I've just bought a laminator - tell me what you've laminated

[givemeaclue]

I have just bought a cheap laminator and have made some labels for craft drawers etc for the kids and some clothes baskets. any tips on:
-what can I laminate (can see I could get carried away here)
-any pics of your own laminations?
-nice pics/fonts/borders?

• Laminator - how can I not spell something I love so much?!

you need to still keep the top of the sheet (where it's joined)

the easiest way is to laminate everything that fits in the a4 sheet and then cut afterwards

We made laterns for halloween.

me again! we went to a 21st birthday meal where the placemats were photo collages of the birthday boy. The restaurant were happy for them to be used.

i might have to make nickelbooks placemats now

If you put two pieces of paper together in the laminating pouch then they'll come apart when you cut it as they're not attached to each other iyswim. You have two options - either cut the thing to size then put it in a full size pouch (gives a border) or put a whole sheet with a small thing on it in, and cut to size after laminating (using a guillotine of course ;) )

Can you please laminate the two pages out of my local road atlas ? I use them all the time and they are looking a bit threadbare .

Would anyone care to recommend their A3 laminator - I'm looking to buy one for general home use but don't know which are 'good' brands and which are probably not worth the money.

mine's Texet.

travelling you've reminded me that we print out googlemaps of places we go to occassionally, but not often enough to be able to remember the route (live in the dark ages without a splat nav) and I laminate them and keep them in a special folder in the car.

I could laminate your atlas pages but I only have an A4 machine. It was inexpensive from stationery box, or you can pick them up on Amazon for a tenner so might just be worth investing?

photocopy or scan a baby scan first, then laminate the copy.

Did someone mention stick on velcro? And cable ties? My 'craft materials' radar is buzzing hot. (I already have a laminator, otherwise I would be buying one of those) I need to buy some. Links, please! :)

I LOVE this thread! I've laminated allergy cards for DS2, to ttach to the fridge and for his nappy bag.
I laminated small slips of paper with the names of DS1's 4th birthday party guests and then bluetacked them all over the kitchen. It was an icebreaker, for each one they found they got a chocolate button.
I'm so doing the artwork placemats.
I laminated a photo of DS1 sitting in his cousin's tractor and then put it in the same place on his tractor birthday cake so it looked like he was driving it, an the icing didn't ruin the photo.

Aha, fellow laminator-lovers

I am waiting for mine to arrive any day now, the pouches are here, just waiting, all new and tempting-like!

Have got lots of ideas from this thread, can't wait to get started. Already planned on toy labels (have some on some boxes), timetables, etc. BUt main reason I've invested is to laminate some home-ed style sheets for playdoh, where you make some carrots (for eg) to go next to the bunny in the picture.

PS a cheap, DIY non-machine way to laminate if you want to try it, is stick paper to card, then use sticky-back plastic. It's fiddly but does work, but a pita which is why I'm upgrading (well used to use works until I stopped work ).

I thought I once saw that you could laminate using a laminator pouch and an iron.

you probably can.
you would need to research the correct heat though.

gus - i've got stick-on velcro.
i bought a reel of each hook and loop, and use them in the shop for displays.

foolishly, i put the hook on the walls and the loop goes on the thing i'm hanging.
would have made more sense to do it the other way round.

When I was childminding we went out to collect autumn leaves, the children arranged them and when laminated we used them as place mats for lunch :) could work nicely with spring flowers?

we also laminated bits of cut out cotton fabric then cut into fish I think it was shapes, or maybe birds, can't recall, anyway, then hole punched the tops, threaded onto twiggy branches and made mobiles.

you know, last year i printed off images of leaves for my autumn window.
i'm tempted to laminate real leaves now.

I'm very impatiently waiting for mine to arrive, come on postman!

I love my laminator.

DS has laminated symbols on his toy drawers to help him know where to put things. He leaves everything on the floor. He used to have laminated, symbolised checklists of what to do each morning (PJs under pillow, brush teeth, make bed etc)

We do the leaves thing too. Also, at christmas make snowflakes & laminate to hang up. I'd laminate everything if I could!

Nickelbabe just make sure you get ones with thin stems on!

good advice thank you :)

laminating anything of paper makes sense for the shop.
esp snowflakes for christmas displays.