The Laminator–“I’ll be back…Right back here laminating!”
Am I the only person who is obsessed with laminating? I used to love laminated items as a kid in school. It was like a piece of heaven to hold a smooth, laminated item in my hand. Even better when it was fresh off the laminator, all warm and smelling like chemically glue. Yeah, I’m a total freak. Don’t care! I’m pretty sure I would run my whole house through a laminator if I could! 🙂
Seriously though, laminating is an inexpensive, versatile way to preserve items. It’s great for making labels. Laminating is a good idea for school projects. I mostly use my laminator for my son’s baseball team, and for school items. I’ve also been known to go on the laminating war path around the house, laminating anything in sight.
Tips for Laminating
01. Choose a laminator. I don’t even have a super-fancy laminator or anything special. Oh, how I covet the super colossal awesomeness of the public school laminating machine! I chose a thermal laminator, and liked the reviews on the Scotch brand. It’s not that big, so it’s easy to store. This size laminator can only laminate letter-sized paper, or smaller. That’s fine for what I need it for. If I had to laminate anything bigger, I’d probably want it laminated on a better machine anyway. I hate shopping with a passion, so I ordered my laminator online. Done deal! I promise this isn’t a sponsored blog or anything, I truly am just an organizing freak of nature who loves stuff like this.
My Scotch Laminator
02. Buy the laminating pouches that will work with your machine. The Scotch brand laminator makes it easy, because they also sell their own brand of laminating pouches. I only use two sizes of pouches–the letter 8.5″ x 11″ and the smaller 5″ x 7″ pouches. These pouches do come in other sizes, if you’re doing a more specific project, like name tags.
03. My machine is a simple “On/Off” machine, with two levels for thinner/thicker pouches. That’s it. It is very easy to use. Simply turn it on. You have to wait for the laminator to heat up, which takes about 2 minutes. When it is heated up, the “Ready” light will go on.
04. Open up your laminating pouch. Place your items in laminating pouches. You can arrange items in the pouch any way you’d like to. Just make sure that you leave enough room around your item’s edges so that the pouch can seal up. And also leave enough room to cut around your item. This day, I was laminating name tags, so I was able to get 4 name tags per pouch.
05. Feed your laminating pouch into the laminating machine, sealed side first. Each pouch has a sealed edge, that is the edge that needs to go into the laminator first, or you risk getting your pouch stuck in the machine.
06. No need to push or pull the pouch through. It will come out on it’s own.
07. Let your pouch cool down for a minute, and you can begin cutting, mounting, etc.
08. Make sure to turn off and unplug your machine. Keep small children away, as they could burn themselves. If your kids are using the machine, it’s a good idea to supervise. Keep the machine away from messy areas that might be flammable, or curtains, etc.
That’s it! Laminate to your heart’s content. I promise, you will go looking for things to laminate.
Are you a fellow laminator? Share your favorite projects or tips in our comments.
Happy laminating!
–Mellie
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