to become the 7th volume of her epic fic "Winter of the White Wolf".

I had basically free reign on the design and since this particular part of the story focusses on Bucky's fracturing mind, I decided to run with a darker Winter Soldier theme.

The colours were a no-brainer - grey, black, blue, and red as an accent colour seemed like the way to go. I decided early on that I wanted the red star on the cover, and I really liked the idea of having the paper be somewhat transparent, with a picture of the Winter Soldier underneath.

It's easier to see in real life - I struggled with the transparent paper, and of course the glue made it a bit wavy, but overall I think the effect worked well enough.

For the back, I'd at first thought about the star as well, or having the colours run diagonally from the front to the back. I didn't like both options in the end, and finally decided on this kind of "arrow" design. I also included the title in the Wakandan script, as K. had wanted some Wakandan decorative elements and my initial ideas didn't seem fitting with this design anymore.

BTW, I totally screwed up that script at one point - I put it on upside down and went into a bit of a crisis over it. Luckily, I was able to very carefully scrape the foil off again and redo it. Phew!

For the spine, I reversed the colour for the titling as a contrast to the front, though the black foil came out weaker than I had anticipated. Well, it is readable, and it refused to come out any better.

For the endpapers, I chose a lovely, very dark blue marbled paper that seemd to fit the state of Bucky's mind well.

I included lots of art from the fic, by the author and by other artists who had gifted the author their works. I also added the extensive notes for each chapter in an Appendix, as I felt that they contained some important information on the story.

Thank you again, KLeCrone, for your generous donation and your great collaboration! <3 This was a fun bind for me and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Materials used:

Printed on Clairefontaine DCP 100g

Case and endpapers:

booklinen Colibri graphite

booklinen Colibri cranberry

booklinen Colibri dolphin

booklinen Colibri lagoon

Franch marbled paper

Hot Foil (Memory Keepers & Glimmer)

[aley-nag]

Fins for my boyfriend

Another little project I used my Cricut for:

My boyfriend plays underwater rugby (and got me into it as well). So I decided to decorate his fins. It's cute how proud he is of them. Sadly one number is already gone. Maybe I have to look into different foil that will hold up better to the water and abrasion.

[aley-nag]

Using my Cricut for other stuff

My father loves sweets and I love using my Cricut, so for Christmas I combined the two and created this:

[aley-nag]

Mini Book/Bookmark

I wanted to gift a friend of mine a bound fanfic of her choice. But I didn't just want to write a coupon, so instead I decided to show off my bookbinding skills and make a mini book, that functions as a bookmark as well:

I had pieces of this beautiful paper that I normally wouldn't use for the cover, but I didn't plan to put a title on it anyway so it worked great.

The assembly is really quite the same as with every other book, just fiddlier, but also quicker. I glued the yarn to the spine and attached the bookmark ribbon. In hindsight I should have sewn it in, I don't think it will hold up so well.

Some more pics:

[aley-nag]

Loooooong awaited project

Last year I put all bookbinding off till I finished the FTH project and because I kept running into problems there, my only other project got finished sooo much later than I hoped...

But finally here it is: An anthology of Sister's work. She writes beautiful, steamy fanfic in the Batman Fandom. They also read a little like detective stories and are quite dark, so I decided to name the project Gotham Noir.

I did three fancy new things: I had my own wingdings, to separate paragraphs:

I put the cover decoration over the entire length and it is also visible behind the endpapers:

And I tried my hand at a full cover picture for the halftitle:

It is okayish. The real quality is better than it looks in this picture, but not quite as good, as it could have been. I started and printed this, before I learned about vectore graphics.

I also mismeasured where to cut the bookblock, so the margins look off... I think that's the thing I am most unhappy with and I am very unhappy with it. It ruined a perfectly good book.

I love the cover color though.

I also tried a fourth new thing but it didn't make it into the end product:

I designed this with Canva. The black is done by the printer, because I could not find fitting black paper. This resulted in the color flaking off at the hinges though. I fixed it with a pen and it is almost not noticeable but keeps recurring and also only works with black. So this is not an option for future projects. I also found it too stark, dark and kind off ugly so I decided on the cover you see above. If someone has some ideas, please share!

Some more progress and end result pics:

Binding Details Body Text: Garamond, 11 Half Title/Chapter Heading: Gotham Womans, 20 Full Title: BAT MEN_G, 70 Word Count: 19.269 Pages: 290 Paper: publishing paper A4, 80g, 1,5x volume (from my friendly neighbourhood printer)

[aley-nag]

Laminate Paper

For my last project I backed a marbled paper with normal endpaper to hide some ugly marks. This also works if your paper is too thin to be used as endpapers.

