A Book To Hide A Phone In

I take a lot of photos at events, and sometimes it is really useful to be able to use a mobile phone to take pictures to immediately upload to social media. Of course, it is not nice to spoil peoples' "medieval experience" by waving a mobile phone around at events, so I decided to make a book cover for my phone.

I friend recently gifted me her old phone, so I ordered a cheap case for it. Finding a book for the outer cover was difficult- it had to be a book that I didn't want to read. I found a nice one in a second hand shop. I liked the cover, and the title had worn away and wasn't very visible.

The next part was difficult. I am not a person who underlines passages in books, or turns page corners down, so cutting pages out of the book seemed like a horrible thing to do. I didn't have to remove many, just a few that were a bit ratty and not sitting flat.

My new case arrived, so I sacrificed the old one and pulled it apart. I wanted the plastic case part.

Next I used white acid free craft glue to glue all the pages together, one by one.

This made the book quite heavy and, because the weather is cold and damp at the moment, took a long time to dry. 

I only glued about two thirds of the pages together. I left a section free-turning at the front.

When the glue was finally dry, I ruled up cutting guidelines on the glued pages.

Craft knife to hand, I gradually cut away the pages leaving a cavity.

I also put some gold paint on the edges of the pages.

The book was a lot lighter now, but the edges of the cavity were a bit ragged, so I spent some time trying to tidy them up with a craft knife. I put a couple of coats of white glue on them for stability.

I covered the edges of the cavity with a few coats of white paint. When it was dry, I glued in the plastic phone case using strong E3000 glue. I also varnished the white painted area for durability.

I used the craft knife to carefully cut a hole in the back cover to allow the phone camera to peek through. When the hole was nice and neat, I painted the edges red and varnished them for strength.

I ordered some wine case edges or scrapbooking edges to put on the cover. In retrospect, I should have done this in the early stages of the project, before the pages were all glued together. I had to slice open the pages with the craft knife, add the corners, and then re-glue the pages. Not an ideal way to tackle the project, and it resulted in a slightly wonky looking cover.

I would also like to add a book clasp, but I have not had any luck in finding the appropriate hardware. When I do, I will also paint my heraldic seahorse on the front of the book and probably add a ribbon to mark the pages.

I have give the book a test run at an event, and I loved it! I love it as an accessory, and I love that I can take photos with it. It was worth the time and effort to make it.

Next time around, I will add the decorative metal corners first, and use felt over them so that pliers don't scratch them. I would also take more care to make sure that the book stays true and is not bent or off-centre when the pages are drying. Mine is a bit wonky; it makes it look well-read.