celestial-sphere-press

[celestial-sphere-press]

The meaning of dandelions, by Endrina. This is the second volume of "The Secret Language of Plants".

As with most of my bindings, this book is "not perfct" at all, yet it joins my bibliographic collection of beloved imperfections. I like how it turned out despite everything.

This tome is full of errors due to my lack of concentration. I think I should change the name of this blog to "Adventures of an ADD fic binder". As some of my worst ADD days, yesterday wasn't the best day for me to try anything! The thing is, I had a great time binding this weekend, so no amount of mistakes will take that away. I still like my little green book.

Unlike volume 1, this time I remembered to put the headbands, yet I forgot the bookmark. More importantly, I got the series name wrong on the spine!

What I like?

I like the green cover, and how it looks next to its companion, the yellow tome. Likewise, the little dandelion seed on the back cover really charms me.

What could I have done better?

Apart from placing the correct title of the series?, I could have transferred the HTV with less temperature. There are plate marks on the cover.

I should have added the endpapers - I had them ready and forgot!

Plus, add the bookmark.

For those with little experience in fandom, this fantastic fic can be read for free on AO3. Just remember to leave a constructive comment for the author.

 @llendrinall 

#a lovely contrasting pair of books! #the dandelion is adorable #not my binding

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The Call of Cthulhu - H. P. Lovecraft

Half leather binding, with leather corners. Title stamp on the spine. Hand sewn endbands. Edges coloured with acrylic paint. Dimensions approx. 4cm x 5,5cm

With accompanying slipcase.

materials case binders board, 1,5 (coverboards) cardboard (spine stiffener) goatskin leather decorative paper gold foil, hot stamped (title)

materials inner book Munken polar, 100gsm (text block) Majestic fancy paper, iridescent, 120gsm (endpapers) button hole silk (endbands) acrylic paint (edge colouring)

Dimensions: ~A9

materials slip case binders board, 1,5 (case construction) Satogami paper (lining) decorative paper (cover material) Majestic fancy paper, iridescent, 120gsm (cover material)

#my god it is adorable!! #and beautiful #a stunning little book #not my binding #and look at its little case!

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Away Childish Things by @letteredlettered

I'm so excited to finally share this bind of one of my all time favorite fics! Thanks to lettered's generous binding policy, I decided to go all out.

This bind has a foiled cover and spine, hand sewn silk endbands, and thirteen custom chapter headers. It was also my first time rounding and backing.

You can find more pictures and information about my process under the cut.

For the cover and spine, I recreated the design of Beasts of the Field (1902) by William J. Long.

I wanted something that captured both the whimsy and maturity of the story, and this cover fit my vision perfectly. It also gave me the opportunity to recreate another antique cover from the public domain.

Unfortunately, the design was a bit complicated for my Cameo 4, so I was unable to fill the lines in. You can also tell that the foil did not adhere properly near the bottom, so the flowers are lighter than I would like them to be.

Because of the trouble I was having with my Cameo, I decided to foil the spine by hand. I deeply regretted this decision two hours later, and it took me four hours to finish foiling. My wrist still hurts!

Sewing the headbands was my absolute favorite part. I was encouraged to try them by a lovely binder on Instagram, and I ended up completely addicted. I splurged on some fancy silk thread so I could give this fic the royal treatment it deserves! I think they look like beautiful little caterpillars.

As for the rounding and backing... I'm not going to talk about it. Nightmare. Lots of nervous sweating. Emotional agony. Next topic!

I worked on the typeset back at the beginning of January when I had some time off, and it took me a solid week of obsessive editing to complete. My sister suggested that I use Harry and Draco's patronuses for the chapter art, but there unfortunately aren't many public domain illustrations of deer and foxes playing together.

