[poisonedapple]

Wow! I never knew a laminator costed so much! I have been wanting one since last year, and decided to finally look into it for this school year, itd be nice to have one, but they sure aren't cheap!

Is there a cheap way to laminate or semi-laminate things? So we can make our own games, cards, tags, whatever our hearts desire? A cheap but good laminate machine, or a homemade way to "laminate" ?

 

[Ellien C]

Use clear contact (or shelf) paper.

 

[Elowyn]

:

 

[poisonedapple]

Thank you!! I dont know why I never thought of that before! Doh!

 

[pumpkin]

They make laminating sheets that don't require a machine. Its basically just a big clear sticker. Harder to get that perfectly smooth coating but it is possible. I bought a pack at the office supply store and while kind of pricey (I think around $20-30) its lasted a very, very long time.

 

[True Blue]

Yep, we use contact paper too!

 

[Village Mama]

Do I find clear contact paper at a hardware store?

 

[AuntLavender]

for $99.50 and there is a prinatble coupon on their site for 15% off any single non-sale item.

If you are not going to cut up the item to be laminated those self stick laminating sheets work fine. I have laminated photos and art work and pages from magazine with them and they're great!

I am going to print off a sheet of twenty 2" photos to use for PECS cards and if I used the self stick laminating sheets it would break the seal when I cut up the photos and come apart. The heat laminating means you can cut it up and it's still sealed on all four sides.

Sincerely,
Debra

*There are $60 amchines at OfficeMax and those types of places but they only laminate phot sizes like 4-6 inches wide versus the machine I am going to get that does up to 11 inches wide.

 

[AuntLavender]

Many grocery stores have clear contact paper!

 

[Satori]

Your local school supply store probably does lamination for cheap too

 

[moominmamma]

I'm in Canada, where our dollar is worth less and therefore prices in dollar-figures are usually 10-15% higher than in US stores, and yet I'm finding laminating machines at Walmart for under $30 Cdn. I bought one about three months ago and have been very happy with it. Works just fine. The plastic sheets aren't cheap, but they're well under a dollar a 9x12, which is a good bit cheaper than paying someone to laminate a page.

Miranda

(not a fan of Walmart, but it's the only dept. store within 4 hours of me)

 

[jennay]

I bought a Duck brand hot laminator from Walmart for about $30.00. It laminates up to 9 inches I think and works great! I really like it. You can buy the laminating pouches online (not Duck brand) in bulk quite inexpensively.

 

[lilyka]

I am not sure how much our laminator was but I love it.

out teacher supply store does laminating for $1 per sqare foot (peice of paper). so depending on what you need, that mayeven be cheaper than contact paper.

 

[slacker_mom]

Ages ago I had a lamination kit that worked with an iron. I'm not sure where you'd find such a kit these days, but it was cheap and effective. You could cut sheets to the right size, place them in a little folder, and then you ironed the folder.

 

[TortelliniMama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuntLavender I am going to print off a sheet of twenty 2" photos to use for PECS cards and if I used the self stick laminating sheets it would break the seal when I cut up the photos and come apart. The heat laminating means you can cut it up and it's still sealed on all four sides.

For most things, heat-laminating the whole sheet and then cutting it up would probably work okay, but for something like PECS cards (which are going to be handled so much), they *will* come apart eventually. You end up with the top layer of laminate attached to a thin layer of paper, and another piece with another thin layer of paper attached to the bottom laminate layer. If it's not a card that's going to get used that much, it'll probably last a long time, but when I was teaching we had to replace a lot of "I want"s and the cards for the kids' favorite things. It's not really a huge problem as long as it's an easily replaceable card, and if you make duplicates of the most commonly used cards ahead of time, it's not really an issue at all.

But, to avoid the peeling, you can cut apart the pictures first, *then* laminate them, and then leave a little edge of clear laminate around the entire card when you cut them apart. It doesn't make you popular with the person running the laminating machine (if you have it done in a school/teacher supply store), but it gives you that laminate-to-laminate seal around the entire edge, which makes it much more durable. It also makes it more waterproof since there's no exposed paper.

Geesh, I think I must miss using PECS, considering how much I just wrote about a tiny little aspect of it!

 

[AuntLavender]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TortelliniMama For most things, heat-laminating the whole sheet and then cutting it up would probably work okay, but for something like PECS cards (which are going to be handled so much), they *will* come apart eventually. You end up with the top layer of laminate attached to a thin layer of paper, and another piece with another thin layer of paper attached to the bottom laminate layer. If it's not a card that's going to get used that much, it'll probably last a long time, but when I was teaching we had to replace a lot of "I want"s and the cards for the kids' favorite things. It's not really a huge problem as long as it's an easily replaceable card, and if you make duplicates of the most commonly used cards ahead of time, it's not really an issue at all. But, to avoid the peeling, you can cut apart the pictures first, *then* laminate them, and then leave a little edge of clear laminate around the entire card when you cut them apart. It doesn't make you popular with the person running the laminating machine (if you have it done in a school/teacher supply store), but it gives you that laminate-to-laminate seal around the entire edge, which makes it much more durable. It also makes it more waterproof since there's no exposed paper. Geesh, I think I must miss using PECS, considering how much I just wrote about a tiny little aspect of it!

My MIL has a laminating machine she said I could use. It only does 4x6 but I think that would work doing one at a time!

Thanks again!

*I'll make several more "I want" cards.