I finally slapped together a tutorial on my process for making inlays with my Silhouette Cameo 4! For higher quality you can visit my Instagram.
This is of course not applicable to all designs; if you have a design that goes across the spine and back cover, you will likely want to forego the transfer tape and attach your design to a piece of paper instead.
It should be noted that I am an amateur, and this is simply the method that works best for me personally.
still working on my binding of An Elegant Mechanism by @laughsalot3412
i'm finally getting somewhere and i'm really happy to see it coming together and i hate that it's almost 11pm now and i'll have to get up early tomorrow. but i'm done with the typesetting, it's printed and folded and now i'm doing the endpapers and it's making me feel really giddy.
Ficbinding: Dann geht die Einsamkeit mit den Flüssen
Eine meiner absoluten Lieblings-Fics, geschrieben von @tiny-steve, bei der ich gerne so viele Sätze und Formulierungen unterstreichen und mit Ausrufezeichen versehen möchte und in der sich Leo und Adam durch das wilde Berlin der 1920er Jahre bewegen, als würden sie dorthin gehören.
152 Seiten gedruckt auf 90 gr Werkdruckpapier mit 1,3 fachem Volumen, Einband mit blau-silber-violettem Handmarmorpapier überzogen, silbernes Kapital- und Leseband. Vorsatzpapier aus einem Berlinstadtplan von 1928. Heißfolien-Rückenprägung in Silber.
Verwendete Schriften: Federo (Text) und Kaikoura (Titel, Überschriften und Initialen), Helvetica (Prägung)
Danke @tiny-steve, dass ich deine Fic in dieses Projekt umsetzen durfte!
They say there’s a joke that bookbinding is “1,000 hobbies in a trench coat”—an endless array of physical crafts and skills, discreetly packed away in a tidy object. “People want to create things—and those things can be digital,” Tiffo says. “But in such a digitized world, it’s really nice to pick it up and hold it in your hand and say, ‘I made this.’”
As many people know this week has been really fucking difficult for me. So when I got home today and saw a package waiting for me, I was so pleasantly surprised.
So @kydrogendragon, my wonderful, amazing, dear friend made a whole ass fucking binding of my fic, Swim For Brighter Days!!! Just look at that beautiful cover, as well as the back with the summary!!!
AND... AND!!! Look at the package it came in!
So, in the fic, Hob ends up getting really into Archeology. So much so that he ends up being one of the first people in London to publish journals about the proper ways to preserve and respect ancient archeological sites. SO Ky fashioned a whole package that looked like a draft of a research paper!!
AND... the stamps on the corner... Those are lil Easter eggs from the fic itself! I am crying!!!
THEY ACTUALLY INCLUDED ARCHEOLOGICAL NOTES AND COMMENTARY FROM SITES! LIKE THE DETAIL THAT WENT INTO THIS GIFT HAD ME IN LITERAL TEARS!
LOOK AT THIS COVER PAGE!! The olive branches on the header signifying Calliope, and the poppies on the footer signifying Dream. It's so beautiful!!
Again, the amount of thought and detail that went into this bind. Adding little commentary in pen (Hob's writing) that acts as a look into what the chapter will be about (1816 - Hob meets Calliope through George Byron). Adding the wine glass stain in 1899 because Hob had spent the evening drinking.
And then... 2022... the scorch marks. I won't spoil what happens in that chapter. You guys can read the fic or take a wild guess based on the context.
Also, GUYS! Look at the Publishing House! How it goes from White Horse Science to New Inn Science! Ky... KY!!! The fucking brilliance of your project. I am just overwhelmed with happiness.
The final chapter which includes Dream's and Calliope's messages to Hob!
I also wanted to point out the dividers throughout the book. They're a combination of Dream's poppy and Calliope's olive branches. I was screaming in delight and happiness.
Also look at the sweet lil poppy at the end. I love it!
The back of the Research Packet! Including sweet sticky notes of encouragement from Hob's lovers, Dream and Calliope. I just... I am so soft right now.
