Bind-It-All, Crop-a-Dile Big Mouth, or Something Else?

[perfectangel]

OK, first off i know these are 2 totally different products with different purposes, so please bear with me here:)

It's my mums 60th this year and I would like to make her a memory book/scrap book. I kind of figure that if i buy a nice scrapbook it will cost me about 24.00 so i might as well spend a bit extra and have something i can continue to play with afterwards!!

The thing is, I don't know whether to invest in a Bind-It-All to cut and bind it Or a Crop-a-Dile big mouth to punch holes and then manually bind it?

Also, i swear i saw in a magazine somewhere that ther was another binding machine that was electric?

The Bind-It-All is purpose built and i am sure i could get a more professional result, but the crop-a-dile is more versatile and i can use it in card making etc too..... ufffa, decisions, decisions!!

Which one would you choose or would you recommend something else entirely?

Thanks for your help!!

Jo

[krafty1]

Hmm not sure which one I would choose if I didn't have either but I've got the Big Bite and I love it. With the BB you could put the holes exactly where you wanted and tie with lovely ribbon and then you can always use it for loads of other projects when the album is finished...cards, tags, labels etc.
The BIA on the other hand is only ever going to make books/albums etc and on top of the initial cost for the machine, you will need to buy the binder wires, wire cutters etc.
I had been looking at a BIA myself for a while now but have thought realistically how many albums am I going to be making so it's just going to have to go on the waiting list for the time being.

The album sounds like a fab idea, I'm sure your mum will love it.

[Boo]

I've got both, and I think it really depends on what you want. The bind-it-all makes several holes in one go, you insert your wire, and the machine closes it for you...ergo, the wires are virtually bound permanently and you can't add any more pages without all the hassle of removing and maybe damaging the wire and/or pages.
The Crop-a-dile and/or the Crop-a-dile Big Bite will only punch one hole at a time, but this gives you the opportunity of using book rings to bind your book together, these can be removed and pages added at any time.

I tend to use my BIA to make my own mini books like my DD1's wedding guest book which I knew wouldn't need any extra pages, whereas I use the Big Bite for things like tag albums where I only want one hole punched in the top of each tag, then book ringed together...I hope that makes sense!

As for my personal preference, I love both! I have the blue Bind-it-all but there is a new pink version which I believe has some updated features.

I don't know anything about an electric machine, sorry.

[scrappy sal]

ive got the cropadile and i dont use it as much as i thought i would, but i dont have the bind it all and would like one. my sister has this and uses it quite a lot to make books, calenders, etc.

sally