The Binder's Bench

Our Refillable Wrap Journal: A Handcrafted Book that Grows with You

Most journals end the moment you fill the last page. These don't. The cover stays with you, and the pages inside simply get renewed. Meet the Refillable Wrap Journal, handmade in our bindery and bu...

Choosing Materials for a Handmade Book: Colour & Texture

Every handmade book starts with a decision nobody sees in the finished piece, what it's made of. We're deep in exactly those choices right now with our leather workshop BETA, and we wanted to share...

Leather Bookbinding Course: We’re Running a BETA Round!

We’re opening our leather bookbinding workshop for the first time as an online course — and we’re calling it a BETA round on purpose. Small cohort, big discount, and your feedback shapes what it be...

Online Bookbinding Course vs In Person Workshop: Which Is Right for You?

There's no wrong way to start learning bookbinding. There's just a right way for you. Whether you learn best with someone beside you at the bench, or at your own pace from your own table, here's ho...

Three Personalised Gifts Our Customers Keep Coming Back For

Personalising a book doesn't have to mean a long brief and a big budget. Sometimes it's a name, a date, and something worth writing in. Here are three we made recently — and the moments behind them.

5 Things I’ve Learned From a Lifetime of Leather Binding

Most books forgive you for small mistakes. Leather remembers every one. In over two decades of binding in leather, Simon has made every mistake worth making and learned from each of them.   

The Tools You Actually Need to Start Bookbinding (and Some You Don't)

You don't need a workshop full of specialised equipment to make your first handmade book. What you need is pretty simple and what you probably think is essential often isn't. Here's an honest guide...

Inside the Bindery: A Handcrafted Photo Album for Mother's Day

There's a photo album on the bindery bench this week with a chestnut leather cover and black card pages.  It's going home this week, one of the last Mother’s Day pieces leaving the bindery. Here's ...

A Handcrafted Gift That Actually Lasts: Mother's Day at SB Libris

Some gifts sit on a shelf. Others get used until they’re perfect. A hand-bound book from us is made to be the second kind, the journal someone fills, the album someone reaches for on quiet Sundays....

How to Choose Your First Bookbinding Project

You save twenty beautiful books on Pinterest. You close Pinterest. Nothing changes. If that's where you are with bookbinding, here's how to pick your first project — and actually start.