Creating the Booke of the Hidden Prop

My husband Craig and I are hands-on people (keep it clean, folks). We build things. If it can’t be found it can still be made. And thus it was with my Booke of the Hidden prop.

With money a restrictive part of it all, I knew I couldn’t quite get the leather I wanted for this booke creation, so we had to settle for less than ideal. But I think it was pretty worth it.

First we needed art paper, “aged” it by soaking each page in tea, then tearing the edges to look old. And since we both knew a little about book binding, we sewed it into it’s wooden cover with twine.

As you see here. Yes, that’s what makes those familiar bulges on the spine of old books. It’s what literally holds the book together.

And then when you cover the spine with paper or leather as we did below, glue it, and smooth it down, you get that characteristic spine.

Now, as I said, we couldn’t afford to get the leather I wanted, so I tried to age it with lemon. Didn’t really work well because of the kind of leather we ended up with, but you gotta try.

More aging with sanding.

Then I created end papers with an appropriate design.

Then we needed the Booke’s hardware.

With it’s closure and lock. And corner hardware.

And finally, it had to have its Booke title. So I printed out the font and size I wanted and had to cut out those letters in order to spread the glue for the gold leaf. There’s hubby working on it.

And I think I cut them out, so here I am tapping in the glue.

And the gold leafing process which was a lot of fun. Gently tapping it into the glue and then brushing away the excess. Pretty much the same process for thousands of years.

And burnishing.

And voila! Cursed Booke of the Hidden for promo and our Booke trailer.