The Binder's Bench

A Bookbinder's Father's Day Gift Guide (Better Than a Tie)

Ties get re-gifted. Handmade things stick around. This week we're pulling together a Father's Day gift guide from the shop and the bindery. Here's a few ideas for the dad who's impossible to buy fo...

How Long Does it Take To Learn Bookbinding?

Everyone asks the same question sooner or later: how long does this actually take? The honest answer surprised even us and might be the nudge you need to pick up your first needle and thread. Here'...

Five Reasons to Learn Bookbinding Online

Should you learn bookbinding from a screen or at a bench? Here's the honest answer, and where our online course and in-person workshop each fit.

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...