Adventures in Bookbinding
Apr. 3rd, 2024 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madeleoneHi all! It's been nearly awhile since I last posted and I only posted a few times last year.(pathetic, I know) Anyway, I'd like to post more often and since a started a new hobby last year, (I'd learned about hand bookbinding), so I'm going to try using my LJ and DW to chronicle my bookbinding adventures. (I just hope I can remember how to post pics--LOL!)
I first heard of fanfic bookbinding a few years ago through Nocturnus33 on LJ, who had posted pics of her own binds. She mentioned an online group (I don't remember the name now) where she learned how. It was on tumblr or one of the discord servers, or somewhere, but I've never caught on to navigating those places. So I started out watching YouTube videos, there's a ton of them out there--if interested in the process, just google bookbinding. For starting out I liked Sea Lemon, bitter melon, or DAS bookbinding, but there's plenty of other good ones.
Initially I mainly wanted to learn to bind so I could make hard copies of my own stories for myself. But I decided to start out just making some blank journals as practice, and to figure out what to do, and how to do it right.
So I decided to make some for my grand kids (there are 8 of them ranging in age from 4 to 14). I used a lot of re-used or inexpensive supplies like heavy cardboard to make the boards for covers, scrap booking paper to cover the boards, cheap sketch pads from the $ store for the younger kids to make their own personal "sketch" books, and just regular copy paper to make journals or diaries for the older kids.
So, I didn't take pictures of all of them back then, but they were all similar. The second and third pics are a notebook I made at my son-in-laws request. when I gave J and the kids theirs he said, "What? You didn't make me one?" I was surprised as I thought he'd think it was all silly to make notebooks when you could pick one up at the $ store. He may have been just buttering me up but I was really touched that he wanted one too. So I make my first faux leather cover and the second pic shows the end pages, I also printed lines on the pages inside before I folded, sewed, and glued them together. I didn't have a cricut yet at that time but my daughter did, and she made his monogram for the cover and added it later. He like it so much he hinted he could use another one so he could have one for work and one for home--he got a second one for Christmas.
these are the ones I gave to K's kids and one of the smaller ones for her (easy to drop in a purse).
C's notebook
end papers of C's notebook
In my next post I'll show off some of my early fanfic binds.
I first heard of fanfic bookbinding a few years ago through Nocturnus33 on LJ, who had posted pics of her own binds. She mentioned an online group (I don't remember the name now) where she learned how. It was on tumblr or one of the discord servers, or somewhere, but I've never caught on to navigating those places. So I started out watching YouTube videos, there's a ton of them out there--if interested in the process, just google bookbinding. For starting out I liked Sea Lemon, bitter melon, or DAS bookbinding, but there's plenty of other good ones.
Initially I mainly wanted to learn to bind so I could make hard copies of my own stories for myself. But I decided to start out just making some blank journals as practice, and to figure out what to do, and how to do it right.
So I decided to make some for my grand kids (there are 8 of them ranging in age from 4 to 14). I used a lot of re-used or inexpensive supplies like heavy cardboard to make the boards for covers, scrap booking paper to cover the boards, cheap sketch pads from the $ store for the younger kids to make their own personal "sketch" books, and just regular copy paper to make journals or diaries for the older kids.
So, I didn't take pictures of all of them back then, but they were all similar. The second and third pics are a notebook I made at my son-in-laws request. when I gave J and the kids theirs he said, "What? You didn't make me one?" I was surprised as I thought he'd think it was all silly to make notebooks when you could pick one up at the $ store. He may have been just buttering me up but I was really touched that he wanted one too. So I make my first faux leather cover and the second pic shows the end pages, I also printed lines on the pages inside before I folded, sewed, and glued them together. I didn't have a cricut yet at that time but my daughter did, and she made his monogram for the cover and added it later. He like it so much he hinted he could use another one so he could have one for work and one for home--he got a second one for Christmas.
these are the ones I gave to K's kids and one of the smaller ones for her (easy to drop in a purse).
C's notebook
end papers of C's notebook
In my next post I'll show off some of my early fanfic binds.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-07 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-07 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-09 11:56 am (UTC)Those are quite lovely notebooks! I feel like I send you into a path of no return. Ha, ha, ha. How did your grandkids react to their presents?
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Date: 2024-04-09 06:42 pm (UTC)For K's kids the reaction was mild at first until she said to them, "you know Nonnie made those herself just for you. No one else has one like them". Then they were kind of "What you can make books?!? Wow!"
And J told me her kids used them to draw in an liked them a lot.
My son B's, the two older kids 11 and 14, I think planned to use them as a diary or journal type thing.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-11 12:42 am (UTC)That is so sweet of them. Realizing books can be done by real people must be awsome.