This first one is a "secret" jewelry box we made for Zach's mom. His parents house had been broken into two times (grrrr... stupid people).... and his mom was upset because both times her jewelry had been taken. None of the jewelry was particularly expensive... but some had sentimental value & had belonged to her mom before she passed away (most of those were taken on the first break-in)... after the second break-in she was upset because she had just started to accumulate some cheap jewelry things from JC Penney, etc. when it was taken again, and she had to start her jewelry collection all over!
Step one of this process was to go to Half- Price Books and find two books that we liked. We picked two that had slip-cases, so that our books could be pulled out like drawers.
We glued the two slip-cases of the books together to make a more "solid" structure for the jewelry box.It also makes it easier when you are trying to pull out the drawers, if the slip-cases aren't moving around.
Next we needed to carve out the books... whenever I'm carving a book (and yes... I have carved a great many books in my day), I like to leave a few of the title pages in the front to hide the secret compartment a bit more, but it's really a personal choice, you can do whatever you want.
***Also... I suggest that BEFORE you start carving the books you use mod-podge (or some other transparent glue-like substance), and glue all three sides of the book together. I don't have pictures of this step, but typically I just use some large binder clips to hold the pages together, and then with a paint brush I apply Mod-Podge to all of the sides (include the back of the book as well). If there are pages you don't want to be glued (like the title pages in front), you can use wax paper to separate the two areas until the glue is dry. After you glue the sides, I suggest putting weight on the book until the glue dries(it will help everything to adhere tightly and therefore more sturdy). You may have to repeat this step if you have any pages that seem kind of loose... every book is a little different when it comes to this.***
After you've done all that... you can carve out your book! With a pencil, just measure out whatever you want the dimensions of your compartment to be and mark them. Then using a combination of box knife and X-acto knives, start carving! I'm not gonna lie... carving out a book (especially depending upon the thickness), can be tedious work... and you have you be careful to make sure you are keeping a fairly straight line down. Just remove bits of the pages as you go, and be careful not to slice through the back cover of the book when you get to the bottom!
*** To make the divider that is shown above, I just cut down a bit of illustration board to the size I wanted and then glued a few of the excess book pages to it so they didn't look out of place, then I glued them into the book compartment. EASY-PEASY! ***
**One other thing... I always glue the inside edges of the compartment as well, and put weight on them until they dry, just like before.**
And here are pics of the bottom "drawer" as well! Here's to hoping our suspicions are right that burglars won't touch books.... ( if they did, they might not have become burglars in the first place!)
So what do you think? Does hiding valuables inside of books make them safer? Even if it doesn't- I do really like this as a way to display/ store jewelry... and for a DIY dork like me, it's actually pretty fun to make too! (although I must tell you to use caution when working with the box knife and X-acto knives... I did slice my finger open pretty good in the making of these boxes.)
And here's a sneak peak of the second project I'll be posting about later on:
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