I had a few days off work so I decided to hollow out a book.

I chose an old Reader's Digest hardback that I found by the side of the road a couple of years ago. It's pretty much been sitting on my shelf untouched for a while, so I thought I should make some use of it and hide things in it.

The first step was gluing the pages together, using a mixture of water and PVA glue. The pages warp really easily, so you only need to add light layers each time.

Then it needs to be weighed down to press the pages together. I put notebooks and post-it notes between the glued pages and the cover to keep them from sticking.

The cookbook by itself wasn't enough to weigh it down properly, I had to enlist the help of this saucepan.

Then when you're happy all the pages are stuck together make a half inch (1.3cm) border around the page, and begin cutting. This part takes a while, try to keep an even pace so the edges don't turn out uneven.

This is about halfway through the book now. I came across a few illustrations as I cut through , I thought it was quite a nice effect. With some changes to the process you could almost certainly create a picture frame out of an old book.

I cut out all the pictures I came across, and put them aside to stick in the back. I reached the back cover after a few hours of cutting across a couple of evenings. Now all you need to do is trim the edges and brush out the inside to get rid of the debris. Then add another layer of glue to the inside edges.

The finished product! Ready to hide all kinds of contraband.
I ended up using some of the cut out pages to decorate the sides, it seemed like a waste to throw them all away, and this hides how uneven the edges ended up being.