Thursday, November 14, 2013

Give It a Try

I've finally gotten around to doing some Thanksgiving/Fall decorating and I just wanted to share about a product that I used this year to help me out. It's the Scotch Thermal Laminator that I picked up from Amazon about a year ago. For each of the holidays or seasons I like to print off vintage clip art or have the kids make something that I can hang up year after year to enjoy. I was contemplating getting a laminator for a while but I just wasn't sure it was worth the big dollars I would have to shell out. So instead of laminating all my decorations I would just wrap them in clear contact paper which would give them a foggy finish or covered them in bubbles.
 
                        
 
Then Amazon was having a gold box deal on the laminator for $15 and I thought, what the heck, why not? If it doesn't work I'm not out of a hundred dollars for the bigger and fancier models. I bought it and some of the pouches needed to laminate and gave it a shot. Let me tell you what, this thing works like a charm, but keep in mind I've only used it this once so I can't tell you about it's longevity. I found this Give Thanks banner on Pinterest that I'd been saving to try out for Thanksgiving this year. The  whole process it pretty simple. After printing out whatever you want to laminate, you just turn on the machine and give it some time to heat up and get ready. This one took closer to 10 minutes before it was ready and it did give off a plastic smell for about five of those minutes which I'm assuming was from heating it up for the first time. Next, I put each letter in a 5x7 pouch(you can get a 20 pack for a little over $3) and let it go through the laminator. I thought it would take them a while to go through and come out, but I was wrong! They came out super fast and this whole project of ten letters and three clip art pieces didn't take me more than 10 minutes from start to finish.

 
Here's everything after being laminated

 
And here is the finished product!

1 comment:

Cheyenne said...

I seriously LOVE getting a glimpse of your life. Love those old maps! You are definitely making your place so homey.

I'm sure that ol' laminator will come in so handy for lil' kid stuff like flashcards and what not.

Keep blogging lady! It's nice to record the years & a good outlet (that is what I tell myself...) really I just want a peak into your life! Friends across the miles. :)