DIY Keepsake Books

Need a safe place to store some secret things? What about your bookshelf? May not seem like the most secret of places, until you have a Hideaway Book. Dig out the pages of a damaged or used hardback book and you had a secret stash box to store your secrets.

Make a Keepsake Box for your Secrets Courtesy of www.bhg.com

Make Your Hideaway Box Any Shape Courtesy of etsy.com

Use Patterned Paper to Decorate Your Hideaway Book Courtesy of brooklynlimestone.com

With some white glue and an Exacto knife you could have the perfect spot for treasure, old photos or precious keepsakes.

Supplies:

• Hardback book- If you have an old one laying around the house or also see what your local thrift store has.
• Pen or pencil
• Wooden skewers
• Exacto knife
• White glue
• Paintbrush
• Ruler

Instructions

1. In a dish mix the glue with water. It should be a 50-50 mix and the glue should be more liquid.
2. Open your book and select which page will mark the beginning of the box. You can have a stack of pages before you open to the box or simply start at the first page.
3. Go to the last page of the book and using the paintbrush glue the back page to the back cover.
4. Leaving your first page separate from the others, take your brush and glue the three sides of the book. It should soak the pages but not enough to make it all ooze out.
5. Close the book, stack some other books or heavy objects on top of it and leave it to dry. It helps to have something between the first unglued pages and the glued ones so they don’t stick. Something like the wooden skewers work great, but there are many things that would do too… some pencils, your ruler.
6. Once completely dry (this may take a while) go to the first unglued page. Using the ruler measure out the dimensions of the box and mark it with your pen. A good guide would be to measure an inch in from each side.
7. Use your Exacto knife and start slicing into the pages along the line you’ve drawn. You can only do a few pages at a time so it does take some patience. Go till you get to the depth you’d like for the hideaway box.
8. Shake out and blow away the extra bits of paper and glue the inside pages of the box like you did the outside pages. In fact, for safe measure give the outside pages another coat of glue.
9. Glue the first page to the border surrounding the box.
10. Once it’s dry, use your Exacto knife and cut away the first page as neatly as possible so that it’s flush with the rest of the box pages.
11. The inside needs to dry out too so do leave it open to dry.
12. Once it’s all dry, store your keepsakes in it and pop it into your bookshelf. No one will be the wiser!

Have Your Say!

What book would you use to make a Hideaway Box? A favorite title, a mystery novel, The Secret Garden? Share your ideas in the comment’s section below!