Leave the paper bigger, than you need it and the paper you will back it with even bigger.

Take note of the grain of both papers. They have to be the same direction.

Use a laquer bowl and paint roller to quickly, evenly and thinly put watered-down glue onto the pretty paper.

Put it to the backing paper, Take care not to leave folds.

Put it between two pieces of cardboard an into you press. If it's bigger than your press, do it in steps for 20-30 seconds.

Take it out and iron it. Put some silkpaper on top as to not leave marks from the iron.

Put it back into the press or under something heavy until it is completely dry.

It will curl a little into one direction, because the different papers have different expansion coefficients. This will not be a problem, it will settle down with time.

It will also be quite stiff. If you use glue based on starch and cook it for a really long time it might help.

[aley-nag]

Fandom Trumps Hate Fullfillment

Last year I decided to participate in @fandomtrumpshate because I like the project and I was hoping it would motivate me to greater efforts and to bind more. The lovely @nagisachan1 won the bidding and wanted me to bind Men and Angels by @laora-ryn with their permission. I was unfamiliar with the fic itself but read quite a lot in the FMA fandom and it was a heartbreaking and really beautifully written story with an interesting anachronistic timeline. Go read it!

I tried a lot of new stuff with this one and because I wanted it to be perfect did a lot of tests beforehand.

The first big thing came with the formatting because I wanted both decorated edges and chapter images.

The edges are just watermarks in Word. This was almost easy, the most annoying part was, that I could not use .svg files, so this is not a vector image and the quality is not as good...

For the chapter pictures I used different types of clocks, because of the recurrent and important motive of time in the story. The .svg files got created with Inkscape. It is a little annoying and doesn't work so great with every type of picture, but I was quite happy with the results. The orientation inside the text is easy with a newer version of Word (I think starting at 2019). It let's you push it around however you like. You just have to narrow the edges of the picture as close to the visible part as possible and set some check marks.

Nagisachan also requested a more americanized style so I learned how to do the headers. This is not so hard if you organized your project like described in How To Make A Book by @armoredsuperheavy.

Printing and assembling went without a hitch.

Then I desperately wanted to have cool endpapers... (this made everything else sooo much more complicated).

I had this cool marbled paper that I thought was a good fit. Sadly the backside was quite dirty. So I learned how to back it with normal paper to hide it.

Sadly this color matched with nothing else already in my collection...

The other really new thing I wanted to try was the relief on the front. I did one test:

(Here you see the original color for the cover. This did not match well with the blue endpapers. But it would have been almost the same color as Ed's coat 😓)

It worked almost perfectly. I cut the pattern out of 1mm cardboard, glued it to the normal 2mm cardboard for the cover, and continued as usual with the linen. I used my folding bone to press the linen to the pattern. This resulted in slight marks.

Later on, my bookbinder friend advised me to just press it with some foam rubber on top. That worked a lot better.

Then I got the great idea to create a bookmark... I neither had the tools, nor charms nor the bands... So on my search went to get all the materials together. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but it was quite hard. In the end, I was very happy with the result, though. And assembling it was really easy.

For the endbands I used the new technique I learned, because I think, they come out neater, even though I don't like that you can see the colored yarn inside the book.

I assembled everything and then really wanted to decorate the cover even more, so I designed some cogs.

(Nagisachan got soooo many pictures and style questions from me :DD I'm so glad she had the necessary patience to deal with me)

Now I just needed to find foil in that color, because the red with the blue really matched with nothing anymore. Especially after I decided to color the edges in a kind of coppery gold.

(Colors were my greatest enemy with this project...)

I found foil I really liked:

It was quite metallic and had a slight green shimmer to it. It was a bitch to weed though. I labored for hours over this motive. And it kind of frays a little... I think that is what I'm most unhappy with in this project. Everything else went really well.

But finally! It was finished and I could send it the long way to Nagisachan (It was also quite close to the deadline :DD My time management is really bad.)

This post is already really long, but I want to show off some end results, sooo:

OH! I ALSO decided to put protections on the edges! This was a new thing as well 😅

At last:

Binding Details Body Text: Garamond, 11.5 Half Title/Chapter Heading: Auld Magick, 48 Full Title: elemental, 28 Word Count: 56.333 Pages: 194 Paper: publishing paper A4, 80g, 1,5x volume (from my friendly neighbourhood printer)

[autisticmysticsarah]

The legend of King Arthur predates thinking

[weaselle]

that would explain some of the actions of the court

[kaijuno]

[nothingweirdhere]

when they get shaved the new fur grows in darker than it would normally be cuz they’re colder in that area!

