Here's my latest addiction: making my own book clasps! I've been searching for them for ages, craved for those in old books, but never actually tried to make my own until now. Obviously, I have absolutely no experience with metal work and it wasn't that easy until I got the first one right. I only had available some basic tools like scissors and rasps for metal so everything is really handmade :) But I was dreaming of trying this since some time now and meanwhile I kept collecting every bit of metal that I thought might come handy one day. So here are my first trials, made of brass.
Encouraged by the results of my first experiments with brass and by your wonderful excitement and feedback, I went on with the idea of making my own book clasps. If to the first ones I had to apply some patina as I found the color of new brass too shiny for my vintage leather books, this time I used some pieces of old brass recovered from a broken coffee grinder. I bought it long time ago at a street fair, unfortunately crushed and incomplete, hoping that one day it will be possible to recover or reuse it. I don't want to sell these clasps as they are among my firsts and I don't have much antique brass left to make many more. Honestly, I also fell in love with the book that's wearing them so I decided I'll keep this one to my (selfish) self. 
