IdolHands.com :: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek
Making Christmas, Part One
This year Lisa and I were determined to hand-craft as many of our Christmas gifts this year as possible. Although I didn't achieve my unrealistic goal of making all of our own gifts, I did make several, and I'm very proud of how they turned out. I'm also optimistic that the making meme will spread throughout our extended family; there's just something so much more personal about giving (or getting) a gift that someone has spent thought, time, and effort in creating especially for you.
The first gift that I made was for my mom, who works as a librarian. I was inspired by the Bibliophilic Stash Box project in Craft Magazine; it's basically a box that's made out of a stack of old books.
I started with five books that we found at thrift stores; four of the five were already pretty well scuffed and aged, and a little sandpaper made the fifth match just fine. After drilling a quarter-inch hole about an inch from each corner, I used a jigsaw to (slowly) cut a rectangular hole through three of the books. Then I drilled two holes straight through the four of the books and inserted a threaded rod that I cut to size. One of four hex socket screws (ala Ikea) screw onto each end of the threaded rod, binding the four books together. The top book is attached by hinges to the fourth book up the stack.
The whole thing took about eight hours to make; much of that time was spent figuring out how to cut through the books without breaking any more jigsaw blades than necessary (hint: don't push the saw, let it cut at its own pace!) and wrestling with clamps to try and keep the books from bending and shifting while cutting them.
Because the interior cuts through the books did not come out very straight, I decided to use the cut-out rectangular pieces of the covers to line the inside of the box. Then I cut scraps from the pages that were removed from one of the books-- a dictionary of handwriting analysis-- and used a matte-finish glue to decoupage the interior.