[digitaldiscipline]

you can (slowly) toast a siamese cat with a razor

[threeture]

Gradient creature who regrew the wrong color!!!

[seananmcguire]

Our bathroom sink had a drip. This wasn't an issue until my mother's Ragdoll spent so much time sitting in the sink getting dripped on that he developed a single dark spot exactly where the water fell.

[kedreeva]

same gene for mice! *waves excitedly*

And since it's the same gene, when mice get very old, they start mismolting into strange patterns where their fur thins during molts!

[thecollectibles]

Art by Romain MAZEVET

[thecollectibles]

The Collectibles: Best of 2024

[justcatposts]

She must be thinking about bills, education, food

(Source)

[brucesterling]

[rubyjones]

Create your own book cover - without generative 'AI' | Ruby Jones

Get more from Ruby Jones on Patreon

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[rhube]

I annoyed my cat by writing this and not playing with her; you might find it useful?

[copperbadge]

This is a fantastic guide not only to the technical aspect of cover design but the aesthetic aspect as well!

[naamahdarling]

This is GREAT STUFF. Highly recommend! Exactly the techniques I have used on covers in the past, and they look great!

[viktor-sbor]

Studies show that babies are not afraid of snakes

Scientists launched reptiles into the nursery to assess the reaction of the kids. The result killed: the crumbs perceived the reptiles as toys, and some tried to eat them

[dogsuffrage]

A snippet from this study:

I find this interesting, it really counters the unfounded but popular notion that fear of certain animals is evolutionary and intrinsic within our DNA.

[bogleech]

It's always been a no brainer that we wouldn't have an instinctive fear of snakes or spiders, because not enough of them are actually dangerous. Spiders especially; there are NO "one bite and you die" spiders. There are "get bit and feel absolutely terrible" spiders but bites are still rare.

If you believe we should have collective trauma from dealing with a few venomous creatures when we were "more wild" (not really a thing) thousands of years ago, then we should have much more prevalent phobias for dogs, bears, toxic plant life, water, honeybees and various other deadlier things.

Honeybees in particular kill more people than wasps (including hornets) yet the latter are much more feared. That alone should be proof enough that animal fears are purely cultural conditioning.

I'm SO glad people are debunking that stupid ass claim from years ago that these phobias are natural in babies. That study only concluded that babies pay strong attention to spiders and snakes, not that they were afraid. As newer studies (like this one) keep showing, it's simply that we are naturally curious about novel shape and motion.

[feluka]

cats being capable of understanding accidents and even giving you a little head bonk to let you know you're still cool makes it infinitely funnier that they don't understand when you're trying to help them

cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

cats when you try to get their claws unstuck from the couch covering: this nefarious bitch has never had a single honorable intention in their dishonest and shameful life, this must be one of their sinister plots or perhaps even an attempt on my life,

[ur-daily-inspiration]

OMG LOOK AT IT

[truthsinwhispers]

@noxsylvania

[aplpaca]

This is a Green Ant Hunter (Cosmophasis bitaeniata), a type of jumping spider found around Indonesia and Australia! They actually are that metallic!

Their exoskeletons contain similar hydrocarbons to those of the Green Tree Ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), and the ants seem to treat the spiders like members of their colony, which the spiders take advantage of to sneak in and eat their larvae

[birdiebinds]

Finally done! I loved @thebinarybookbinder box set of the Avatar The Last Airbender transcripts and was inspired to make a version of my own! (go check theirs out its got the sun and the moon spirits on the spine!! 🙌)

Typesetting this was a beast! Every scene break a little Appa flies you to the next scene and I alternated directions like a crazy person 😂. Each episode has its own chapter cover featuring the nation's colors and symbols. The Avatar font is Herculanum for those interested, and I got the transcripts from the Avatar Fandom Wiki.

Painted edges with some Basic acrylic paints I had in the closet. And my first slip case! I love the lining! It's from @hollanders.book.and.paper.arts and went perfect with the orange (air nation) bookcloth. I also used @ibookbinding corner magnetic clamps when assembling and it came together so well!

Finally the Gaang's all here! Each book gets a character on the back, with Appa on the spine! First time putting a design across multiple books and I did not enjoy it! I tried applying then cutting, thinking it would help align better, which it did... But then cutting them apart was not easy. A good learning experience.

Overall I'm really happy with how this turned out! It was my largest project to date and makes me want to do Korra next!

Materials: ☑️ Hollanders bookcloth ☑️ @church_paper short grain 24/60 on warm white ☑️ Vinylfrog mettalics in gold and blue ☑️ Endpapers from Amazon

Pretty much all the design/character elements are from the show, but I grabbed the corners from Canva.