Book Binding

I am a huge fan of eBooks! I'm also a huge fan of binding my own books and planners. There are tons of different ways you can bind your own books. When I first started, I used a 3 hole punch, fasteners, and masking tape. Then I graduated to using gorilla glue and masking tape. Now I use a GBC ProClick P50 32-Hole Paper Punch, ProClick spines, and 3:1 pitch plastic coil spines from Best Buy Binding (the cheapest place I have found so far). The size of the book depends on which spine I bind it with. The ProClick spines only hold up to 110 sheets with their biggest size (5/8), so if I'm binding a big book, I use the coil. I got 22mm which holds over 200 sheets; this takes care of pretty much all of my needs.

The steps to using the paper punch and spines are pretty simple. Sometimes I laminate the covers with my laminator, and then punch those, just depends on what I'm working on though. No matter, the steps are still going to be the same. First, you hole punch all of the book. This can take awhile depending on book size. You can only punch around 6 pages with this hole puncher. After you're finished with that, you just pick the spine you want to use. The ProClick spines just "zip up" so to speak, then you're done. If you're using the plastic coil, you would just wind it into the holes until you have gone through each. Then, take your clippers and clip off the extra coil. For this, you want to make sure you don't take off too much. Here is a good video to watch so you can make sure you do it right. The do use coil crimpers. I did not see the need for them. I just clip the coil and then bend it with a pair of pliers. Then viola! Done! You can see the picture of my planner that I just bound today. Tootles!