The photos you select for your scrapbook play a major role in selecting what type of album you will want to us for your project. How many pictures do you have? What sizes are they? What other items do you plan to include in your book? How thick are they? If you only have a dozen pictures and a few small mementos to include in your book, a mini album might best suit your project. Several dozen pictures? That's probably going to be a bit larger. This week we'll be talking about the most popular styles of books and discuss some of the major pros and cons of each.
Sewn or Glued Binding: Scrapbooks with a sewn or glued spine are great for lots of journaling and a few pictures, but not your thicker embellishments and mementos. Since the binding doesn't have any "give", if you overfill these albums, they will have a hard time closing properly and can do damage to the spine and pages of your book. But if you like to write and don't have too many pictures, this might be the perfect album for your project!
Spiral Bound: These lay flat when viewing pages and can be fun to decorate the binding with ribbon, but be careful! You can't rearrange or add pages to these books so make sure you have everything laid out where you want it to go before you start adhering things.
Post Bound: These scrapbooks are bound by metal posts backed by ends that screw on. You can also add extensions if your pages don't fit. It's a little harder to add extra pages later, but still doable. These books hold your pages in acid and lignin free plastic page protectors, just slide your pages right in-very simple! Post bound books often come with 10 page protectors, holding 20 single page layouts and are great especially if you do a lot of 2 page layouts. Pages lay flat and there is minimal space between them at the spine, showing off a practically seamless 2 page spread.
Ring Bound: If you like to be able to swap out or add on to your scrapbook often you might appreciate the adjustability of the ring bound style albums. The style is also good for a lot of 3-dimensional embellishments or memorabilia. Ring bound scrapbooks are available in "O" and "D" ring styles. Although your pages might turn easier with the "O" style, the "D" style will help protect your pages by keeping them lined up and reducing friction.
Once you have your pictures ready and your scrapbook size and style selected, you're ready to start putting your album together! Be sure to join us next week when we'll focus on different ways to mount the photographs to the pages in your scrapbook!
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