The best part of all this? The fic was written as a gift FOR Ky! It was a fic I'd written for the Sadman Server Spring Exchange. Now it has been given back to me in a beautiful meaningful bound with little nods to the fic itself.
Thank you so much, Ky, from the bottom of my heart. This gift means so much to me.
Finally able to reveal my @sterekcollabang work (the ao3 collection is available here). I did the binding for @artaxlivs FernGully x Sterek fic UNLESS.
Thanks to the organizers and admins of the Sterek Collabang (I'm just tagging everyone!) @thotpuppy and @definitivelydrivel and @okdeannawrites. If I missed anyone, that is very on brand for me.
If you want to look at the materials for this binding, you can keep reading.
The cover is Kraft-Tex (paper fabric made from paper pulp and synthetic latex), and glass beads sewn on using polyester and cotton threads. Pamphlet stitch with waxed linen thread. The title and author is just gold foiling with a hot pen. The endpapers are just a lotka art paper with red and gold mushrooms (purchased at my local art store). The paper is an ivory colored short grain 20lbs text weight that I can't remember who manufactured.
There's more to say but eh. Tired. Take that hurricane Beryl!
Here are a few delightful wood engravings from a recent gift showing the various processes that go into binding a book. This little pamphlet is entitled A Short History of Bookbinding and a Glossary of Styles and Terms Used in Binding … .printed in London at the Chiswick Press for the bookbinder Joseph William Zaehnsdorf in 1895.These images were probably printed from metal plates that were made from the original wood engravings. The engravings are not attributed, as was the case for most commercial engravings.
Click or tap on the images to see the definitions for these activities as provided in the booklet’s glossary.
I might be considering buying a new color laser printer.
I tried printing from different document-sources and on both an ink printer (color) and a laser printer (b/w). And I gotta say, I'd really like to try color for this bind, but I am really not satisfied with the ink printer quality compared to the crisp printing of a laser printer.
I might be considering buying a new color laser printer.
I tried printing from different document-sources and on both an ink printer (color) and a laser printer (b/w). And I gotta say, I'd really like to try color for this bind, but I am really not satisfied with the ink printer quality compared to the crisp printing of a laser printer.
One of two books for a charity raffle winner, this is a postcanon xiyao fic with a ... happy? ending (listen, it really is a happy ending!). I wanted this to be elegant & ornate, but not overly decorated. I borrowed the style of chapter headings (the number and an ornament to the side) from Catwings--although the ornament is different, I loved that design the moment I saw it and have always wanted to find a book to use it for.
The frame on the cover and the endpapers are chiyogami paper I was able to get at my local craft store--it's not my first time using crane chiyogami paper on a xiyao fic, somehow it just fits. Some experimentation with negative space on the cover.
The title and body of the fic are set in Walleye, and the initials are Floral Capitals. The ornaments are from the "Vintage Decorative Signs" series of fonts.
I'm typesetting this amazing fic (An Elegant Mechanism by @laughsalot3412) at the moment and I'm using a (to me) new program (affinity publisher). And seriously, I just love typesetting. I get to read the story again and again and I get to try out different things with the presentation of the text.
It really is a lot of fun for me, even though I still don't know how I want to do the whole texting thing. There are several text messages exchanged back and forth and I keep wanting to change the format for them because I'm just not satisfied.
This is what it currently looks like.
Hm.
Not really sure about this, yet. I'll probably end up changing the look of the messages another 23 times before I actually settle on something I like.
Hey guys what's up I learned bookbinding to make @cindthia a physical copy of Synchronized Cardioversion for our anniversary :3
Pics and process documentation below!
I used the following resources:
How to Make a Book by ArmoredSuperHeavy
Bookbinding Resources Master List by Renegade Bindery
r/Fanbinding
the fanbinding tag on AO3 - shoutout to r3zuri's fanbinding of a FFVII fic for their extremely informative cliff's notes version of the process
the Intro to Hand Bookbinding class at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, an incredible resource for anyone in or near Minneapolis interested in learning how to bind their own books.
