Wonderful Handbook

It was a mental mind-bender to understand we were working from the inside out, so the next steps needed to just be done and not over-analyzed—and we successfully planned where our lids would be, making jigs so we'd remember later. After adding spacer layers, more decorative paper to line the inside of the case, and the little gap that would let us know where to stop cutting later, we wrapped more Bugra around the form, for a total of 12 wraps.

After setting our forms in a hot room to dry more quickly overnight, the next morning we were ready to cut. We trimmed the tops and bottoms and cut the whole box down to that little gap that we left (gasp!), slid them off our forms, sanded, and got ready to make the tops and bottoms—very simple, it turns out, as we traced our tops and bottoms onto Museum board, cut them out, and then cut out two more small pieces to be glued on for insets. I was expecting a monumental feat of measuring with complicated tools, and was relieved to find that we were simply tracing!

Finishing these cases took the most time—and I discovered first-hand the delightful camouflaging qualities of marbled paper. More sanding, gluing on strips of leather on the spine to imitate bands, applying the leather spine over the bands, and finishing the outside and top and bottom of the case came next