diy Disney trading pin mini zip up book

Last year when we went to Disney World, I made the kids lanyards and ordered them some trading pins off eBay.   We all had fun trading pins with the cast members, but I didn't realize how much the boys remembered (or cared) about it until we pulled out our pins the other day in anticipation of our January trip this year.  They remembered pins they had, and traded, and had favorites and ones they wanted to collect more of.  (Who am I kidding... Ryan and I are kind of excited about finding new pins this trip too!). 

The lanyards were not a favorite of the boys.  Maybe they'll like to pick a favorite or two and wear on their lanyard, but for the most part, the lanyards rode in a pocket in the stroller.  

When preparing for our first big family trip to Disney in Dec 2013, I totally cracked up when I heard people had huge binders of pins.  And then after the lanyards weren't a favorite, I thought.... Hmmmm it would be nice to have a zip up mini book. So I decided to make one.  

I searched Pinterest and found a few ideas and kind of modified my own book.  It really was quite easy!  

I bought 4 sheets of the stiff felt at JoAnn (the sheets were legal paper sized).  They were $1.19 each I think?  2 sheets per kiddo. 

I also bought two Case Logic zip up cd cases that hold 32 cd's from Best Buy.  They were $9.99 each. I carefully took scissors and snipped the threads that attached the cd holder to the outside casing. 

I traced the cd case insert onto the stiff felt and cut it out.  I ended up using 4 of these templates per book.  

I sewed together the 4 sheets of felt.  I put two lines of stitching down the middle. 

I used a super duty craft glue (E-6000) to glue the sewed felt to the cd case.  I clamped them down with clampers (pic not shown, and also clampers is not the actual name of them I'm sure). I let the clamps and glue sit overnight.  

And here we go..... Ready for pins!  The first two pages I wrote "TRADE" on the top so the boys could keep the pins on those pages that they are willing to trade.  The rest of the pages I helped them organize by theme/character/set etc.