When in Manila, there’s no harm in making sure that your most precious things are safe–gadgets, phones, wallets, etc. So why not make something that keeps your stuff safely tucked in between the words of your favorite tome? The book clutch has been hitting the runways as of late, touted by Clemence Poesy, Natalie Portman and the like. I’ve always been the kid that carried around a book wherever she went when in school. Now that life is getting in the way of my reading (a fact that’s sadder when said), the book clutch was a wonderful ode to that.
The Little Things You’ll Need:
– A Hardbound Book
– Large, Sharp Cutter
– Glue
– Ruler
– Pencil
For this DIY I used a copy of ‘How to Be Good’ by Nick Hornby which I picked up at a local Book Sale for Php 130. This is the only time in which one can certainly judge a book by its cover, as I picked up that book for the sole purpose of making it into a clutch. This edition had a gorgeous scarlet flypage and a contrasting teal cover. I know it seems sacrilegious to destroy a book, but I told myself that this book would get much more love as a clutch (the story was so-so for me) and pressed on.
Open your book and skip the first flypage. Of course, you can skip more pages if you want to have more cover for the clutch, but skipping one page should be just fine. With a ruler, measure 1.5 inches on all sides and draw a border with a pencil.
Once you’ve made your mark, place your hardbound book, flypage open, under a much heavier book. That is actually my brick-sized college yearbook placed over a book about dogs.
While this is happening, grab a paintbush or a sponge brush and slather the glue all over the sides of the book. The point here, of course, is to fuse the pages together well enough so that they form the sides of your clutch. Leave this to dry (or blast it with a warm hairdryer) overnight until the glue dries, and the pages are stuck together.
And now for the hardest part of this DIY. Use your cutter slice off the book pages inside the border that you made. This process was as heartbreaking as it was tedious, as I really had to hack into that book. On another note, I was actually reading the book one last time as I was removing pages, so the time kind of flew by quickly. Its okay if your cutting is a little messy–after all, nobody’s perfect and I’ve only been using a cutter for about a year. We’ll remedy that later.
The important thing here is that the pages remain stuck together. If you see some start to separate, remedy the situation with Elmer’s Glue. Wait for it to dry, then resume.
As to how many pages you should remove, that’s totally up to you. I removed around 200 + pages here to accomodate (at the very least) your phone. You can leave 10, you can take them all out, it all depends on how deep you want the hole to be.
Once that’s done, score an X over your flypage, this time working inside the lines of your border. Glue this to the base of your clutch, cleaning up the cuts you made. Stack your brick-sized books on top again, then you’re all set!
Carla de Guzman is the author of Cities and Marry Me, Charlotte B! (available on Smashwords and Amazon) Calling herself a writer by night, she enjoys painting, traveling and writing about both.
