So after I saw a post by @armoredsuperheavy where they bound their favorite fanfic I was inspired. I totally fell down the rabbit hole of bookbinding. I don't read much fannish works but I do have a collection of paperbacks of smutty romances. I know they aren't built to last but I still wanted to show them some love.
I used to think of these books as "trashy" or "guilty pleasures." But now I feel like, if it's not harmful to anyone, I don't want to ascribe guilt to something I enjoy just because it doesn't live up to someone else's standards.
You can see how the spine warped from my reading. And the cover has a price sticker printed right on it.
The paper edges have also tanned with age. So the first thing I did was gild them. I happened to have an airbrush and gold airbrush paint and that worked perfectly. I did one coat. Let dry. And followed it with a second coat. Some of the pages stuck at the corners but a quick fanning them out fixed that.
Sparkly.
Then came the gory part. Slicing off the cover. I saw a couple of different ways to convert paperback to hardcover. I decided to treat the book like a textblock, reinforce the spine, and do the casebound method. If you want to see a different way DAS Bookbinding on youtube has two videos devoted to a conversion.
I used black cardstock for endpages. Quilting cotton I had on hand for the headbands and to reinforce the spine. Here she is this morning after everything dried:
Today is devoted to doing the cover.
We're done! I'm so proud. I still have to do lettering. But the case is on and it's beautiful! I definitely made some mistakes but for my first attempt I'm so happy with how it turned out. It makes me want to reread this series now
I love it! The literature we love is nothing to be ashamed of and this is such a great way to honor a book that enriched your life!
