Close To My Heart Making Strap Hinge Page Protectors for Creative Memories Albums

Direct sales papercrafting company Close To My Heart has quietly started producing strap hinge page protectors that will work in Creative Memories albums that were left incomplete when that company discontinued its traditional album line as part of its recent bankruptcy and subsequent restructuring as "Ahni & Zoe" with a new product line.

CTMH-Strap-Hinge-Pages

The new 12x12 sized page protectors, which are a side slide-in design with no gutter seam, are available in the new Close To My Heart Spring/Summer 2014 catalog that was just released. They come in packages of 25 for a cost of $19.95, and are available for purchase only through Close To My Heart consultants, which may be located on the company's website.

Creative Memories fans have been eagerly awaiting these protectors since word of their impending release was leaked to CTMH consultants last fall. Strap hinge page options have been sparse since Creative Memories stopped making their classic albums and refills, leaving former CM customers with incomplete albums wondering how they were going to finish their projects. Only Hobby Lobby was making the strap hinge page protectors. Many former Creative Memories customers were not happy with the Hobby Lobby option because the Hobby Lobby pages are top loading, and Creative Memories taught its customers as part of their hyper-focus on archival safety that they needed side loading pages to avoid dust entering the protector through the top. Close To My Heart's production of slide-in page protectors still leaves Hobby Lobby as the only company producing white refill pages for strap hinge albums. (Westrim formerly produced strap hinge products, but that company is now defunct.)

Update: Just minutes after this article was published, Ahni & Zoe (new Creative Memories) announced that they are starting to sell white strap hinge refill pages with slide-on protectors that will fit the old Creative Memories albums. The pages retail for $29.50 for a pack that contains 16 each of pages and protectors.