Simply Curious

After a long break, my interest cycle has revolved back to miniatures.  I'm STILL pondering the making of mini books and the steampunk library.  It dawned on me that I had a perfect vessel already - a jewelry box I got at Bombay Company that I no longer use.  I'm not sure that it would be big enough for what I'm envisioning, and it's still at my parent's house, so I need to go get it and measure. 

I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed by the number of books I need to make.  Today I cut up two strips of balsa wood, and estimated that from each 1/8" thickness strip, 24" long, I can get about 3" worth of bookshelf space filled, roughly 38 books.  If shelves are 1" tall, and maybe 6" wide, that's 56 books per shelf.  If the bookshelf is about 10" tall, that's 560 books.  and there's two bookshelves on each end, and a much wider one on the back wall.  Maybe 2,000 books total.  And that's just for one project!

There are kits I can buy that usually have about 50 or 60 books in them, about $13 apiece.  The Kendall leather book kit is around $19, but only has 20 books in that kit, but the leather paper is so awesome it's almost worth it.  And then there's the plain pre-made books that are 12 books for around $2.50.  Wanna in El Paso is also planning a new printable book kit soon, by the page rather than by the title. 

I suppose my best bet is to just do spine blocks, but that sounds just as complex as making each book individually.  I know nothing about wood carving, and yet in order to obtain the right amount of realism I think I'd have to learn.  I can always tell the fake books, and I'd be easily disappointed.

I'm sure I could cut it down to 1000 books by just doing a corner of shelves rather than the entire roombox.  Maybe less if I incorporate architectural details.  I need to start thinking about the rest of the room and how to make it Victorian steampunk without going overboard.  I'm the snooty type who thinks if there's going to be gears in it, it had better be functional.