I am so excited to share the 'cork between the pages' trick. I was out pin trading a few weekends ago when I was looking through someone's VERY neat book and I thought to myself 'OK, this person either has way too much time on his hands to get his pins so neat and organized or I'm just a big loser with a messy book who can't do it'.
When I asked to see the back of a pin to see the edition size he just plucked it off the page and handed it to me. Well, I kinda went nuts and acted like I just saw Elvis (or some other example of someone I would have been surprised to see). He explained the cork thing to me and I ran home and did it that week. It is alot of work up front but really saves time in the long run. Especially if you update your collection a lot.
Here's what I did:
1. Went to my local KMart and in the crafts/packaging/office supply section picked up some cork board. I found it in 1 foot by 1 foot squares that came 4 to a package. Note: You need 5 pieces for a standard pin bag and these cost me $6.99/package of 4.
2. I then removed all the pins from my pin book and then removed all the pin backs. This takes the most time and causes the most bleeding. The best part about this is you can a) revel in all your glorious pins and b) organize them to go back into your book as you take them out.
3. I cut one square of the cork board to fit inside the sleeve of the pin bag. I used regular scissors and it took me a little tweaking and adjusting to get it to fit just right (i.e. so the pouched closed and the page turned nicely).
4. I used this first cut piece as a template. I placed this piece on a second one and traced the outline. I did this for the rest of the four pices I had left to do.
5. I then cut all the pieces of cork to size. The best part about this is you don't have to be super neat with the cutting - no one is going to see it. Next, I slid all the cork pieces into all the sleeves of my bag.
6. I placed all my pins in my book exactly where I wanted them. This was the coolest part. I got to organize my pins so they made sense for me. I also had a chance to fit more pins per page.
The best part is the pins come off and go on so easily now I can get new ones, trade and/or just move them around without the hassle of opening the sleeve, taking the back off, etc.
I think once you get your book in order with this you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
John
PS A friend of mine played around with using foam board for one of his books. While it was a lot cheaper, and worked OK, I think the foam board may 'degrade' with time as the pins get removed and placed back. Just my opinion - we'll see.
! I am laughing.
