I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I finished the Nancy Drew book purse, but the hang-up has been the cutting of the book board. The board is really thick, and thus difficult to cut. For this project, the rectangles need perfectly straight lines and a 90° cut. I tried to cut it with a craft knife and it took at least 7 or 8 passes, dulled and/or broke the blades right away, hurt my hand, and didn’t result in a 90° cut. So I took my book board to FabLab with the intention of cutting out the rectangles in one fell swoop with the laser cutter, but the laser cutter was acting up and although Phyllis tried everything she could think of, it just wasn’t working correctly. The mobile lab (with laser cutter) has since left DC. Tear.

Then, my friend (from trapeze) Colin said we could cut the board on his CNC router. We were going to do that yesterday, but then the router was being finicky. Running out of options, I asked for advice from an awesome associate at Bethesda Paper Source, and she gave me a good tip: box cutter. I didn’t realize that a box cutter was that much stronger than a craft knife, but it is. She also said to use a cork lined metal ruler (which I do) and to stand up when I cut to use my body weight. So I went to the hardware store and bought a heavy-duty box cutter, and went home to give it a try. Guess what? It works! It takes about three passes to completely cut through the board (which is .09″ thick – the Paper Source site describes the product as “tough to cut”). Once I cut out the pieces to make a box for the Nancy Drew book purse, I quickly realized my dimensions were a bit off.

The problem is that I was only guessing at how to assemble the boxes — I wasn’t working off instructions. But then I found this video from “Club Scrap” and although it doesn’t give measurements, I did learn a few helpful tips. Between the video and the trial and error of making the box (which did come out rather well, I do think), I learned the following:
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