I'm putting a leather cover on my thread book to make it more durable, and debating a layer of board between the paper and leather for extra rigidity.
To answer some questions: this is properly called a Chinese Thread Book, or Zhen Xian Bao. I followed the tutorial below when I made mine several years ago. It's not one single piece of origami, it's actually 31 (very repetitive) pieces that lock into each other. (If memory serves, I believe I added a bit of glue when I attached them to make it extra secure.)
The only modification I made to the pattern that's demonstrated is that I took the largest bottom layer, and added about an inch to its total length so that I would have a gap between both halves and could "close" it like you see above. I used a large pad of manila drawing paper, and just made my proportions as big as I could on the paper--I think I was somewhere near 24 inches on the longest side of the biggest piece, and the book is about 12 inches square.
It does hold objects well! Nothing big or bulky, but I usually have stickers, postcards, pressed flowers, envelopes and stamps in here; I emptied it mostly out because I'm thinking about bringing it to the hobbit larp in the fall. It is a bit delicate--it is just paper--but it's also really fun!
Because the pattern is modular, you could basically stop or continue at any stage--mine is five layers deep, but you could stop at three, or continue to ten, if you could find big enough paper.
