12x12 albums?...

What 12x12 albums do you love? Has anyone ever used the Martha Stewart ones. They actually seem really nice and they're on sale this week at Michaels.

Their other scrapbook albums are on for an even better discount, but I'm not in love with any of them. I ended up grabbing a black leather (or pleather or whatever it is) Pioneer one. It was only $14.99 and might well do for what I need, but I'd like to check out other ideas first and take it back if I find something else.

What I'm doing is printing out all the layouts I've done of the kids and putting them in an album for my family for Christmas. I'll do photo books of these pages someday, but I've come to accept that I do not scrap in any particular order and I don't scrap fast, so I'd like to get these pages into my family's hands in some form at least. I know they'll be thrilled, and I can keep adding to the album for them in little batches.

I think the leather finish is probably better, because the kids will be looking through them all the time, and cloth is probably not a good combo with their hands. So maybe I should just stick to the Pioneer one. One thing I liked about the Martha one though, was the pages loaded from the side, and inside the album, so they can't easily slip out. The Pioneer and all the others are top loading, which I'm not fond of. So, are Pioneer bad, good, meh? I never see anyone mention them, but they're everywhere in Michaels and the LSSs.

I know everyone talks about the Ding binder types, but I couldn't find any of those at Michaels. It was the post type or these weird strap hinges. I know everyone seems to do 8x8 too, but I'd really prefer 12x12 for this.

So, any thoughts or suggestions? Any feedback would be much appreciated!

I haven't heard good or bad about Pioneer, but they've been around forever, so they must be OK, lol. DO NOT get a strap-hinge whatever you do, lol...those are the biggest pain in the butt, haha.

I have only 1 12x12 album by Close to My Heart and it's really nice. Linen, though...but it expands well. It does get dirty easily - right now it has a stain on it that I have NO idea where it came from because it was in storage until recently.

The side loading pages sounds cool though - see if maybe you can interchange the side-loading ones for the top-loading ones...even if the holes don't line up, you can sometimes make them if you just punch holes with a hole punch or crop-o-dile, as long as the wrong holes line up right (that doesn't make sense...but if the wrong holes are only out by a little bit, putting new holes in will just make a mess, so you'd have to compare both refills and see where they line up before trying it).

I have always loved the CTMH albums. I have some CTMH albums that are about 3 inches thick full of paper scrapped pages.

I started out with Pioneer and ended up not liking them. They weren't sturdy once I filled them up.

ditzyscrap said:

The side loading pages sounds cool though - see if maybe you can interchange the side-loading ones for the top-loading ones...even if the holes don't line up, you can sometimes make them if you just punch holes with a hole punch or crop-o-dile, as long as the wrong holes line up right (that doesn't make sense...but if the wrong holes are only out by a little bit, putting new holes in will just make a mess, so you'd have to compare both refills and see where they line up before trying it).

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Oooo, smart thinkin', Bree! I'm pretty sure they were different holes, but I didn't think about using the Crop-A-Dile!

The strap hinge ones looked like a huge pain in the butt, and I just can't imagine them holding up well either.

Thanks, you guys! So Close To My Heart is a brand? *scurries off to Google it...*

Joan said:

Oooo, smart thinkin', Bree! I'm pretty sure they were different holes, but I didn't think about using the Crop-A-Dile!

The strap hinge ones looked like a huge pain in the butt, and I just can't imagine them holding up well either.

Thanks, you guys! So Close To My Heart is a brand? *scurries off to Google it...*

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Close To My Heart is a stamping/scrapbooking company. I used to be a consultant but I'm not anymore...you can search for a consultant near you and order from them online now, which is cool.

I just put hundreds of layouts into albums a few months ago. I bought the Westrim cloth ones at Michael's (at 40% off they were only $12 each). I originally had CTMH albums and these were a good match for them. The only Pioneer albums I've had are really cheapy with the thin spine covering that shows the holes when you put too much in them. But those are really old so maybe they have newer, better ones? Just be sure you get a 3-hole if you are doing post-bound as they hold up better than the 2-hole ones.

I think I've posted this pic before, but here are all my albums - a color for each boy. (I had one leather CTMH so that got used also.)

I love the American Crafts 3 ring ones!

Thanks, Bree! I found a bunch of CTMH sites (various consultants I guess) when I googled. I'll probably end up using something I can buy locally, but they're good to know about for future reference!

Thanks for the heads up about Pioneer, Mary! I don't know that their products have changed much over the years, so I don't imagine their quality has improved. I think I'll take this one back, see if our Michaels has Westrim in their selection and take another good look at the Martha Stewart ones.

soooo organized! love it!

I use American Crafts, Dalee, and CTMH.

If you plan on packing them up..don't use the Pioneer albums LOL I learned the hard way.

I really like the 3ing ones from WeRmemoryKeepers. Close to My Heart also has some awesome, awesome books.

I ended up converting all of my 12x12's to the plain leather-esque 3ring albums that Hobby Lobby sells. They are bigger than a typical 12x12, but they are holding up fantastically...and at $6-7 each when they have their sales, can't beat that! Besides, I can get them all in one color, don't have to worry about them going out of style, etc. While I love the WRMemorykeepers, I can never find them in stock, so decided to go the safe route, and am happy that I switched over to them.