What kind of scrapbook album is best for digital scrapbooking?
That is a really difficult question to answer, since it’s up to personal preferences. There are many sizes of albums from 6 x 6 up to larger than 12 x 12. Most scrapbooks are in 8.5 x 11 or 12 x 12 binders, probably because more products are made in these sizes.
Size is only one difference in albums. The way the album’s binder is configured is another big consideration. There are strap-hinge, accordion, postbound and 3-ring binder albums. The decision as to which is best can be determined by what you like or don’t like. For example, some people find putting strap hinge albums together too much of a pain. Any of these systems are limited to the number of pages that can a binder can hold.
Here is a picture of a strap-hinge album (below):
Postbound or post-bound albums Post bound albums use actual posts to hold your in the binder. The image on the below shows what those posts look like. For those albums, various depths of posts can be purchased.
There are more and more 3-ring albums made for scrapbooking. It used to be that these types of albums were used in offices or business presentations and were in the boring, standard corporate looking colors. Now, the products available include all kinds of cover materials and colors, so these are very popular with scrapbookers. They are easy to use, since adding or removing pages only requires you to open and close the rings. Page protectors are handy to use with these (they are 3-hole punched plastic sleeves that you insert your pages into). This way all the pages are protected from the oils on people’s hands and any other likely accidents, such as having a drink spilled on the pages.
So it’s possible the album to choose will be based on the type of binding or it could be that the type of cover the album has will be the reason you choose it. Album covers can have plastic, fabrics such as denim or corduroy, faux leather and genuine leather.
Some of my favorite places to buy albums:
My Art and Craft Supplies has lots of scrapbook albums (look on the left menu for the albums, 12 x 12 or Smaller than 12 x 12).
Scrapbook.com: Thousands of scrapbooking supplies.
A Cherry On Top, Scrapbooking Shoppe