Book boxes: how to do it yourself?

A handmade book box is a wonderful gift for a holiday or birthday. The imagination and the invested labor of a living person make such a present especially valuable and meaningful, and it can never be compared with a purchased, even a very expensive and beautiful thing. You can create a unique accessory at home using simple materials and manufacturing instructions.

A small beautiful box made from a book is an original thing that can be used to store small items - jewelry, hair ornaments, souvenirs, accessories for needlework, but also for money. The decorative container can be additionally equipped with a cache in which memorabilia are usually placed.

In large souvenir books, receipts, documents, photographs are stored, if you make 2-3 compartments using soft partitions, it will be convenient to place jewelry in them. Compact deep boxes are suitable for threads, buttons, storing beads, beads and other accessories.

Outwardly, a super gift assumes various forms of the product and types of its decor:

• it can be a large book-jewelry box;
• book-safe equipped with a small lock;
• variant of a miniature, but voluminous casket-folio;
• a book in the form of a chest, glued together from two or three books of different sizes with drawers - the most difficult product for independent execution.

You can decorate a masterpiece with paper, felt, all kinds of decorations - artificial flowers, beads, ribbons, papier-mâché figurines and ready-made souvenirs.

The most interesting design option for any box is decoupage. This technique includes processing techniques such as patina, stencil, gilding, cloth and paper decoration. In principle, a variety of materials and techniques can be used to decorate a prepared box. However, for such work, certain skills are needed, and for those who first decided to make a souvenir item with their own hands, it is better to use a simple technology.

For the manufacturing process, you will need an old unnecessary hardcover book, thick sheets of paper, a stationery knife and a set of blades, scissors, masking tape, a metal ruler. And also it is necessary to prepare polyvinyl acetate glue (PVA), reliable, fast-setting glue, best of all "Moment", alcohol (shellac) and craquelure varnish, paints - acrylic and oil, pencil and brushes for using the listed products.

Work on making a gift box divided into several stages.

• First, the marking of the box is done. To do this, you need to open the book, turn over the sheet connecting the book block with the binding, and the first sheet, and fix them to the cover with a clamp.

• On the next sheet, you should draw a square or rectangle, making an indent from the edge of 2 cm. It will need to be carefully and evenly cut from the thickness of the folio.

• Not all pages can be cut, taking 3-5 sheets each, and attaching a metal ruler. It is worth paying special attention to the corners. Pages with "windows" should be carefully turned over and also secured with a clip.

• When all the pages are cut to the cover, it is necessary to glue the inside of the future box. Paper is placed on its bottom, after which all sheets are glued from the inside and outside with PVA glue - you do not need to glue them separately. Another paper sheet is placed on top, after which the structure must be put under a press for 12 hours.

• The top sheet is then removed, now it is necessary to paste over the side walls. It's time to cut the flyleaf and the first sheet in the same way as the rest of the pages, they are glued, and again they put the blank under the press for 2-3 hours.

• To leave the cover in its original form, you need to glue it over with masking tape, and then paint the inner and outer sides of the box with acrylic. The choice of color remains with the craftsman, but a more interesting design can be achieved by choosing dark base tones, for example, dark brown, or a mixture of brown and black shades. The paint is applied in several layers, each of which must be dried before applying the next one. In the same way, alcohol varnish is applied in 3 layers.

• Lastly, the application of craquelure varnish is used to create small cracks. Cracking looks more natural if done with a roller. It takes about 6 hours to dry.

• The resulting picturesque cracks should be wiped with an oil composition or pastel, preferably in a contrasting tone.

• The next stage is staining, it is carried out using a napkin and a stick by wiping. The box can be given a red, green tint, or made its surface iridescent by mixing different colors. You can pour the selected colors from different ends so that they mix, and control the process using a stick. The paint should run slightly.

• You can dry the box by placing it on a flat surface, and leave the resulting pattern as it is or correct it by adding other colors and tilting the book. However, adjustment is possible as long as a film layer has not formed on the surface. This usually happens after 4 hours. The box dries completely in 2-3 days.

• The final stage is fixing with two layers of varnish, and interior decoration with scrapbooking paper.

If you wish, you can decorate the souvenir box with colored felt, gluing it to the sides, for the cover material of a different color is taken. To close the corners, cuts are made on the fabric, and the material is tucked in, on the binding, the felt also needs to be wrapped and glued. It is necessary to dry the product under a press.

If you want to give the box a relief shape, you can glue crumpled and then straightened paper to its outer surfaces, which can then be painted with a sponge with paint in any color... Moreover, only the formed folds should be painted. Decor details for every taste are fixed on top - flowers made of rolled paper, bows made of satin ribbons, and other decorations. Your exclusive gift is ready for delivery!

How to make a book box, see the next video.