I'm 'over the moon' and lost in joy with these beauties! All my praise and every compliment is due to @jaybinds for the masterful work on both these bindings. It's such a blessing to be able to hold in my hands the physical culmination of my silly fanfiction work. I've gotten distracted from making this post not once, not twice, but three times because I flipped open and started rereading parts then lost track of time.
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This is a last resort does anyone have a copy of a phantom of the opera fanfic. The Last First Kiss by Wandering Child. It’s a fanfic that Christine takes the phantom’s spot and she is reborn with scars on her face. And one of the muses I forgot who is her she likes to drink. I have scoured Reddit and the wayback machine for any since nothing. All I have found is an Italian version of it and I’m looking for English. So if anyone could please DM me plz I would appreciate it a lot.
This has been a work of love. This is Under The Rabbit’s Moon by @vesperlionheart. A lovely Sakura/Founders fic and Sakura is kinda a Goddess reborn from Kaguya. It has been a work of love my very first project was for Vesperchan. And I will continue to make as many of her fics as I can. I was really inspired to make an Art Nouveau style bind since I was inspired by the Great Gaspby recently so I decided to incorporate it in this bind. I’ll be sending this out soon and Vesperchan I thank you again for all your lovely writing and please continue to do what you do. I’ve been a fan for many years and I don’t have the words to explain the joy you have brought me. I hope these will show just a little of my appreciation.
Very pleased with how this turned out! Tarnished Gold by @primtheamazing is a fave reread of mine, and i have been wanting to give it physical form on my shelf for a while! I tried some new things with layers on the covers, and leather with faux endbands on the spine, with stenciled leather paint. I also tried leaving the edges untrimmed and speckling them, and it worked out really well!
I jacked up the stencils on the covers MULTIPLE times, but I kept redoing them until they were, if not perfect, at least better than round 1 (and 2, and 3....)
I am really happy with how this came out! This is my first rounded spine book, and the spine decorations really please me. Excellend addition to my fic shelf :)
These are coming out quiet nicely. This is Under the Rabbit’s moon by @vesperlionheart I am almost done casing it. It does have a few flaws but it’s still readable. Also a look at the dust jacket cover I hope she likes it and I’ll be sending it down soon.
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I love Howl’s Moving Castle so much, so imagine my shock and joy when I stumbled upon this lovely, beautifully written, Wolfstar AU 🥹 It was such a great read that I am actively campaigning friends who have never seen a Ghibli film in their lives to watch Howls so they can read this 🤣♥️
The beautiful art used on the cover is by @moonstainn , thank you again for letting me use your work!
Here is a look at Under The Rabbit’s Moon by Vesperchan @vesperlionheart typeset. A lovely fic about Sakura and the founders and Sakura is maybe a god….. kinda. I wanted a kinda an art nouveau style I’ve watched Gatsby recently and was inspired. I’ve done the text block so far and currently working on the cover. Stay tuned for the book on a future post.
What people think why i became a bookbinder: Oh she wants to explore her artistic horizon with those pretty leather bound books of hers. She even gives them out as gifts to her friends. It most likely helps her with anxiety or maybe she just wanted a more special costume made notebook.
Why I actually became a bookbinder: I just illegally downloaded and printed out several of my favourite fanfics and books and started binding them into books cuz I love reading them but looking at screens for too long gives me headaches.
It takes your pdf and arranges the pages based on paper size and how many leaves you’re using per signature, etc. so you don’t have to figure out how to arrange them so that the signatures come out in a useful fashion.
If you wanna bind books, fanfiction or otherwise….. SeaLemon is an okay starting point if you want to try bookbinding with stuff you already have around the house. She’s accessible, makes a really good video, and she’s very soothing to watch.
but she does things SO WEIRDLY sometimes. and so much of her work is an arts-and-crafts-camp feel.
Like… don’t…. don’t use dental floss. Just don’t. Embroidery floss (or whatever “cotton craft thread” she’s got lately) will work as long as you understand that the project is not going to be particularly sturdy long-term. (by long-term I mean generations. waxed linen is what bookbinders have used for centuries because it… holds up for centuries)
Same with using glue sticks- they’ll work in the short term but the book will not hold up to being battered around in your backpack.
paper grain direction is actually important if you want your book to stay flat. depending on paper size and your printer you may not have a choice, but if the pages are bunchy and weird after pressing, that’s probably why.
you really can fold the entire signature at the same time! Really! I promise, you don’t have to fold each individual sheet and then stack them! I have literally never done that, because it’s 5 times the work! I have no idea why she does that!
the one time I saw her do a corner in vinyl I was internally screaming. Mushing it down until it mostly sticks is shoddy work. miter it and make it tidy.
