Book-Safe

I hoped you liked today's episode of Home & Family, here are some more details on the Book-Safe I made on the show:

Hiding in plain sight has always been the operating procedure for book-safes.  The thing of mystery novels and romantic black and white movies, they are actually incredibly useful and can work surprisingly well.  From keeping your jewelry out of site to hiding your i-Pad to having a place to stash the remote control on your coffee table, the uses are quite broad....and besides that, they're just kind of fun.  So here's a very easy and quick way to make one of your own.MATERIALS- A book (duh), but make sure you pick one that is going to fit whatever you're seeking to hide- Modge Podge (You can also use a mixture of Elmer's glue and water - 80/20)- Utility knife (with lots of extra blades)- Felt (only if it's a gift really...or your just Type A)STEPS1.If you're a little messy (or a lot messy like me), protect the front and back cover of the book by wrapping them in a plastic bag or wrapping some plastic wrap around them.  Take your Modge Podge and apply a coat around all of the paper pages, including the top of the first page.  I applied it pretty thick and didn't even need to add a second coat.  You're basically gluing all of the pages together in one big mass.  Surprisingly, just applying glue around the edges of all the pages is all you need to do.  Don't worry about the back of the last page.

2. Let this get good and dry.  Now, using a pencil, draw the shape of your cavity on the top of the front page.  Try to leave at least an inch on all sides so the box has some sturdiness. Take your utility knife and cut down, through the book pages, along your drawn line.  You'll probably cut 5 or so pages every time you cut.  Take those out and cut another layer of pages out.  Keep on cutting, changing your blade as needed, until you get the depth of box that you want.  Go slow, take your time, try to be as fastidious as possible (although, it does get a little tedious).

3. If you're getting fancy, take the felt and cut a piece to fit the bottom and sides of the cavity.  This will cover any of messy cutting and just make it look much more posh.  You can also add a little ribbon trim around the top edge of felt to really make it look fancy. Remove your plastic wrap and using some glue affix the back cover to the rest of the pages for some extra sturdiness and you're done. Now you have a place to keep that tiara!