Alice in Wonderland Book Nook

What if... you could look down the corridor just after Alice entered Wonderland through the small door behind the curtain? You can see she left a piece of cake, and her dress is on the floor...if only you could follow her....

This is my first go at making a book nook, and I (obviously) based it on one of my favourite books: Alice in Wonderland.

Curiouser and curiouser... would you like to go down this rabbit hole with me?

I'm a big fan of using stuff that I have lying around, so the lists below do not include everything, but it should get you started.

Materials

• cardboard (any type will do)
• foamcore
• paper
• led "candles"
• multicolored led (I scavenged mine from a toy)
• a box filled with stuff that "might come in handy someday" (contains scraps of plastic, metal LEDs)
• acrylic paint
• glue (woodglue mostly, that stuff is the best!)
• small pieces of cloth (these can be scraps. I ordered some test strips from a textile shop)
• switches (like this)
• acrylic mirror plates that you can easily cut to size (like this)

Tools

• hobby knife
• hotglue gun
• soldering iron
• heatshrink tube
• patience and/or beer

OK, here we go... I used cardboard from old boxes to test out the concept. There will be an angled mirror in the back, to (hopefully) create the illusion of a corridor, just around the corner. In the end it turned out a bit less narrow than what you see here. At the back you can see a small mirror to test the idea.

The actual walls and floor were then cut from foamcore material because this is a bit more sturdy than corrugated cardboard.

Time to make some doors! I wanted my hallway to have several doors, and of course the tiny door that Alice went through! The doors are made out of scrap cardboard, and painted with acrylic paint. As I’m a big fan of the Chesire cat, I created a bit of a Chesire smile detail to go above one of the doors.

The boarding was made in the same way, from scrap cardboard. The frame around the doors was made from foamcore and also painted with acrylic paint.

In the end, I didn't use the small door because you could never see it when looking into the book nook.

I found a wallpaper design online with flamingo’s on it, which I found to be highly appropriate for the occasion! I did some minor editing of the image in powerpoint (nothing fancy!) to create an A4 piece of paper with the flamingo wallpaper. As I didn’t want a clean look, I weathered the crap out of the wallpaper! You can use diluted acrylic paint, tea, coffee. I really liked the instant coffee sticks to make nasty looking stains on the paper. It is superfun to do!

Then the wallpaper was cut into identical strips and put them on the wall using woodglue. Add the doors and there is your hallway! 

As the entrance to Wonderland is hidden behind a small door, that is hidden behind a curtain.... I had to add a curtain. I chose a small piece of red velvet for this. Weathered it (which was somewhat hard because the synthetic fabric didn't stain that well!).

Figuring out how to hang this curtain was a little nightmare of its own.... I ended up glueing it in place, as I couldn't get the wrinkles in any other way.

The idea is that you only see the curtain in the reflection of the mirror, as it is somewhat hidden behind the doorpost. This sort of worked out... although you can see glimpses of it.

Of course there should be some light in the hallway, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see anything. I went through a couple of ideas to make these, and ended up with a pretty simple setup. Again, made from (thin) cardboard and painted with acrylic paint. To get maximum reflection, I added a small piece of aluminum tape on the inside.

Make a hole in the wall, stick the "candle light" LED in, hotglue the LED in place and cover it up with the cardboad lamp cover.

For the floor I again decided to get a pattern online, and adjust it in powerpoint to make a larger pattern. This I glued onto the foamcore floor and covered in a layer of ModPodge Satin, to give it a bit of a shine. By carefully scoring along the lines of the tiles, it appears as though you have actual tiles! Supereasy step!

Behind the curtain, there is the small entrance to wonderland. Through the angled mirror in the back, you look into Wonderland behind the open door. That means, a landscape needs to be created next to the wall.

I created the landscape from hardened insulation foam. You could also use a piece of styrofoam you have that around (from packaging for example).

This is also where the light changing LED is added, to get an even more Wonderfull experience! Just hotglue it in place and attach some wiring to connect it to a switch later on.

Well, Alice drank the potion and shrunk of course! Her dress is left on the floor as the only thing that tells you she was there...

Oooooh and making a mini dress is not for the faint of hearted! I used a small piece of cloth, but only after testing it with a piece of scrap fabric. This was a diffcult item to make! A lot of it is actually glued together with textile glue. That way I could also get the wrinkled texture.

From cardboard I also created a small table (which was painted brown - not shown here). The "bottle" is the tip of a plastc pipette, with a drop of hotglue at the bottom to mimic liquid (which was very much a happy accident)

To hide the booknook in between my actual books, I created a front of fake books using colored paper and cardboard. Next time, I think I will just use old books as I'm not super happy about how these turned out.

I stuck the fake books on a front wall of foamcore.The fake book titles were made using vinyl stickers cut with a Cricut Maker. The red "book" opens the door to Wonderland.

To be able to look into Wonderland, an acrylic mirror was added at the back of the book nook. I simply stuck it into place with aluminium tape as this prevents light leakage. A little groove in the floor keeps it in place as well.

All the LEDs are attached to their own switch (wasn't my first choice, but hey). The switches are located at the front of the booknook.

And that's it! Book Nook done!

Have fun making your own booknook.