Anniversary AB is complete

As we are preparing for our 6th anniversary on ABC, I am finally getting my 5th anniversary book together. Nearly a year later, I finally found both the covers I wanted to use and the swapped items. The outside front cover was made using rusted paper and the letters I used to paint one set of my circles. The inside, which I didn't photograph, has a flower and a 5 left over from potato stamping.

It's no secret that I found circles hard to work with, and more important, hard to bind. However, not wanting to just put a single hole in the pieces, I wanted this to be a complete book. So I punched 3 holes in each circle using my Crop-A-Dile. It took several hours, but was well worth it.

I learned something valuable this week about wire. The more you work it, the harder it gets. So, I took a length of heavy wire outside, along with a hammer, and pounded it on my concrete steps. Then I wound the wire around a large pill bottle and cut it like you would jump rings. I could tell I had hardened it, because it was a lot harder to cut after the pounding I gave it. It was the perfect size for the circles and much cheaper than the rings I had originally considered buying.

I added fibers and a few charms, but they don't seem to show in the photos. The back side is the actual prototype I made for the swap. Of course I changed the design a lot before the piece was finished. However, I am just tickled that I finally have the book assembled and sitting proudly on one of my shelves in my main floor craft room.

To see the circles I contributed go here, here, here, and here. I got a little carried away since I had so many already cut circles and only 15 participants. I'm sure I won't be a year binding my 6th anniversary book, which I'll have in about a month.