It was at that point that I also decided that I wanted the animals to match the respective ages of Harry and Draco and the tone of each chapter. For the 13 chapters I ended up editing 25 different illustrations together. The bulk of these are taken from vintage versions of Bambi and Reynard the Fox. It's possible that a few stock images from 1980s nature books snuck in there, but I did my best to keep them all pre 1925.

I'm not a skilled editor, and some of these are worse than others, but I'm quite proud of what I was able to cobble together. On the final page I put a young fox and deer running off together. I wanted it to seem like Harry and Draco's inner children had been freed.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that this bind took me about 4-5 months to complete! I started in early January, and went wildly off track learning how to round, back, and sew headbands. And then I was hit by some killer creative block that only lifted last week!

There are still many things I could improve on, but I'm so proud of everything that I learned and accomplished with this bind! A big thank you to lettered for inspiring me with such a wonderful story. <3

#an absolutely gorgeous bind! #in a wonderful classic style #not my binding

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Book No. 22

I bound my first tiny book last week, a very small copy of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by @tsttoain, and I am a convert. I love the cute size, I love that fucking up only costs one (1) sheet of A4, and I love turning a project around in a single evening. Seriously. 4-5 hours, including typesetting, and that’s with me pausing to figure out each set as I went. Amazing. It is a *revelation.*

Not only was this my first tiny book, this was also the author’s first foray into this ship and into writing smut; I really like the symmetry of trying something new in my binding when she was trying something new in her writing. I bound two copies, one for the author and one to keep.

I am always grateful to the @renegadepub discord community for their support, but they really came through this time as I gave myself a crash course in tiny typesetting and binding and turned this around in just a few hours.

With the exception of the pages, both copies are made entirely of scraps from previous projects, and I am delighted at how they’re both a new and complete object in their own right, and simultaneously one that carries with it the ghosts of other books books I’ve bound to date.

#bookbinding #ficbinding #TINY BOOKS! #not my binding #i have not yet explored tiny books but i enjoy seeing what ppl do

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I made a book of my own fanfic! Because I can, cause no one can stop me... (cause it makes up for things I lost)(sorry, had a W/IFS moment there, I'll stop now).... ANYWAY.

BEHOLD.

Like the fic itself, this was an exercise in just DO IT and don't overthink. If a problem persisted for more than five minutes I simply got rid of it (that's why there's no page numbers, they kept getting cut off). I didn't look up how to make mini books. I did the illustrations with the first gel pen that I found on scrap paper and scanned them in.

The board is a cut up frozen sausage box, the cover paper is lokta (I think) that I got in November. The endpapers are basic black printer paper.

I love it so much.

#fanbinding #not my binding #cuuuuute!

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Salvage by MuffinLance

I completed this baby back in October early November it was painfully fun, lol. Shoutout to @no-name-publishing for sharing their typeset with me!

Below the line, there is more information and photos on this bind!

The foiling took about 8-9 hours or so. There was a lot of trial and error, and I ruined about 3 books worth of bookcloth. I ran through all my heat reactive silver foil (neverforget✊️)before I was able to compelte it. I used foil I got from a bindery that is closing down, I used my new cameo, and the memory keepers heat foil quills.

I was originally going to use The Great Wave off Kanagawa as my cover art, but my friends talked me out of it, and I'm glad since, had I not listened, it may have taken longer. The sound of the cameo working will haunt my nightmares. My spouse was dreading their life choices. "Why did I buy her the machine from hell?" Cause you love me, my sweet honeybooboo, that's why.

I used 28lb paper for this puppy, my printer was such a good boy and printed it out without a single issue (bless you babe I will thank you first when I get a trophy one of these days) but after I folded it it was like 3 inches wide and I got so scared for my life.

I used remie band and linen thread (only the best for you, my precious), I made headbands with the bookcloth and l2mm leather core, and I used glue and kozo paper to strengthen the rounded spine.

Rounding and backing almost made me cry, but I had DAS there with me. Also, shoutout to my friend's cousin for the backing and routing boards and Jim with ABE for the wonderful laying press.

