If you have made very many scrapbooks, you know how costly albums can be to purchase. This cost is all too apparent if you are making scrapbooks that are designed to be given away as gifts or if you are one of those prolific scrapbookers with dozens or even hundreds of scrapbooks. However, there is an alternative to expensive albums when binding your scrapbooks. You can use spiral coil (also called color coil).

One of the best things about spiral coil is that it is available in almost any length and color imaginable. Currently, spiral coil is available in more than 64 stock colors. No matter what color scheme that you choose for your scrapbook, there is most likely a color available that will match. Recently a number of new colors of spiral coil were released including: Charcoal, Electric Blue, Magenta, Fluorescent Green, Dark Purple, Fluorescent Pink, Fluorescent Orange, Burnt Orange, Spiral Blue, Plum, Neon Green, Pearl, Goldenrod, Light Teal, Lilac, Process Blue, Copper and Tangerine. Using the different colors available on the market, you can give almost any scrapbook its own customized appearance.

Spiral Coil also lends itself extremely well to scrapbooking since you can buy coils in almost any size or length imaginable. Color coil is available in sizes as small as 6mm (1/4") and as large as 50mm (2") however it works best in sizes up to 1" (25mm). Coil can also be ordered in almost any length up to 36" long and can be easily cut to the correct length if needed. This flexibility makes it possible to bind almost any size of scrapbook including 12" x 12", 8" x 8" and 8.5" x 11" albums.

Traditionally, the equipment to punch holes for spiral coil binding has been too expensive for the home market. However, there are now a few different coil binding machines that are affordable for doing scrapbooking and creating memory books. For 11" x 8.5" albums, GBC (General Binding Corporation) recently introduced a new binding punch called the ProClick P50. The ProClick P50 costs about $60 and can be used in conjunction with 3:1 pitch spiral coil for an extremely economical coil binding solution.

For individuals who are looking to bind scrapbooks with a binding edge shorter or longer than 11" a plastic coil binding machine with disengageable dies is necessary. There are coil binding machines available on the market that cost approximately $250 and have 46 disengageable punch pins allowing you to bind documents as short as 1 inch long and as long as 21 inches long (using the open throat design). These machine uses 4:1 pitch color coil which is more readily available and slightly cheaper than 3:1 pitch coil. Using this type of binding machine you can bind dozens or even hundreds of scrapbooks without difficulty.