Choosing a Scrapbooking Album
The scrapbooking album defines how your scrapbook project will look when it’s finished — so what choices do you need to make to ensure your scrapbooking project turns out like you want? You’ll need to know the answer to the following two questions. What size scrapbooking album should you use? What type of album binding is best?
Let’s consider album size first. Large albums tend to be either 12″ x 12″ or 8.5″ x 11″. Some of the more popular small albums are 8″ x 8″ and 6″ x 6″. If you’re starting a more general project where you have lots of photographs and a variety of events, then you should probably go with a larger album.
If you try to use a small album, you will be limited on where you can place photographs and will probably end up having to use multiple albums. This means you will spend more, and the finished project will probably seem less organized. The best use for small albums is when you want to scrapbook about a single event, like a specific birthday or anniversary, or a particular vacation.
What about binding styles? There are three basic types of scrapbooking albums: strap-bound, post-bound, and ring-bound. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Strap-bound albums are long-lasting and they lay flat when you open them. But given their construction, they are notoriously difficult to reorder. If you decide you want to put the pages in a different order, you have to take the entire book apart. Using a strap-bound album is great if you have everything completely planned before you begin. They are especially good to use if you intend to have several two-page layouts, because there is no gap between pages when they lay flat.
Post-bound albums occupy the middle ground when it comes to album types. A major positive feature of these albums is that they are easy to expand. All you have to do is buy post extenders. When it comes to rearranging the pages, they do offer a slight advantage over strap-bound albums, but it would still be a good idea to do a little planning ahead of time.
Ring-bound albums provide a great deal of flexibility when it comes to rearranging the pages. Unfortunately, there is also a big gap in the middle when you open the book. That makes this type of album least suitable when you expect to have two-page layouts.
Beginners should probably opt for large, ring-bound albums for their first few projects. Once you get some experience under your belt, then you will probably be able to figure out what your next scrapbooking project needs.
[...] the album. There are several styles available and a couple of choices to be made, so I wrote about choosing your scrapbooking album here. Other items [...]