The endpapers are from De Milo Design. They are handmade, and I got them at a local faire. They are beautiful!

The bookcloth is from BookcraftSupplyCo in CA!

If you would like to learn more about bookbinding, consider joining @renegadepublishing

#damn i missed reblogging this! #queue it #what a stunning copy

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My first concertina! A series of 14 feminist poems by @agest about the way women become myths (where an asexual girl is a unicorn in the same way the moon is a silver mirror, where being a people pleaser is not unlike being a demon and howling at the moon is quite popular with those who have it really rough when menstruating).

This was the last book of my Binderary, sent to the author with lots of love.

#this is such a gorgeous binding #i love it ahhhh #not my binding

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Tess of the d'Urbervilles, handbound

So last month (a.k.a. "Binderary 2024") I kinda fell into this marvelous rabbit hole of fanbinding - complete with experimenting with typesetting, homemade bookcloth, paper marbling and handsewn silk headbands (the works!) - and thanks to the super-informative and ever supportive folks over at @renegadeguild, I did a thing!

This one is going to be a birthday gift for a childhood friend, but stay tuned for future projects (namely fanworks🔥🤺😸), currently in progress!

#bookbinding #tess of the d'urbervilles #not my binding

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My copy of The Silver Age from @mourningmountainsbindery has arrived! Shown with Dearborn for scale. :) It's really lovely -- I like the silver stamping on the cover, and it's been typeset beautifully.

I love seeing fanbinding take off in such a huge way -- I know right now fandom is dealing with a lot of issues with people repackaging and selling fanfic online, stealing fanfic to sell as original work, or uploading it to POD sites or hand-binding and selling copies without the author's permission, but ethical fanbinders are out here asserting the power of transformative works and engaging in activism via art, which I think is fantastic. Hats off to all you guys, keep up the good work.

[ID: Two images; the first shows a book, bound in black hardcover with silver lettering, reading "The Silver Age" with "Copperbadge" below as author; Dearborn the tortie is sniffing it curiously. Second image shows the interior of the book open to a random page, demonstrating the typesetting and use of section dividers. The title fonts in both images have a cool retrofuturist look to them.]

#author reaction!! #what a beautiful bind too #fanbinding #not my binding

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Dirt by Astern

Right off the bat not gonna tell you how long this took me to finish, cause it's embarrassing. But it's done, it's huge, and it's mine!! More glamour shots and process pics under the cut!

Hand dyed cloth, done with an ice dyeing method; title painted with gold paint, as well as the distressed areas; speckled edges done with acrylic ink and metallic bronze acrylic paint; handsewn endbands made from silk-finish cotton sewing thread; typeset and printed by myself all from Word.

Cheeky little video showing it all off together.

My first and sadly second ice dyeing attempts to get this looking right. First pass was not near what I wanted at all, so we stuck this bad boy back in the freezer.

Steps from trimming the unruly head and tail, to splattering the edges, to sewing the endbands. Took me probably approx 3 hours for each one, and I did 2 copies, so four endbands RIP. (The keen-eyed will also notice the patterns do not match between the two photos of the endbands. That's because I wasn't paying close enough attention and inverted two of the colors between copies. But it's a feature not a bug!)

And Tommeh :3 Thank you for looking!

#this is such a stunning bind #the self-dyed fabric omg #the endband! #lovely #fanbinding #not my binding

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Fanbinding: Heart of a Volcano Series by @zimriya

Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi finds himself mated to Anakin Skywalker. Things are only slightly better because of it.

My biggest project of Binderary was this bind of Igneous, Molten, and Volcanic by zimriya. I read these fics last year and they basically took over my brain. I'm in love with the comparison between Obi-Wan's pov and Anakin's pov of their relationship.

