craftgrrl | Another Hollow Book

My niece is a freshman this year, so I decided to make her a little going away present, something she could keep in the dorm. What could be more perfect than a hollow book to stash secret stuff inside?

I picked the book up at the Goodwill for a buck. I thought The Veil of Illusion was a perfect title for this project. I ended up chucking the paper cover and exposing the red canvas hardback with a black spine.

Here are some pics (excuse the phone-cam quality):

This is is the book completely hollowed out, minus the first 40 pages or so. I then nailed those pages together at the corner, glued the whole chunk to the back cover, then lined the open space with ripped pieces of the hollowed-out pages.

I decided to add some color, by decoupaging a layer of pink tissue paper. After that dried, I glued down two uncut pages (one at a time), then carefully cut out the rectangle with an exacto knife.

Voila! The finished product. I somehow lost the picture I took of the book and all of its contents, but here are the things I bought to put inside. I was a little too inspired when buying all of these tiny items, so not all of them fit! I decided not all of them were necessary, and I ended up giving her the eye mask separately (though it actually fits in the book without so much other stuff).
The contents: bandaids, roll of quarters for laundry, a roll of 35mm film, small packets of over the counter meds like Tylenol, dental floss, tampons, earplugs, travel candle and matches, mints, postage stamps, a nice pen, chocolate, gum, lip balm, aromatherapy balm, and a phone card.