I have a funny story. My partner told me a few days ago out of the blue that he wanted a laminator to laminate his new insurance card that he recently got in the mail. I don’t know what happened to his last one that made him decide he wanted to laminate it, but I started thinking that this might be something both of us could find useful.

When I was in my early 20’s, I worked in a bath house. I was the guy in the office when you first checked in who took the money and gave you a key for a room or locker and handed you the towel. When a new customer would come in for a new membership, or when someone was renewing their membership, I would laminate the card for them. It wasn’t a huge laminator, it only laminated business card sized sheets.

When I was searching on Amazon for a laminator, I was under the assumption I could buy a small one specifically for business cards like the one I had at the bath house. I also naturally assumed they were expensive, like hundreds of dollars expensive. I was actually surprised to see how cheap they are. Well, the AmazonBasics Thermal Laminator is inexpensive. I did a little more research and found some at Office Depot/Office Max that are $100 and up. $21.65 is more in my price range lol. The sheets are less expensive than I thought. I figured while I’m getting a full sheet size laminator and the business card laminating sheets, I might as well also buy AmazonBasics full size Laminating Pouches. I mean, I’ve never needed them, but it could happen.

One thing I know I could use the business card sheets for is my Etsy shop earring cards. I have a earring display card punch and I print the design on a sheet of business cards. The earring cards are nice, but they are very flimsy because the card stock isn’t that thick. I figured that perhaps laminating them would make them stiff enough that they would work better for earrings. I don’t know if I can cut them on the edge of the cards, but I’ll experiment when I get them and find out.

I can also use these to laminate regular business cards to place in the padded envelope with every order. There are many possibilities for laminating things, and I’m sure I’ll think of something later down the road, like post cards and bookmarks. Maybe place mats at the dinner table or for the dog bowls. Who knows? I’m sure I’ll come up with some new things as time goes by.

One thing I noticed was that these laminating sheets don’t come with a foil pouch. The laminator at my last job required using a foil pouch. You put the card in the laminating pouch, then place that in a foil pouch that is paper on the outside, and foil on the inside, then you run it through the laminator. This one doesn’t do that, and I know this because I watched a video and the guy who made the video ran a full size sheet of paper in a full size laminating sheet straight through without a buffer. I know technology has come a long way since 1992/94, but still. I would just naturally assume if I ran plastic through a machine that has to melt the plastic to create a seal, that if not protected inside a card stock sheet with foil inside, it might perhaps melt all over the machine. But from what I saw in the video, the guy ran the full sheet in full sheet pouch without any buffer and it didn’t melt. It makes me nervous lol. I’ll try it and see how it goes when it arrives.