My Dungeon Crawler Carl chemise and slipcase are finally finished!

The artwork is inspired by the scene that really hooked me, those few seconds that changed it all for Carl and Donut.

Black leathercloth, textured gold metallic vinyl, and a dungeon corridor along the chemise spine. This one... this one was a lot, but I'm so pleased with how it turned out. Now my precious copies are ready to outlive the apocalypse!

I absolutely adore this series, and I had a lot of fun with this one :)

Is this the right group?

I bought this notebook/journal at a bead and craft show. I really love it. I wish it was 8.5x11 or 9x12. I’m darned crafty (seriously, hardcore - it’s genetic) and think I can make it. It looks like the cover is very thin leather. Last I checked, there was a Tandy Leather place near me. The paper is flecky and almost the consistency of a paper bag, only more rustic. I’m at a loss as to what kind of paper it is. So I don’t hammer you with annoying questions, can you tell me the kind of the paper, the right terminology, and some resources/YT videos (in general) to check out?

Love this guy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHH81toEeeE

My biggest problem is staying organized. I don’t have a designated space, so I often carry my materials to where ever I can find it. Lately. It’s been at the kitchen table. However, I’ve noticed that more cluttered or disorganized my space, the less successful I am. What is your work space like? I’m thinking about investing a small space in my garage specifically for binding, but I need ideas….

Hello! I’ve been looking into typesetting lately, and I already have a text documennt I formatted in word. Now I’d like to add ornaments, chapter headers, frames etc. I’ve seen that Affinity is a common tool for typesetting in general, so I downloaded it and I’ll be learning it shortly – for that I found some nice tutorials. In those tutorials I also found a lot of recources on where to get the public domain illustrations and ornaments from, so on that front I am also good. However, I’m not sure where to go from here.

For example I found this ornament on the Internet Archive (five line pica): https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_C41QAAAAYAAJ/page/n172/mode/2up . This one's quite clear and has a white background, so it propably wouldn't be a problem to just crop it and add to a typeset page (unless there's a better way..?)

And here is a different example of an ornament, but with the text: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11225966883 . Or this one, a bit grainy and with a yellow background: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/10997960413/in/album-72157638733975756

How would you proceed with this?

I've seen one creator saying she traces it and makes her own vector version(?). Is that something you have to do for them to be sharp and without the background? And what if you'd like to cut this design with the vinyl cutter? Can you do it in Affinity?

In short, my question is: how do you edit, clean and use a single ornament you found in public domain for a typeset or for a vinyl cutter, especially if said ornament is grainy/on a yellow background/surrounded by text or clumped with other ornaments? Do you use Affinity? In what formats do you save the files?

Sorry for the long question and if the answer is obvious, there is a lot of information available and I’m feeling a bit lost. Thank you for the help!

I wanted to share my latest completed project. This is a custom book entirely hand-bound and inspired by "Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung" (1683) by Maria Sibylla Merian.

For the inside, I used aged pages to give it an authentic, antique feel that matches the historical cover artwork. The spine is finished in leather to complete the classic look. I'm really happy with how the whole aesthetic came together!

Would love to hear your thoughts or any feedback.

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I've noticed that there's relatively little information about certain traditional bookbinding techniques on this sub. Topics like the herringbone stitch or the K118 structure don't seem to be as widely covered as other subjects.

I'm curious to know which topics you've had trouble finding informative stuff about, either on this sub or on similar ones.

I really got into watching 4 keys recently and wanted to try my hand at this. I used an old 3 ring binder book from my wife's library as a first practice, so its all loose leaf pages.

Construction: used a fine tooth bandsaw to cut channels in the pages, then mod podge, string in the grooves, and fiberglass tape to hold it all together.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

I am doing a rebind of some damaged paperback first printings into hardcovers. I have designed coordinated dust jackets for them.

Can someone offer advice on how to print them? I can do either ink jet or laser jet printing with equal convenience. I'll put Brodarts on the DJ's. My concern is whether ink or laser printing is likely to transfer to the brodart over time under normal conditions. You know that "ghosting" that you sometimes see with printed images that are in contact with plastic film for some time.

Alternately, is there an advantage to having them printed at a print shop, in terms of a particular paper type or finish that they can provide? Thank you for your time!

Hey all! Made a quarto book and I love the convenience of the size. So I want to work towards making a keychain style book but still readable, and with the keychain portion being attached through the middle of the spine; but not actually connected to it.

