Dustin bought this Tom Clancy book a few weeks ago from our local thrift shop for about $3. He bought it for the purpose of making a secret Book Safe. Last night, he finally started it, but I might have taken over after he was about halfway through. I was not trying to do it for him, but simply offered to help. Either way, it was definitely a joint effort! We are both really pleased overall with the outcome.

This was a very easy project, just took a little muscle to get through the pages with my Xacto knife. We also went through a couple blades. The sharper the blades, the easier it was to get through the pages. The corners are a bit of a nuisance. Hard to get them really clean. However, the roughness just gives it that handmade quality we all love, right?

Can you tell from the above photo that the watered down Mod Podge bled onto the top red page on the outer edges? I may go over that page with the Mod Podge to just finish it off. I think it would look nicer this way. The opening is pretty deep. Could it hold your secrets? 

I think I prefer the book safe to be displayed like this,
with the pages facing out towards you as you walk into our kitchen/dining area. 
 

This project was a lot of fun, but it sure was messy! Nothing that wasn’t easily cleaned up. 
 

If you’d like to try this project, Bre Pettis has a great video tutorial here.