I haven’t watched any of hers in over a year, so I may well be missing quite a bit, but there ya go. For others to check out, uhhh. I don’t really have any to recommend personally, since I don’t watch terribly many. I haven’t tried to learn a new style in quite some time and when I do, I don’t go to videos. give me written instructions that I can peruse and re-read 16 times without having to pause and restart and pause and restart and pause and restart. I’m old and hate having to do that.
HOWEVER. Tae over at @buildingbooks strongly recommends Sage Reynolds and MHR. Tae does some absolutely gorgeous work herself, so I rather trust the recommendation.
What people don't tell u about typesetting fanfic is that there is a 50/50 chance that instead of typesetting u just end up reading the fanfic again and make zero progress on the typesetting
Another beautiful exchange with @TPSbinery on TikTok she is a dear friend and we did a yearly exchange she did the second book of The Lioness Rampant sires by Tamora Pierce In the Hands of the Goddess. As well as a surprise gift of Reckoner by QOTSA a Cato/Katnis fic that I love dearly. I was sobbing because I saw this book. And I will forever be thankful 😭.
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With over 20 years in fandom, I dedicate myself to binding the stories I like: with more passion than talent 😂. I also reblog the work of others as a way of celebrating fandom and these beautiful works of fan art that are bound fan fiction. For other ficbinders' work, I always use the same hashtag so that they can be found easily: "Fantastic ficbinders and where to find them"
"The flame cast strange shadows on his face and made the Dark Mark dance on his pale skin. It had been ten years since he’d last seen Draco Malfoy."
It's hard to believe that I started working on the typeset for this bind in October of last year. Nearly eleven months later, I have finally managed to bring my vision to life.
This bind has a foiled cover and spine, hand sewn silk endbands, and edges that have been painted and gauffered. It also includes my first attempt at a hollow.
You can find more pictures and information about my process under the cut.
***this fic is an unfinished WIP on Ao3***
For the cover and spine, I recreated Albert Angus Turbayne's design for the Macmillan Peacock Series (1896).
Macmillan reused this cover for multiple titles over the course of several years. From what I can tell, it was initially created for the works of Thomas Love Peacock. If you look at the left corner by the edge of the peacock's tail feather, you can see Turbayne's unique signature.
Choosing this cover locked me into an 1890s Art Nouveau theme for the typeset, and I spent a considerable amount of time tracking down potential chapter headers that harmonized visually.
Peacocks are a distinctive motif in this fic, and I tried to choose images that matched the individual tones of each act. I represented Harry's presence with warm browns, yellows, and oranges, and Edwin Selwyn's with imposing blues and blacks.
A full list of the artists used in my typeset can be found at the bottom of this post.
Predictably, everything that could go wrong with this bind did go wrong. I botched the rounding and backing on my first textblock, and had to reprint it. It also took me a long time to find endpapers that could play nicely with the yellows, blues, and browns. Luckily, Jemma Lewis had exactly what I needed!
I had never sanded or painted the edges of a book before, so I spent several weeks practicing on scrap textblocks while I waited for my brass tool to arrive. None of this would have been possible without the incredible tutorials made by @copticcowgirl and @duran-binding. Their guidance (along with @pleasantboatpress!) helped me figure out a method that worked for me. Duran Binding even sent me some pages about gauffering from a book she had!
Unfortunately, I lost my goddamn mind when I started trying to figure out the gauffering.
There aren't any comprehensive gauffering tutorials online, and the information about it is scant. I had to piece together my method from stray book pages, stalked instagram comments, and weeks upon weeks of trial and error. Heating the tool correctly was far more difficult than I anticipated, and I didn't have a proper finishing stove, so I just stuck it in the flame of my gas stove (thanks to @pleasantboatpress for the heating advice!). Even more difficult was figuring out the correct amount of pressure to put down without burning my foil or edges. Pictured above is the cardstock grid I made to ensure my lines were even.
I also couldn't fit my textblock in my guillotine, so it took me roughly 5 hours of sanding per edge to get the mirror finish I needed. I didn't want to give myself carpal tunnel, so I limited myself to 1-2 hours of sanding per day. Each edge took me a full week to complete. In total, my edge decoration journey took me about three months.
So please, LOOK AT THEM! LOOK! MY BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS!
DOES MY AGONY PLEASE YOU?
I was also too chickenshit to try gauffering on my good textblock without testing, so I also finished two edges on my reject. I also tested my endbands on it. I will probably finish it when I'm feeling less raw.
