RWOP: Above Earth's Lamination

About a year and a half ago, in the middle of the night, I was up nursing my daughter and making the rounds on my ipod touch -- Facebook, Twitter, People app ... and apparently a little online shopping. While half asleep, I purchased a Scotch Thermal Laminator. It was a gold box special on Amazon and cost less than twenty bucks. By the time it arrived two days later, I had practically forgotten about it. I hid it in the closet my oldest called "Santa's Church" (???) and didn't reunite with this lamination station until we moved to our new digs.

You may be thinking, "MEP, it's a laminating machine. I can't believe you didn't rip that bad boy open as soon as it arrived. How odd."

A bit odd indeed, especially considering that the dream of ready access to lamination was one of the reasons why, from my girlhood on, I wanted to be a teacher. I have grade school memories of teachers entering the classroom with those huge glimmering sheets of lamination covering extra special student work, name tags for desks, or all the cool stuff for the bulletin boards. I was the kind of responsible, eager girl who might be asked (or was not too proud to beg) and entrusted to cut the individual items from the lamination. I could do it very carefully, sliding the scissors like a pro and leaving a perfect little border of lamination, all the while thinking, "I can't believe Mrs. Strouse does not want to do this HERSELF?!" Cutting out the laminated items seemed the height of pleasure and power.

The sad truth is that though I realized my girlhood career dreams, I never had ready access to lamination as a high school teacher. In fact, before the first day of my first year, I made a very special poster that was crying out for lamination. I took it to Kinkos and it was laminated in a super sturdy plastic. Twas beautiful but cost something like thirty dollars which almost made MEP of 1997 throw up a little bit.

Anyhoo ... I think I ignored the sleepshopping lamination machine because I knew that it required special lamination pouches and would not be generating immense glimmering sheets of goodness to slice.

But then I saw those pouches at Target, realized they came in a variety of sizes, and started thinking about how I could use them. And now, I proudly present ... business card-sized laminated tags for those cloth bins that one can also buy at Target.

With some cardstock, sticker paper, computer/printer, ribbon from my stash, a single hole punch, and the Scotch thermal laminator, I made a bunch of labels for the basement bins. For example ...

Yes, you read that correctly: "defense" (it was that or "weapons" and we actually need two of those as we are heavy on lightsabers and plastic armor).

I also made some labels for the bins in the playroom ...

Excuse the crappy phone photography but those labels say "little creatures" and "special powers." I have since realized we need a label that reads "toy cell phones." Sad but true.

Folks, I'm just getting started. Think adorable luggage tags. Think laundry room organization. Think bookmarks. Think something that could be written upon with dry erase markers. Think newspaper clippings if my children are ever in the newspaper. Think inspirational quotations (found on Pinterest, of course).

Here it is: Scotch Thermal Laminator. Thirty bucks or less. I even spotted them at Walgreens.

Lest you think this post is a paid (or unpaid) promotion for Scotch instead of my weekly Real Women of Pinterest offering, I'm also sharing the latest project for the kids' changing seasonal frames. These fingerprint hearts (for Valentine's Day) are perhaps not as awesome as the fall fingerprint trees or even the handprint Christmas trees, but when we were finished with them, Little Bit said with his sweetest smile, "That was really fun, Mama." So there.

If you are a Pinterest-ing blogger, please link up any of your Pinterest-inspired posts below. Anyone else who wants to share their Pinterest products, please send stories and pics to mep AT nottobrag DOT net.

I'd also welcome lamination narratives (I know I'm not the only freak out there) and ideas.

SPECIAL GIVEAWAY for the first person who can correctly name the title of the song I am riffing upon in this post's title: a one-of-a-kind laminated NTB bookmark!

Okay, check the links below for more Pinterest-ing!