You’ve purchased the paper, you’ll create the pages and now you need a way to store and present your pages. You insert your completed pages into page protectors. Page protectors are plastic sheets that keep dirty hands off your photos and embellishments. You then assemble these page protectors into an album. Albums keep your pages dust free and protected from light.
Albums come in a whole range of styles, sizes, colors, textures, themes and types of fastener. So much to choose from that it can be difficult to decide which is right for you. There IS no right or wrong. I’ve done all size albums, all colors all themes.
Let’s start with the album itself. Things to think about before you decide:
Is this a gift? If yes, what kind of gift – for a baby, birthday, retirement?
Did you just return from Disney and want all your photos stored together?
I ask these questions because you’ll want to think about how many photos you have to work with and how much you want to spend. Of course bigger albums can cost more.
When I do a gift, I usually do a smaller album like an 8×8 or even a 6×6 for baby gifts. However, when I’m doing personal albums, I usually do 12x12s. I do my albums by year so in any given year, I’ll have tons of photos and I can get more on a 12×12 page so I can generally keep it to 1 year per album.
Additional thoughts by size:
12×12
holds numerous photos
a lot of room to journal and decorate page
many 12×12 papers to choose from
large range of styles from leather to fabric from themed to plain
8 ½x11
still many papers to choose from
can handle standard computer paper
8×8
will be faster to put together because you’ll have less journaling
faster to assemble due to less embellishment space
makes a nice gift album
6×6
economical to make
12×12 paper can be cut to create 4 pages
mix and match just a few designs to make many pages
makes a nice gift
use for a single important theme (birthday, anniversary, etc)
Once you pick out an album, you’ll want to notice what kind of fasteners it has. There is:
Ring binder: these are nice because if you want to add another page, you simply flip to where you want to insert the new page, unfasten, slip the new page in and refasten. Simple and quick.
Post bound: Most of my albums are post bound because I like the look of them. They just seem to have a more finished appearance. Just my personal preference. However, they are a pain if you want to insert a new page. You must unscrew the post from one side while holding the screw still on the other side, pull out ALL the pages, insert your new page, then slowly put all the pages back in and rescrew the posts back together. The posts do come in different sizes that allow you to make your book as big as you’d like. Use your judgment on this though. You don’t want to make it too big or it will be too floppy.
Most albums are post bound but you can get 12x12s and 8x11s that are a ring binder type. Again, there will never be a right or wrong. This is your creation and you can do whatever you want.
I hope this helps with your album selection. Please feel free to contact me for additional help. There are so many variables when you’re deciding and not a one size fits all.
Thank you for reading
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Debbi Armstrong