The only change I really wanted to make to the design, was to make the box itself look like a book. That's partly because I thought it would look more interesting when sitting on a shelf or coffee table and so someone might display it in a more obvious place. The other reason is just that I am such a bibliophile that I thought it would also be fun to make them look like books and then pay homage to classic works of literature in the titles.
The first one I made was for Ella, the oldest of my two beautiful stepdaughters. Ella was 11 years old at the time. She absolutely loves Les Miserables and so I made her marble book maze as a tribute to that classic novel. In all the names of these book mazes, I wanted to try and tweak the novel's title slightly to hint at the marble maze inside. That usually means incorporating a word like "maze", "marble", "puzzle", etc. For Ella's book, that meant changing the name to "Les Mazerable" (which my sister Missy came up with).
After that first marble maze book, I changed much of the design, including the interior maze layout, and the location of the marble storage area. Other versions had additional minor design tweaks. Another cool thing about this project is that you can personalize it for someone if you know what their favorite book is!
These are fun projects to work on because they involve some intricate, detailed work. They are also fun to finish because they involve some interesting painting for the book covers. And, again, they make great personalized gifts for the book-lovers in your life!
Version 1: Les Mazerable (based on Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo).
