Binding My Own Book (Harmonic Waves)
When I made my own copy of How to Stop Wildfire about two months ago, I knew I was going to make copies for the rest of the series. Starting with the next book, of course—Harmonic Waves.
The cover used for the print/e-copy originally was a painted piece of paper that was supposed to look water-y. I was thinking of doing paints again for the cover for the self-bound book, but I wasn't feeling it.
Then the idea came to me: use stones. Like glass-y stone pebbles. I liked the idea so I went off to the store to find something reasonable. I didn't pick up shiny, heavy stones but instead went with aquarium gravel. I picked up this huge bag of it thinking I'd do the entire cover in it. Then I realized that would probably be a bad idea. I had tacky glue, but I was really skeptical of how it would hold. So I picked up some fabric and decided I'd mix the two.
At this point, I had the book already printed and bound. I had the holes be made a bit larger which made the stitching process so much easier. I was actually consistent with my stitching. It looked pretty good and felt solid.
The cover process did not go so easily. As I experimented with the gravel glued to the backing I was using, I put together the cover board. I took the board and this white cloth material together to make the entire cover.
After I determined the staying power or lack thereof of the gravel, I went ahead and began work on the cover. It was a very time consuming process cutting out wavy strips of fabric and glueing them on and then slowly putting in gravel pieces in spaces that I deemed appropriate. But I finished! And it stayed mostly together!
Cost Breakdown
Materials
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Southworth Linen Paper | $30.36 |
| Book Glue | Free (already had) |
| Linen Thread | Free (already had) |
| Linen Cloth for Spine | Free (already had) |
| Board | $1.90 (SALE) |
| White matte cloth | Free (already had) |
| Fabrics | $9.99 |
| Tacky Glue | $7.13 |
| Gravel | $4.05 |
Labor
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| Printing @ FedEx |
$73.04 |
| Drilling Holes in Book |
Free (Family member) |
Total: ~ $ 126.47
Conclusion
Technically, I did a much better job putting together the book than the previous one. I'm getting better at this process and I know what I'll do with the next cover to make the end product that much more polished. All together they are going to look brilliant.
The gravel was kind of neat, but I'm worried about it all falling off every time I move it. It might get better as it continues to dry, however.
Whatever. My pictures and the lighting really don't do it justice—the cover looks fantastic. At least, to me it does. And that's what matters!
Related/Recent Posts
Book Art: TMOL/TCOD as Spiders
Finally got around to making paper mache book art copies of The Madness of Light and The Corruption of Dark. It should be no surprise that they were both made into the form of a spider. Spiders are more complicated than a Clam or a Scorpion, so a wire ‘skeleton’ was used to create their structure before applying paper mache layers around it. I applied multiple rounds of layers onto it to build it up, air drying in between rounds....
Tarot Cards: The World (Carathoukiea) Draft
Behold! A draft of what a hypothetical Tarot deck of my world would actually look like. Starting with, well, the World: Carathoukiea! I feel like it needs more…decoration, or some border design, but I can’t think of what that would look like. I’d want it to be consistent to all cards. Besides how plain it looks, I do like how this one turned out. It is all white in the background. The font is the Yataghan Font, which is the...