Booktice

Watch as a self taught bookbinder learns the dos and don’ts the hard way. Through failure.

[booktice]

It. Is. Done! It’s not the most Alice in wonderland themed due to the fact I didn’t have any paper themed like that. But I did what I could and I think it looks great!

It has five bands for five signatures. One graph, one bullet, one blank, one pocket, one cardboard folder. It has a tiny blackboard on the front cover. Several pockets and folders throughout. Playing cards for marking tabs. A little sticky note pad in the front inside cover. And yes, that is a tiny mirror in the back. All bound travel journal style so the signatures are replaceable.

Why is it so complex you may ask? Joanns was having a sale and I have a problem! Also, bought WAY more playing card packs than I needed. I’ll have to figure out how to use those for something else.

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The lighting isn’t the best, but here is my first attempt at a receipt book. It’s made 7 signatures with 2 pockets each. A signature of blank graph paper in the back. And the covers open to reveal additional pockets and envelopes. The binding style allows for moving the signatures around so you can keep track of what’s on each pocket. For a first draft, I’m rather proud of it. Might add a button clasp or something to help keep the papers in.

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My creation lives! And it’s not a complete abomination or failure!

I did do a little research about what glue works best for leather and paper. One of the best being standard school Elmer’s glue. Which was surprising, but upon testing, turns out is pretty accurate. The bond was way stronger than I thought it would be.

The hardest part thought was straining the elastic string through the leather. Even with the holes pre punched, it was a pain. The leather kept closing around the holes. As of healing. Had to keep stabbing it. But I managed eventually.

The complete journal has five bands so it can hold five signatures. They have to be a few pages thick or the bands will crush the paper. But for being a first draft, that’s not that big of a problem.

This could be a good travel journal, DND journal, or other things I can’t think of right now.

[booktice]

I’m about to turn into Dr Frankenstein. I want to make a leather bound, saddle stitch journal like the one on the upper right. But only 2 of the leather scraps are big enough to make a full leather journal. I wouldn’t be able to make more. So I’m going to try combine paper and leather journal making. If you here maniacal laughter and thunder in the distance, that’s probably me.

[booktice]

Welp. I forgot a few key important facts when hardcover binding.

As can be seen from the pictures my dumbass forgot that when making the spin we cover, YOU NEED OVERLAP!!

My OCD brain decides when I was making the cover to make everything perfectly aligned. “It’s so perfect the way these pieces fit together. I’m feelin go pretty good about this.”

I go to glue it to the boards and realizes my mistake. There wasn’t enough overlap on the bottom that I couldn’t even get the cover over the sides of the board. Time to get out the first aid kit I’ve got a lot of bandaid fixes to perform.

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Been a while since I made a hardcover journal. Gonna give it another go. It’s going to be an earth tone notebook.

Hope I don’t forget any important steps.

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Latest journal. Finished it a while ago but just never got around to posting. It has gold grommets on the covers and gold corner protectors. Pages are lined on one side and blank on the other. The side is trimmed but not the top and bottom. I learned my lesson last time about trimming the top and bottom of a Coptic stitched notebook. RIP covers of that one journal.

This one looks good enough I might actually put it on my Etsy page. Yay! Progress. At least from a few months ago.

[booktice]

My first try at saddle stitching. Went pretty well. Used random paper I had lying around thus the strange colors. Now I can try making those little saddle stitch journals you can get at stores.

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It was a journey, but I have at last finished the beta build of my world building journal. There have been mistakes, errors, and casualties on this journey. But it’s finally done.

I learned that this cover paper type does not lend itself well to the covered spine technique. Learned that using a hole punch instead of just punching a hole through the cover looks better with the grommets. Learned that if I wanna do spine art, I might have to use a different technique and/or better glue. Learned either my paper or printer ends up showing what’s printed on the other side. Learned that Coptic stitching and paper cutters don’t get along. RIP original cover and storyboard layouts.

In the end this journal looks like crap, but such is the learning process. I’ll just add another journal to my hoard. It’s fine.

[booktice]

The first round of customizable inserts that I want to implement onto my store. We have a character height chart, full page of storyboard, comic panel layouts, standard lines paper, and graph paper. Also dotted paper but it’s not pictured here.

Other ideas I have are a signature with alternating standard blank paper with tracing paper between. It can be used for costume design, character design, blueprints, and anything else where someone would need to have a base image and make changes on tracing paper. I’d take a picture of it but tracing paper doesn’t show up nice on a phone camera.

[booktice]

I’ve decided on the covers for the bullet journal signatures. Going with an exposed spine. But I’m still deciding if I want to add metal corners to the covers for protection. I haven’t added metal corners to paper before.

Well, I did once but that was back when I was using random pieces of cardboard for hardcover books. Not sure how much of do a sin that is in the bookbinding world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was unforgivable.

Anyway! I’m going to run some trials on the correct material and see how it turns out.

[booktice]

100 pages of bullet journal layouts printed out of a less than willing printer. Now I just need to figure out what kind of cover to put it in. Hard cover or paperback? What kind of material if hardcover? What kind of stitch of paperback? So many choices so little mental strength left to contemplate then all.

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Adding a flower to a dumpster fire. Or in this case, headbands to this gutted journals remains.

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Tried a new stitch for a hardcover binding. It went horrible wrong so I had to gut the whole thing. There may or may not have been a few tears.