Photo album advice

[Ren]

Hi
Hopefully you will be able to help.
I have been lurking quite a bit recently because I have been trying to make / do more things recently with all the bits I have collected over many years and never got round to.

(E.g. make skirt out of fabric I have had for 10yrs - started last night)

I have some card about A5 size that I got from a 'Scraps' store to make my wedding invitations. I have about 30 sheets left that I would like to make into a photo album for some of the wedding pics I have had printed out from my mum's camera.

What would be the easiest way to bind it all together? SHould I use a more solid material for the cover? - I think I want to cover this with some leather fabric I have had kicking around (again for about 10 years!). Would a thicker cardboard be suitable?

When put together the 'pages' would be about an inch thick.

Please help or point me in the right diretion because this will aid my decluttering regime that I pretend to have started. (Although all I am doing here is not bringing in new and talking about 'making'!)

Thanks
Ren

[greannancrafts]

Hi

Welcome

Sorry, I can't help, but I am sure someone will be along soon who can.

Jane

[sparkysdad]

Hi there, well done you for finding the motivation to declutter.. I will send you my address, so when you finish you can come and do the same here! - just kidding!!

One relatively simple option for your binding would be to use comb binding - these can be plastic or wire - think like the big spiral bound map books everyone used to have in the car..

The bindings come in a range of colours, though they are not to everybodys taste.. but you can dress and finish them in a number of ways and make them prettier - for example try putting a simple loop of ribbon or cord through one of the wire loops, then pull the loose ends though the lopp to make a simple knot and trim the ends nicely. if you do this on each one, you get a row of ribbon tails.. or try mixing and matching cords and ribbons, add a few beads or other tiny ornaments to blend with your colours and style.

You can buy a binding machine, but they are not cheap, for a one off project try your local printer, photo shops, or if you have one near you Staples Superstore. University/Colleges often have facilities for Students to bind their work, it may be worth asking one near you if you can have your book done.

The benefit of comb/wire binding is that you can have almost any "reasonable" thickness, and your covers and pages can be in a variety of material (as long as the hole puncher they use will pierce it of course)

Another alternative is to buy a blank postbound album (Often sold as scrapbooking albums and 8" square or more often 12" square ) - these have an expanding spine and usually 2 extendable metal posts. Often they come with 10 clear pockets that you put your finished layouts in to, and when you buy extra packs of pockets, you get a pair of metal extenders to screw in to the posts, so your album can "grow" up to about 2" thick..

Some of the albums come with plain covers so you could customise them to suit your project if you wanted to.

Hope that helps!!

[Ren]

Thanks for your comments, I will have a look at these options.

As for the decluttering, I think it's more one of those things that gets talked about a lot, a few bags of rubbish put out and some complete tat put on freecycle, then nothing more until I feel guilty again!

[uksewing]

store them online, buy a mac and you can create great albums that get delivered in a few days.

[Janet F]

already said

I was going to suggest the wire binding to. The only thing I'd add is to say that I'd make all the pages first and then have it bound because if you bind it first then stick in all your photos... it may become too wide and not close nicely.