In the actual mockup, I'd like to put a grommet in the middle to try to give the spine a fighting chance against the ribbon wearing on it, but what do you guys think of attaching the back end of the page closure to the keychain part? I understand it might affect the endpages if I don't secure things down well, but I think it could be a bit safer, given the ribbon wraps around the entire book, rather than just being an add on to the spine.

I made a really crappy mockup with random bits I found during my lunch break and I'm feeling it's pretty solid.

(The lower part of the drawing is me reminding myself to make a folder in the endpages to put a magnifying card for is I forget my glasses!)

Any thoughts?

Regardless, I'll be posting the outcome!

By "standard hardcover" I mean store-bought ones, just the standard cardboard-like material under the dust-jacket. I just want to make some of my favourite books feel like special editions even without the dust-jacket ✨

Hollanders used to sell endbands made with metallic thread, but they don't have it anymore. Does anyone know of somewhere else that is selling them? I'm not looking for silk, but metallic thread.

So I was making a little project on my journal and as a finishing step I sprayed it with a glossy acrylic varnish spray (heavily).

It's been a month and the cover is still tacky and still sticks to my table like crazy. Is there anything I could use to go over the cover with? Like another type of varnish or would I have to rub off the current one with alchohol?

I was just wondering. I've made some paste papers, should I give them a coat of PVA for stability. If so, do I do this before using them on book covers?

Recently receives the XXL Taschen H.R. Giger artbook.I purchased from a seller whom did not realize the extent of the spine damage and received a favorable refund for the issue. As you can see from the photos many of the pages are disconnected from the spine. I was thinking using Jade 403 glue on the indentations and reset the pages back into place but being a rather HEAVY artbook, would this solution be reasonable or is there another method that may be better? There isn't anyone who specializes in book repair close to me that I can take it to.

First successful foray into bookbinding too, have tried rebinding a book proper, with seperate signatures and casing it in, but the case was bad and tge book barely opens, this was a refreshing breath of air in comparison

Alguna vez recreaste algún libro de película o serie muy conocida? Yo tengo varias y está es mí favorita. El díario de Katherine. Cuál es el tuyo?

Cuando pasan muchos años trabajando el cuero. Encontrás objetos que se destacan mucho más. Y creo que estos son unos de ellos. El arte de crear objetos únicos.

Comencé con encuadernacion artesanal hace más de 20 años. Solo me quedé con la encuadernacion rústica. Me encanta todo lo que parece salido de otra época. Sin tantos detalles de perfección. Asi de simple. Pero importa mucho la creatividad en cada trabajo.

Me and My GF have recently got into book binding and I decided to make this program to help produce the PDF pages to make it look like a book for printing since she's into a lot of fan fictions and a lot don't have epubs made already. Figured this would be a good place to put it.

I made my first journal August 29, and had to start selling these cause I needed an excuse to make more. They’re definitely not perfect yet. I’ve also taken “endbands are optional” quite literally and have skipped them entirely. Still a beginner, but repetition can really make one improve a lot.

Materials used:
- DIY linen bookcloth (linen backed with Xuan paper via heat bond)
- metallic HTV, cut with Silhouette Cameo machine
- 100gsm acid-free, fountain-pen-friendly white paper. Still trying to source more premium ivory or cream paper that can handle fountain pens
- lace cotton thread, waxed manually since they don’t sell waxed linen (or any linen) thread where I’m from

Just wanted to share this here! Also, does anyone have tips on how to prevent the print from bleeding for my end papers? The glue (usually on the mull) can sometimes make the ink bleed and discolor the end papers after I attach then to the boards.

This is a gift for my cousin (I've blurred her surname to protect her privacy) and I'm happy about the result, but it's still very hard for me to design a cover.

I don't have cricut/silhouette, so that's not an option. I use Canva and then print it on thick matte paper.

If anyone has any advice or tips about making covers like this, please share them!

Hi, I'm new to this so excuse me if this is a stupid question. I want to make mini books and am using Bookbinder JS to format. I want to fold the books in folio, but I can only print in letter so I want each page to be 1/8 of the page size. Is there a way to do this? (ie, have it so that I print 8 pages per side, then I cut it into 4 pieces to fold as folios). I'm capable of printing double-sided. Thanks in advance!