Homemade pin binder?

[Gina]

Ok, I've given up hope on getting even one reply on the "arts and crafts" board, so I thought I'd pose it to my craftier Budget Board pals, since I am definitely trying to do this on a budget!

My son's pin collection has outgrown his very small pin bag from several years ago, and the big bags are so expensive. I read somewhere else about making a pin binder, using something like a 3-4" binder and different colors of plastic cross stitch canvas to attach the pins to, and maybe sheets of felt or something in between to protect the pins.

I'd really like to surprise my son with something like this for his birthday next month. Has anyone ever made something like this, and do you have any tips or suggestions??

Thanks bunches!!

 

[ksloane]

We each (3 of us in family) store our pins in large binders. But I had never thought to use the cross stitch stuff for putting them on. Disney has sheets you can buy that are 3 hole punched at all. We each bought a set (I think I bought 2 extra sets just in case we needed them) and have ours in those.
We are "cheap" so I know these weren't that much, but I can't remember how much.

 

[tink576]

I've never made a binder before, but I made displays for my walls. I put a cork board inside of a photo box frame (I covered the cork with a layer of black fabrick for appearance purposes) then stuck all my pins in. They are now nicely on display in my room.

 

[Disneefun]

Here's what I did. You'll need a 3 - 4 inch binder (I got the kind that zips shut to keep things from falling out. Got it at staples, I think.) You'll also need some plastic sheet protectors, 3 hole punched. Use the kind where the page slides in the top of the sheet protector. Finally, get some of those 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of foam they sell at michaels or other craft stores. Or you can get the bigger sheets and cut them to fit.

Stick the pins on the foam sheets (make sure you put the pin backs on or you'll punch through the protector) and then slip the foam sheet into the sheet protector. Put the loaded protector in the binder and you're done. I got a little artsy and made cute labels for each sheet protector like "resorts" "parks" rides", etc. and organized the pins by category, but not everyone likes that.

Now, though, I've moved everything onto a big cork board so I can see everything. But I still have the binders for overflow.

 

[elcodfish]

I use a couple small binders (they get heavy!):
I use hard felt to hold the pins and soft felt to separate them. I use a hand held metal hole punch from the dollar store to cut the holes. I've had them like this since 2001...

 

[pixiewings71]

I've seen people use trading card sleeves for their pins, they just put the pin back thru the plastic and attach it.
We have pin bags that we use for carrying traders around the parks (DBF has a big one, the girls each have a small one but DD11 doesn't really carry hers around, DD14 does tho). For displaying pins that we are keeping at home we use cork boards themselves. We have $5 cork boards we got from Wal-Mart, we just stick the pins in the cork boards to display them. Works great!

 

[Gina]

Y'all are seriously a whole barrel of awesome. Those are just the sort of ideas I needed. I would have never thought of the foam board!

I thought about some sort of corkboard, but he does like to take the pins to family and friends sometimes to show them, and he likes how I can flip through my big pin bag with the different "categories", so I figured a binder would be a good option.

Thanks again for the great ideas!!

 

[Gina]

I just wanted to update this to say "thanks" again, and to show you how it turned out! I pooled a few different awesome ideas to end up with what I thought would work best for DS. He LOVES it! He was so surprised, and really impressed -- even though it was so easy.

I ended up using black plastic cross stitch canvas (it looks gray in the picture because of the flash), with sparkly black felt protector sheets in between. I was so excited at finding the black & red zip-up binder -- it was *perfect*. And the icing on the cake were the adhesive-back embroidered Disney/Mickey stickers I found for the cover.

I was thrilled to be able to do this on a budget, compared to the ridiculously overpriced pin bags. The binder itself was on sale for $7, I had 4 sheets of plastic canvas @ .59 each, the felt was 2/$1.00, and the embroidered stickers were $2.99 for the pack. Under $15 for the whole thing!


Here's the finished product: (Sorry for the large pic size -- it seems I'm having technical difficulties when I try and resize them )

 

[tink576]

That turned out very nicely! It looks amazing!

 

[pixiewings71]

That looks amazing!!! WTG!!

 

[Gina]

Thanks!! My tough & cool teenage son actually choked up a bit over it. He knows I'm not the handiest person, lol. But this was more just assembling than anything.

 

[ksloane]

I love it!