Stuff I've Made: Vintage Book Clock Mini-Tutorial

Last week I attended a graduation party for my cousin, who was celebrating finishing nursing school. I was trying to think of a gift I could make for her when I remembered that I'd bought a cute vintage Cherry Ames book at a library sale recently, and then I knew exactly what I wanted to make!

I took a quick trip to the thrift store to pick up a clock I could tear apart. You can also purchase new clock movements at the craft store for around $8, but I'm cheap and I'll never pass up the opportunity for a trip to the thrift! :D I easily found a clock (and some other goodies I'll show you another time) that was priced at $1.99. (Now, if I'd thought better, I would have taken a AA battery with me so that I could test the clock and be sure that it worked. I got lucky but it's not a bad idea).

I've torn apart a thrift store clock to get to the innards before, so I knew exactly what to do: pop off the plastic dome with a butter knife, unscrew the hands and pull out the clock mechanism. Easy! To prepare the book, I figured out approximately where I wanted the center of the clock to be, taking into account both the length of the clock hands and the photo on the cover; I didn't want the hands sprouting from the middle of Nurse Cherry Ames' face.  I opened up the front cover and placed the black clock mechanism box on the first page and traced it with a pencil. I drew a square slightly larger than the lines I traced, then I cut through all the pages with a very sharp utility knife, creating a hole where the black box would sit.

If you're making a clock like this, it's important to make sure that the thickness of your book is equal to or greater than the thickness of the black box, so that your book will close completely. My book was just barely deep enough, but I had to go all the way down to the back cover to reach the required depth. A thicker book might not require you to cut through all of the pages.

Next, I glued all the pages shut. I simply swiped a glue stick along the outside edge and pressed the pages flat, then glued the last page to the inside of the back cover as well.

I don't have a picture of this next step, as my hands were full, but you need to drill a hole in the front cover of the book for the stem of the mechanism. To find out where I needed to drill, I placed the black box into its new hole in the pages, then closed the cover of the book tightly. The end of the stem made a tiny indentation on the inside cover that showed me where to make my hole. I selected a drill bit that seemed approximately the size of the stem, and drilled a hole. The first hole I made was too small for the stem, so I selected the next size of drill bit and re-drilled the hole. The edges of the hole were a bit chewed up from the drill (even though I tried hard to be gentle) so I carefully smoothed them with the tip of my utility knife.

From here, it's easy! Poke the stem through the hole and reattach the hands in the correct order. Insert a battery to be sure it all works. I decided to add numbers to the clock face, because I've never been good with those watches where you have to approximate the time because there are no numerals. You can purchase self-adhesive clock numbers and I actually had some in my stash (my pack-rattery knows no bounds) but they were shiny gold plastic and looked exceedingly cheesy against the vintage book. Instead, I used some metal numbers for scrapbooking. I cut the loops off the tops with a wire cutter and glued them on using a clear-drying adhesive.

And there you have it! The clock turned out really cute and I think the recipient liked it. Think of all the neat vintage books out there that you could use to make a cute clock. In fact, this might be a fun Father's Day gift, if you used a book with an author or a subject that your Dad likes. I think the book cost $1.50 and the clockworks were $1.99, but I know I've seen these clocks in catalogs and boutiques and they're far more expensive than that. What a fun way to give new life to something old!