My New Toy

For quite awhile now, I've been wanting a binding machine to create my own books.  I love the idea of using old book covers--both paperback and hard cover--to create new books, and of putting together all kinds of interesting papers to create a book that is almost a collage itself.

Rather than waiting around for someone to pick it from my Christmas list, I decided to treat myself to the Cinch. 

Two fun packages arrived over the past two days...

binding wires from JoAnn, and...

the Cinch v2.0 from Amazon!

Normally when I get a new toy like this, it sits around for awhile.  I shove it from place to place, eyeball the instruction booklet, and put a million other tasks ahead of figuring it out.

Not this time!

Maybe because I had a few dozen things I ought to have been doing (to get ready for my craft show tomorrow night, and my daughter's birthday party the next day), I decided to mess around with the Cinch immediately.

It helped that I had watched a couple of videos on YouTube to compare the Cinch with the Bind-It-All, as well as the original Cinch with the version 2.0.  I recogized how all the parts worked, and in what order things needed to be done.

I found an old book of Mark Twain short stories that I bought at a library book sale, and decided to use its cover and some of the interior pages.  The most tedious part was cutting papers for my book, using Strathmore drawing paper that I raided from my kids' crafting cupboard.  I am definitely putting a guillotine-style paper cutter on my Chrstmas list now, because my Fiskar's paper trimmer and X-acto with a straight edge got old fast!

Debris from my project, and from testing out my new Cinch

Overall, the book came together more quickly than I expected.  One of my character flaws traits is the desire and expectation that I will be able to do everything perfectly the first time.  It quickly became apparent that this would not be the case with this project.  There were a few issues with my hole spacing, as well as with the cinching of my wires.  But here was the result:

Front cover

Back Cover

              
                       

Spread with text page

The reviews I read and listened to for the Cinch mentioned that it is difficult to get the wires to bind with a perfect circle, and I found that to indeed be the case.

I am hoping that with some additional practice, I can get a better shape to my wires.  I think it would be fun to create books to sell, and I don't think I could sell something with this much distortion to its shape.

I like the circular holes that the Cinch punches better than the rectangular holes of the Bind-it-All, and my pages turn very easily on these wires. 

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase, and I look forward to playing around with it some more.  I might even make a few Christmas presents with it, if I can get the hang of it a little better!