Unfortunately, gauffering was only the beginning of my suffering. The file for the cover was a challenge to create and adapt. I knew that it was a bit of a pipe dream, and I knew that it would be hard on my machine. I usually do a series of cardstock tests while refining my files before I commit to bookcloth. It proved to be too much for my Cameo 4, and it started gouging my foil and paper after completing a few runs of the cover.
After two weeks of troubleshooting and emailing support, I accepted that my Cameo 4 was dead. Queue a month of depression, and some of the greatest frustration I've ever experienced with a project. I eventually sucked it up and bought a Cameo 5, and had to do extensive testing to figure out the best settings for their native heat pen system.
These are the vast majority of my cover tests (most of them are double sided). Foiling the cover took 12.5 nail biting hours, but my Cameo 5 finally pulled through! Hooray! I love you Cameo 5! Please don't die on me! There was one odd area that refused to foil, so I cracked open my old WRMK pen and filled it in by hand. Pro tip: separate every design element in as many layers as possible so you can double up on foil and redo problem areas easily.
After this, everything began to move along quite quickly.
@copticcowgirl convinced me to put a hollow on my book, and sent me some absolutely incredible notes and videos to help me along! She was also incredibly gracious when I barged into her DMs wailing about millimeter and half millimeter increments, and gently guided me towards the finish line. So much of this bind would not have been possible without her!
Mummifying the hollow was my favorite part, and I really do believe that it helps my book open beautifully. After that, it was a small matter of casing in, and I was free from my seemingly eternal torment!
I would also like to extend my thanks to @tsurashi-bindery, who has been by my side every step of the way. She is the world's best tie breaker, and she patted me on the back every time I told her that I was really, truly, totally going to quit binding for real this time. Her aesthetic sense is fantastic, and she spent hours helping me pick, edit, and arrange my photos. Thank you for being my cheerleader. <3
I also genuinely appreciate everyone that reached out to me on Insta and Discord while I was posting WIPs- your encouragement truly kept me going!
I will likely be posting a gauffering video at some point when I have the time. I don't currently have any plans to share the typeset unless the fic is completed, but you're welcome to DM me.
If you've read this far you're a superstar! This fic is incredibly close to my heart, and I'm relieved that I was able to properly express how I feel about it through this bind. Here's hoping my next project is a bit shorter!
Art credits:
Cover: Macmillan Peacock Series, Albert Angus Turbayne (1896)
Title: Untitled book plate, Alfred Petrasch (1857-1910)
Act I title: Macmillan’s Illustrated Standard Novels, Albert Turbayne (1896)
Act I chapter: Cigales et lis, paons et cytise, bordures, M. P. Verneuil (1897)
Act II title: Charles Scribner’s Sons the Modern Poster, Will H. Bradley (1895)
Act II chapter: Kunst en Samenleving, G.W. Dijsselhof (1893)
Act III title: Bradley, His Book, Will H. Bradley (1896)
Act III chapter: Poissons et algues, coq, écoinçon; paons et vigne; lièvres, chiens et ronces, bordure, M. P. Verneuil (1897)
Dinkus: Fonderie Typographique Française: Caractères et vignettes bois (1922)
Act ender: Combinaisons ornementales, M. P. Verneuil (1901)
I have been working on a rather big bind and I thought another tutorial would be needed. I have cried and burnt myself for this bind and I am more stubborn than a pig so here ya go.
This is a postcanon xiyao fic in which Lan Xichen escapes to Dongying with a grievously injured and amnesiac Jin Guangyao. Someone, or something, is following them.
At just over 100k this is the longest fic I've bound so far! It's also my first time doing lettering on the spine. It's technically a simpler design than my previous ficbinding projects but I did still have to be a little extra in the end; I couldn't find any paper I liked for the black accent stripe so I took some plain black paper and added the gold splatters myself.
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Multi billion dollar corporations: We make crap AI ads because we rather hang themselves than pay an extra cent for a quality work.
Midsize art supply manufacturer: We commissioned a watercolor artist to make an illustration for every color of our watercolor palette and make it into an art book with swatches.
(Ekaterina Goland for "Old master" watercolors by Gamma)
Now this is the kind of thing I am here for. I'm generally not a fan of "people being good at things on the internet", mostly when it's presented in that tiktok/asmr/perfectionism style.
But this? This is someone showing you their craft in a normal way where you can clearly see they're an expert. The book binding is fascinating to see and the watercolours are mind-blowing! Absolutely stunning work 🤩! I'd love to leaf through that book...