First, I typeset the fanfic. I did this by downloading it from AO3, trying to figure it out myself, checking How to Make a Book for help with a problem I was having, and realizing that I should have just used it from the beginning in the first place. I used Microsoft Word 2013.
Fonts: Palatino Linotype, Helvetica (for the characters' text messages), Beatline (for titles)
Margins: .88" top, 1" bottom, .75" inside, .75" outside, .25" gutter
Front matter:
- Title page with only the title
- "Praise for Synchronized Cardioversion" with comments from the fic
- Title page with title, author name, and a colophon I made
- Copyright page with fic copyright, fic URL, TLT series copyright, disclaimer, AO3 fic summary, first chapter author's notes, copyright for in-text art, book design credit, font info
Back matter:
- Acknowledgments (from the fic)
- "Also by CindFourth" with all their TLT fic separated into Synchronized Cardioversion Extended Universe (might make another book of this at some point); Other Camgideon, Campal, and Team 69; and Other Locked Tomb
I set the page layout to "book fold" with 16-page signatures. As for the art, one of Cind's requests in last year's TLT Holiday Exchange was for art of this fic and they got not only a fantastic one-page comic from their assigned creator, our friend @anaeolist (who also did a sketch of Cam and Gideon kissing - we'll come back to that later), but also a lovely piece as a treat from our friend @kat-hikari. I got permission from both artists to include their work in the book.
The finished file was 408 pages, so I added four blank pages (two sheets) to the beginning and the end to make 26 signatures even.
Next, I printed the pages. I used my Brother DCP-L2550DW and Hammermill 11x8.5 24/60 lb. cream bookbinding paper from Church Paper. I'd read that sometimes using short-grain paper in a regular printer could cause it to jam, but it went fine. The cream color made the pages look so professional.
I folded the pages into signatures and then pressed them overnight. Since I don't have a book press, I sandwiched them between two sheets of bookboard and put a heavy box on top, and that worked well.
The next step, punching holes and sewing, was my favorite. I'd made a punching cradle using instructions I got in my bookbinding class. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and it only used bookboard and PVA glue, so I didn't even need to buy anything I hadn't already bought for the project.
I used three pieces of tape and sewed them on using a kettle stitch.
Then I went to MCBA to use their guillotine on the text block and their board shear to cut boards for the cover.
I chose orange cardstock for the endpaper, and because I am a novice making novice mistakes I unfortunately forgot to get a size of cardstock that would let me fold it on the grain, but anyway. I trimmed it to the exact size of the pages and glued it to the text block. Next I glued the spine of the text block, rounded it a bit (not the way an expert would; you learn that in Intermediate Hand Bookbinding), added a strip of super mull and headbands at either end, and sat it under a weight to dry while I made the cover.
The Bristol board I cut for the spine was probably 1/8" too wide, which makes a bigger difference than you would think. Next time I'm going to err on the side of slightly too narrow when I'm already giving myself three board widths of a buffer on either side.
Aside from that, the cover turned out great! I could have done a better job lining up the endpaper when I glued it in, but that's the kind of thing you practice I guess.
I love the way the navy blue bookcloth looks with the cream paper, the orange endpaper, and the red and white headbands.
Now that I had the exact dimensions of the book, I could finally design the dust jacket. Remember that sketch of Cam and Gideon kissing that anaeolist did for the holiday exchange? I commissioned them to turn it into a finished piece for the cover, and boy did they ever deliver. I also asked some of our other friends who had read the fic to give me blurbs for the back cover, and they delivered too. Cind's and my relationship wouldn't have been possible without the wonderful community we met in and I wanted this gift to reflect that.
I created the jacket in GIMP at a print resolution of 300ppi and saved it as a pdf. The final step was to get it printed, which I was nervous about because it was the only part of the process that I had no control over at all. Long story short, I ended up with something I was very happy with done by a small chain print shop where I had to go in and talk to a human about what I needed.
