I have wanted to make a hollow book forever now! I love the idea of hiding something special right on your bookshelf. I also have a slight obsession with antique books. When I say slight I mean a serious obsession! I have to be careful walking into the thrift store because I usually end up walking out with a vinyl record in one arm and a Dickens or Austen in the other. But please don't worry, I didn't destroy an antique book for this project. You may have noticed I tore out some pages from a Sherlock Holmes book for my DIY wall art project. I had this in the back of my mind as a future project at the time. And this book is by no means an antique. I think it was printed in 1984 or something.
Here is the link for the step-by-step.
Here's what you need for the project. Plus patience, lots of patience!
First lesson learned from this project, DO NOT buy the 2 pack for school glue from the Dollar Tree. It smells awful and the glue had separated. I didn't even know that was possible!
First step is to use plastic wrap to protect the cover and a few of the first pages from the glue. Then you close it and brush glue all around the outsides of the pages. I did this pretty liberally.
The moisture makes the pages spread so you need to weigh it down while the glue dries. In the tutorial they use a 5 kilo weight. My stand mixer was the heaviest thing we could find. I laughed every time I saw it!
Now people, listen up! The tutorial says to leave it to dry 15-30! That is crazy! There is no way the glue will dry that fast. I let mine dry over an hour and it was still damp. You'll see what happens if you don't wait. Honestly, if I do this project again I will let it dry overnight!
So, I don't have any pictures of the cutting of the pages process. This is because it was incredibly frustrating! It was frustrating for three reasons. The first is that my knife was really dull, I need a new blade. The second is that the tutorial suggests that you first draw the rectangle that you want to cut away, then use a drill to drill a hole in each of the four corners. The corners were the hardest part to cut away so I can see how this will be very helpful. Finally, the third reason was because my glue wasn't dry after the hour. So I had sticky fingers and the pages were not staying together. Also, the little shreds of paper got stuck to the outside of the book!
Once you have the hollow compartment cut away (you can make it as shallow or deep as you want/need) you need to glue the inside of the compartment. You also have to take one of your saved pages that you protected with the plastic wrap and glue it over the hole. This didn't make any sense to me until I got to this stage. It's because you need to put glue in the inside of the book at this stage and you obviously don't want plastic wrap glued to the book. You'll cut your compartment out of this page when everything is dry. When you are all done, put your weight/stand mixer on the book again and let it dry overnight.
Here's my end result. See the little bits of paper all over! I was really disappointed.
My inside compartment isn't that pretty either! Use a sharp, sharp knife. You'll be glad you did!
Here's the book on my shelf. At least it looks good from this angle!
I like this project! I got the job done in the end. But the tutorial really needs updating. Give it a try, but don't do what I did! LET THE GLUE DRY!
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