Nice set of books, right? Ah, but it’s a trompe l’oeil illusion, art that tricks the eye into thinking it’s looking at a three-dimensional object. What you’re actually seeing is a book façade hiding secret storage compartments — courtesy of Eileen Hull’s Book Club dies from Sizzix. It’s a handy place to keep checkbooks, bills, secret dossiers and high school pictures of yourself you want no one to see. 

The key to making the façade look real is to line up the spines of actual books on a photocopier so that the photocopy captures the shadows between the books. The photocopy is then mounted on a piece of foam core board, trimmed and glued onto the storage containers. To the casual visitor, they look just like any other books on the bookshelf. But only you know that they’re not really books, but a secret hiding place.

1. Line up the spines of your books on a color photocopier. Choose enough books so that they measure about a foot. I recommend using a laser copier at the copy store instead of your inkjet printer at home. The resulting image will be more realistic, capturing both shadows and reflections. Oh, and you’ll probably have to use the 11 by 17 paper. 

2. Apply spray adhesive to the back of the photocopy, and adhere it to a piece of foam core board. Then I cut around the image of the books with a hobby knife. 

3. For the storage compartments behind this book facade, I used — very appropriately — one of the dies from Eileen Hull’s Book Club collection for Sizzix. It’s the Card Box/Planner Storage and Organizer. I also used her Box die from a few seasons back. I first covered mat board in dictionary pages, and then die cut out the shapes.
4. I assembled the individual organizers with hot glue, and then attached them together in a row with more hot glue.
5. Then I hot glued the organizers to the back of the book facade.So when you turned it around, the storage is hidden behind the facade.And placed within a book shelf with real books, no one can tell the difference. Except you!