Bonjour! Today, I’ve created a cute treasure box using an unfinished wooden book box inspired by “Beauty and the Beast”. You can store your little nick nacks and hide it on your bookshelf! Here are the supplies:
| Supplies List: | Tools List: |
|---|---|
| Unfinished Wooden Book | Hobby Knife |
| Leather Print Cardstock | Hot Glue Gun + Glue |
| Other Patterned Cardstock | Spray Glue |
| White Acrylic Paint | Pencil |
| Gold Foil Cardstock | Ruler |
| Heavyweight Drawing Paper | Paper Slicer |
| Colored Pencils | Bullet Tip Black Pen |
| Balsa Wood Plank |
Transferring the Text
I don’t have a Cricut to cut out delicate and detailed designs so I did it by hand the ol’ fashioned way using carbon paper and a sharp hobby knife!
I printed out the “Beauty and the Beast” logo to the size I wanted and cut out the pieces so they’d fit on my Gold Foil Cardstock.
I also cut the carbon paper to fit the gold paper cardstock as well.
What I should have done was just print the mirror of the text, but I didn’t…so I turned it over and traced the text onto the back of the carbon paper to transfer to the back of the cardstock.
Man, I got everything backwards! It worked out, though.
Cutting out the Text and Rose
After tracing the text, it’s time to slice everything out.
It’s not the cleanest, but it works!
I also cut out a little rose to put on the spine of the book.
Prepping the Cover
This leather printed cardstock is named “Brown Leather Couch” and it worked perfectly for this book!
I had to cut out little slices of the paper to fit the book’s hinges.
Then, I bent the paper over the edges of the book so I could fold them and prep them for gluing.
I kept the overlap because I added an additional piece of paper on top to cover the raw edges. But, that’s later!
Here I only folded the side edges. Because the long edge had a lot of excess, I wanted to do that separately.
I spray glued the back of the leather print paper and applied it to my book.
To make it smooth and ensure maximum adhesion, I used this cheap brayer and rolled it over the cover.
As you can see…lots of excess. I had to cut it off, but the paper wasn’t cooperative and tore a little.
Now it’s time to cover the spine and the back cover. I used the same method as the front cover.
The inside back cover is only about a half inch, so I had to fold in my excess paper, cut it and glue it in place.
The top and bottom parts near the spine were pretty tricky to get. I just folded it as best I could and glued in place.
Attaching the Details
Here I spray glued the backs of the gold foil and red metallic foil before placing them–very very carefully–on the book. I used my left hand to hold the pieces and sprayed with the right hand. Then I placed the pieces using my right hand.
I really wanted the sides to look like a book, not wood, so I grabbed some scrap pieces of foam. Two were thinner for the bottom and top; one was a thicker foam for the long edge.
I cut the thin short foam pieces so they’d cover the length of the top/bottom plus the thickness of the long piece of foam.
Using a lino cutter, I carved out lines from the foam–it wasn’t really carving out, more like slicing.
Then I used multiple colored pencils to draw lines to make the book pages have dimension.
I tacky glued the foam pieces to the sides of the book.
It really looks like book pages in real life (from a couple feet away at least)
Prepping the Inside
I painted the inside of the book white.
A Personal Touch
I knew I wanted a background so what better than a stained glass drawing of the enchanted rose? You can skip this and simply print out a picture of your liking.
I cut a piece of Heavyweight Drawing Paper to the size of the book’s inside and used a reference photo of the rose from the movie.
I started coloring in the rose with pinks, reds, and white. Then the green stem using a light green and dark green. The rim is a pink with some red. The inside circle was a navy blue and purple-y color.
Finally, I used a Bullet Tip Black Pen to draw the lines.
Then, I added the lyrics of “Beauty and the Beast” to the background of the rose picture. I spray glued the back and fit it into the book.
Adding the Shelves
I took some scrap pieces of Balsa Wood and cut them to fit inside the book.
I marked where I wanted the two to intersect and cut slots so they’d fit together.
After cutting out the notches, I painted the wood white and glued them into place inside the book.
So, there was some white paint that had found its way onto the cover. I took this opportunity to age the book using black and brown colored pencils. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!
Magnifique!
This project was so fun and satisfying. I love how it turned out and it looks like a real book! I hope you can create this secret storage book to add to your bookshelf. Maybe you have a way to actually emboss gold leaf onto the cover…that’d be so amazing!
Thank you for making it down here! Please follow us on Instagram and Pinterest for more projects like this one! Don’t forget to share with your Disney DIY loving friends and family. We’d really really appreciate it!
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