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As some of you may already know, I wrote my first novel-length fanfic a while ago: Like Cats and Dogs (part 1 in the SuperDog and BatCat series, link above in this work's description 😜).
I admittedly got quite burnt out after writing it because I crammed all the brainstorming, writing, and editing into 2-3 months time. While "recovering" from writer's burnout by reading all your lovely comments, my brain turned to less computer-based hobbies and I picked up leathercrafting. I quickly made a silly little SuperBat Logo which now sits superglued to my phone before starting to look for larger projects.
That's when I discovered the lovely concept of binding your own books, sometimes even with leather, and my next craft-baby was born~!
Without further ado, let's start with dessert and have a look at the finished product!
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🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊
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Note: Technically it was not actually finished when I took the video. I'm missing metal buttons in the 4 corners of the front and back covers, but shhhhhh this project took so damned long I couldn't wait anymore.
🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊🥳🎉🎊
Okay.
Holy Shit.
I made this video within hours of gluing all the final pieces together and I cannot express how AWESOME it felt to actually hold this thing in my hands after literal months of effort. Almost a full year if you count the original writing process for the fanfic itself. Up until this point, I had only been handling individual pieces of the project as I work on them, so feeling the literal weight of the completely assembled book is just divine.
But enough of that, you guys deserve more pictures too.
ALL OF THE PICTURES.
Front cover, featuring our beloved Spooky. I'll be honest he didn't really turn out as well as I had hoped. Not that he turned out badly at all! It's just... Uh... Krypto kind of stole the show on the back cover, lol.
Back cover, featuring our bestest of boys, Krypto. Also a friendly reminder that this is the Golden Retriever ! Krypto unique to Like Cats and Dogs, not the scruffy white chaos fiend that is the more well-known Kryptonian Super-Dog.
Book Spine with title acronym.
Bookmark ribbon.
Fancy end papers... because I clearly have a problem doing anything "basic", I went ahead and glued two different types of paper together just to make this. More on that later.
Actually, speaking of "later", I guess it's time to dive in to the real meat of this post. For the next few chapters I'll be detailing all the steps I took to make this, including all the mistakes I made, lessons I learned, and things I would do differently next time.
As always, I would LOVE to hear from you guys in the comments. This is the first time I've ever done a bookbinding, so if you've got tips and tricks you could share, I'm all ears. Otherwise I'll do my best to tell you everything I've done, but I will inevitably miss some things so I can always clarify any questions you guys have!