Cris's friendship book is finished (with revisions)

I'm simply thrilled that this book is finished, although, like so many other things I make, I ran into some problems during assembly.
Here's what the finished book looks like. I think I pulled every fiber style out of my stash that even remotely matched the outside covers. I wound baling wire in circles and used that to hold the book together. I have no idea how much the fibers cost because most of it I got in a swap one year, where I bought a skein of fiber for around $5.00 and had over half left over. The baling wire came from Kathy's husband. (I purposely didn't crop the window out of the photo because I wanted everyone to see all the snow we got)
Here is what the finished product looks like from the top. Not exactly full, but there are 10 pages (including the covers), which means 20 spreads.

Cris came and got her Crop-A-Dile last weekend, so I had to cut the holes the old fashioned way. I began by trying to use a 7 hole punch, but I couldn't get the hole alignment right. In fact, one of the punches slipped on this first page I punched, and I ended up with an additional hole in the cover. What to do? I had received some glass tile samples in the mail, so I used them to cover the hole. The hole is behind the yellow tile, but I think I hid it OK, at least on the front.

I had to match the back, so added the other two glass tiles there. Yep, I got four glass tiles in the sample. Cost of repair? E6000.

Here is a picture of the two outside covers and the mass of fibers. I wonder if this is overkill.

If you read my blog regularly, you know I got the sentiments of these two spreads mixed up. Well, I also got their positions mixed up, too. I originally intended to punch the holes in the yellow strip of the left spread. At the last minute, I changed my mind, but forgot to flip the spread I wanted next to it. So there are six holes in the spread I hated so much on the right.

Carol in FL sent me some wooden spoons that I had earmarked for another project, but when I got to thinking how I could cover up these holes without making it look like a mistake, I drug out the wooden spoons and some eyelash fibers that matched the red in the spread.
I ran the fibers through brown buttons that I matched with the color palette on the other side. Although it looks less like a mistake on the spoon side, I'm still pretty pleased with how I covered my goof. Just a perfect "flopportunity."

My final addition was a small metal charm that reads "Merry Christmas." It was the perfect touch for an otherwise pretty ho-hum spread.

Now all I have to do is wrap the gift and put it under my tree. One more gift I can cross off my list!