Contact Us About Bookbinding & Repair

We make all kinds of journals with a special emphasis on using repurposed and thrifted materials! There’s a lot of ways you can customize exactly what you are looking for.

We offer lined, dotted, or blank pages for the inside of the journal. 

We do softcover or hardcover journals. 

We specialize in closed spine bindings, but also can do open spine bindings.

We currently create journals up to 8”x5” and down to 4.5”x2.75” offering you plenty of options to choose the perfect size for your journal!

Whether you’re looking for a journal for writing in, a sketchbook for painting in, or a notebook to jot down notes, we have something for you!

Looking for something with a little extra personalization? We offer custom journal requests if you have something specific in mind such as a foil design, letter-stamped name, or specific cover material.

Yes! We love doing custom orders! If you have a special project in mind, we would love to connect and chat about whether it is something we can create for you!

Whether a custom planner, a unique journal layout, or a special edition binding of an existing piece of writing (like a novel or a memoir), we would love to work together on a custom project with you!

Once you have created a custom order request from this form, we will communicate back and forth via email to figure out details and work out a quote for the price and project timeline. If there are materials that need to be shipped to our bindery, those associated costs  will be the responsibility of the client. 

Typically, custom projects take a couple of weeks to complete after all the details have been discussed, and the quote has been issued.

The short answer is yes! The longer answer is it depends on the required repair.

Although adjacent to bookbinding, book repair/restoration/conservation are each unique areas of expertise requiring specialized tools and training. 

Chiante, our bookbinder, started her bookbinding journey by working in an academic library bindery for six years where she was responsible for repairing library materials on a regular basis. She knows which repairs are beyond her skillset and the tools and materials we have available to us at the Bundle Bee Bindery.

That said, if we feel we can confidently repair a book you bring to us, we will be happy to work out a quote and timeline for you! 

If we do not feel as though we can confidently handle the repair, we are happy to recommend you to another bookbinder in Canada who we think may be able to help.

There are a few common repairs that we see regularly. 

A basic repair might include re-attaching some pages that have come loose, or doing some basic repairs to the frayed edges of a cover, fixing the spine of the cover that has lifted or come away from the binding.

A more involved repair might include re-enforcing where the textblock connects with the cover (this is called the hinges of the book). This may include replacing the endpages altogether, or re-gluing the endpages to the hinges. 

A complex repair may include work on the spine of the textblock, such as  removing old glue and adding new glue and super (a special woven fabric designed to stabilize the spine). This may also mean repairing the cover or creating a new one altogether. 

If you have a book, bible, or journal you are hoping to get repaired, please fill out this form, including pictures where possible. From there, we will communicate with you via email to determine if we are able to repair the book, or what our recommendations for repair may include at which point we will also provide a free quote on the cost to repair that book.

Generally, we are able to complete repairs in around two weeks, but we will confirm or extend this depending on the repair needed.

At the Bundle Bee Bindery, we emphasize using sustainable and repurposed materials.

All our leather journals are made using thrifted leather materials, such as old leather coats and purses. We love the character of these materials and how we can give a new life to them once they have been worn out as clothing.

Another staple material we use is old book covers. Having collected many withdrawn library books that were doomed for the dumpster while working at her library job, Chiante decided that these covers could be used again, in a new way for journal covers! Using old book covers for new journals gives those books a chance to be loved and used once again. 

The pages from the books are sold in bundles for junk journalers and scrapbookers, or turned into pulp for paper making.

In addition to these materials, we love using our materials to their fullest extent. As such, you will see some bookish products in our shop made using the scraps and leftovers produced during the bookbinding process. Our most popular products made from leftovers are our mini book necklaces or our mini book ornaments.