Week 35: New Purpose for Old Books

The New:
I've always thought that hollowing out an old book and using it as a secret hiding place would be awesome. So that's exactly what I did. I went to a nearby Saver's and searched out the biggest hardback that I could find, and $3 later, I was on my way to getting started on this project!

Materials:
Hardback book (it cannot be paperback)
Water
Glue
Plastic cup and stirring stick
Paint brush
Ruler
Box cutter or X-acto knife


Directions:
1. If your book has a dust jacket, take it off. It will only get in the way for now. Next, mix your water and glue together and make sure that it's wet enough for the glue to soak into the pages, but not so wet that it isn't sticky enough anymore. A 50-50 (ish) mixture should suffice.
2. Using your paint brush, spread the glue mixture onto the pages from the outside. Make sure to leave at least one page at the beginning of the book, separate from the pages you are gluing together. It will make more sense in a few more steps.
3. When the outsides of the pages have been sufficiently glued together, put a spacer (I used a ruler) between the gluey pages and the couple pages that were saved at the beginning. Then your book needs to dry completely before moving to the next step. Place something heavy on top to make sure the pages that were glued stick together. I used more books for my heavy object :)
4. I came back to my book a couple hours later and it was all dried, but it may not take this long. Next, measure 1/2 inch borders on all sides.
5. This is longest, most tedious step: cutting out all the pages. Take your box cutter and start by slicing along the borders that you marked in the previous step. Depending on how big your book is, this step could take a number of days. For mine, I ended up opening the back of the book up (yes, I had to tear through some pages that were glued together) and cutting out pages from both sides. Eventually, I got them all out out!
6. It's easy-peasy from here on out. Take your glue solution from earlier (it may need some more water if its been sitting for a couple of days) and spread it to the pages on the inside. If you decided to open the back of your book, or kept it open from the start, now is the time to glue it closed. Then, take the page that you saved at the beginning and glue it to the top of the hollowed out space. You can use any extra glue mixture to seal up pages on the outside that need it. Once finished with this, close the book and let it dry with heavy objects on top (I used hand weights this time). You don't need any spacers this time.
7. Once dry, open it back up and cut through the top page. This step is necessary because it leaves the top looking clean cut, and not marked up from measuring or torn from ripping pages out too vigorously.
8. Hide all your goodies inside!



The Evidence:

The Verdict:
This project took me a crazy long time, mostly because I chose a large book and lost motivation for cutting out pages about half-way through. So if it's your first time, choose a book that isn't so thick. I also had an awful time at keeping the inside edges straight and pretty. Good thing I'm the only one who will be looking at it up close :) Plus, it still does the job of hiding stuff, so no biggie.
Even thought this project had it's challenges, it was a lot of fun and relatively simple. And now I have something really cool to show for all that tedious work!


Let me know how yours turns out :)