This is definitely the most creative I have gotten with my covers so far! I'm still very new to this but I really wanted to try something special and different with this one. 3 fics, 3 stripes on the cover (if we want to get crazy with symbolism, I'm thinking black=igneous, red=molten, and yellow=volcanic). The paper on the front called out to me for this fic for obvious reasons. This is the second and biggest text block I've ever sewn together (12 signatures) and I think I'm getting better at it. I had fun typesetting the fic and including the age and location marks at the start of each section. Decorating the side was an interesting challenge. I initially used a gold foil quill to trace the text and Jedi symbol on the front but then decided it needed more definition. I tried one of the paint pens recommended in one of the workshops and fell in love. I can't BELIEVE how well the author name came out! The fact that my hand was steady enough to get the outline is crazy.

I'm really happy with how this turned out!

#ohoho i love asymmetrical paper designs!! #(also symmetrical but this is lovely) #and the colors! perfect #fanbinding #not my binding

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Fanbinding: Dirt and Ashes, or: The One-and-a-Half Body Problem by @tozettastone

In which Sakura carries half of Hidan across two countries, leaving a trail of blood, bodies, and other people's legs.

I made this book for @aetherseer as part of an exchange we did, and I had such a great time making it. I saw this fic on their list and remembered reading it ages ago and was like I CAN DO SOMETHING WITH THAT! and here it is.

The cover is Colibri bookcloth, handpainted with acrylic (all of the lettering is freehand- easy when the font you choose is irregular). @pleasantboatpress suggested including a quote on the spine since the title wasn't working there, so I got to add the absolutely banger quote from this fic "Your pain is sacred. Your suffering is beautiful."

For the edges, I used fluid graphite and polished and waxed them. On the endbands I used my Japanese silk thread for the first time (its a dream tbh).

For the typeset, I leaned in hard on the blood sacrifice aesthetic, creating the Jashinist symbol for the front page (and also the cover) and using a font aptly called "Bloody Scratch." You can't see them here but for paragraph breaks there are little scythe.

@tozettastone, if you would like a copy I would be happy to make you one!! (I think my ask to you got eaten, feel free to dm).

#oh btw if you check out the fic *please* read the tags #its extremely excellent but also very gorey #one of my fav sakura centric fics gor sure tho #let her have a little murder. as a treat. #fanbinding #celestial sphere press #bookbinding #ficbinding #naruto #haruno sakura #hidan #tozette

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I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite

book & clamshell box for @towns-end-bindery for the Renegade California Mini Exchange!!! THE REVEAL!!!! wow its been so long since i started this it feels kind of unreal haha

this exchange sent me on a journey through so many lovely fics and new fandoms that were a delight to explore! i have Learned Things about svsss and honestly the more i hear the more excited i am to (eventually!!) finally read it

about the bind itself, it was a bit of a ride. i learned like 5 new skills in total, including:

- cover cutouts

- suminagashi edges

- my first book box!!

- chisel trimming edges by myself, which, um, definitely couldve gone better but it was fine after a few hours of sanding

- using REAL TOOLS???? lost count how many times i forgot i have a bone folder and made my book arts teacher take psychic damage

i fiddled with the typeset for several months, but in the end finished the book like a month early. so naturally my hubris rose from the dead and decided that making my first box would be a great idea!

i finished it with like 12 hours to spare before i was heading to the airport because i never learn

big thanks to fran for organizing this and congrats to everyone participating!!! WE CAME!!!

#this is SUCH a good fic #and the binding is gorgeous #and it HAS A BOX AHHH #fanbinding #not my binding

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Violence in the Library by ArdentAspen2 on Ao3.

A Star Wars/Alien what-if crossover.

Still reeling from the revelation that Darth Vader is his biological father, Luke Skywalker takes leave. A casual visit to a library goes sideways when it is attacked by Xenomorphs! When Darth Vader arrives to investigate an alien presence like the one he encountered from his Jedi days, Luke and Vader team up to save the galaxy from the Alien threat.

I've been sitting on this bind for months waiting for the @renegadeguild California Mini Exchange to finish before posting! I will also be posting behind-the-scenes images and details on the paper engineering, but suffice to say this was one of my most ambitious books yet. The endpapers are a pop-up Facehugger and Chestbutster made from jute marbled paper. The cover was made from real scrap ostrich leather I bought from a shuttered bookbinding factory. It was very challenging to get it all to lie flat.

#bookbindersofinstagram #fanficbinding #fanbinding #starwarsfanfic #popupendpapers

#the POPUPS #INSANE #absolutely madlad #fanbinding #not my binding

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Fic binding: In Which Merlin Reveals His Magic, Arthur Embarks On A Quest, And Uther Absolutely Does Not Admit He Was Wrong About Anything, Ever, by @alex51324

Over a year after typesetting and sewing it: finally done!! This was the first time I tried to deboss-- I used two thin pieces of board for the cover, used a cricut to cut the dragon shape out of one of them, and then glued them together. Turns out jabbing at leather with a pointy stick is kind of relaxing. (Also, for a first attempt, I should probably have chosen something with fewer tiny points.)

#lovely debossed dragon!! #and a stunning typeset #fanbinding #leather bookbinding #not my binding

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Negotiation by Glare (@glare-gryphon)

Dust jacket art by @bigwolfpup Anakin art by @vulpesarctica

Thank you to Glare and the artists for letting me use your work!

Typefaces Used Titles: Shameless Deluxe Subtitles & Drop Caps: Amandine Body Text: 11 pt Garamond Premier Pro

Additional Details - 86,793 words / 296 pages - Cloth spine with gold foil - Dust jacket printed on heavyweight matte paper - Textblock printed on 118 gsm paper

This book was bound for personal use and is NOT for sale.

Additional photos posted on my website.

#bookbinding #fanbinding #not my binding

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NOW. We get into a section of binderary I like to call exciting new leathers. So what happened. Well, I read Moby Dick for book club, and frankly, there was a lot more bookbinding content in that book than i EVER would have guessed. Not that much, by volume, but any bookbinding is always a fun surprise! And one detail that SNAGGED me was the mention of a book bound in shark leather. Naturally, i immediately went on a quest to see if I could find 1) affordable and 2) ethically sourced shark leather, and never mind point two, because I struck out hard on one. So in a fit of self-pity, I bought a scattering of snake, fish, and ray leather, and then had to start thinking about how to use it.

I spent a while kind of paralyzed, but the first thing that REALLY caught my eye was this one white and gold snake hide (with purple tones here and there around the scales), and how it made me think of lyctoral robes, and that means it's time for another round of 'It's About The Bones 👌,' babey!! By the incredibly talented @sunderedstar, of course. Benefits of being friends with an incredible writer include the constant supply of gourmet food that's a pleasure to bind and practice with!

And since this fic had been one of my earliest test subjects for a k118 binding, I wanted to keep that going, and try one of my favorite fics in one of my favorite styles, testing out then new leathers in this format! And the book is a success, but the k118 thing, uh, didn't work. A fun feature of the snake leather is that its so thin I'd be afraid to even try paring it further. Which is great, that's the step I'm worst at! But now I wonder if that thinness means that paste isn't able to saturate the hide the way it would with goat, because the first time I opened this book, the spine IMMEDIATELY popped off the text block 🤣

I'm not mad at all, the book still works great, it's just got a breakaway spine now and can't do the k118 360 degree party trick. And the binding came together gorgeous! This is a typeset I'm still proud of, and I think i found the right fabric in my stash to match and contrast to the snake leather colors, and the embossed endpapers gave it a nice weight and elegance, all without losing that locked tomb flavor, but capturing a very different vibe than my prior bindings. All things told, I'm very pleased, this was so fun to work with!

#snake leather snake leather! #love seeing new and unusual materials used #fanbinding #bookbinding #not my binding