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    Laminating Sheets vs. Pouches – What’s the Difference? 

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    There is a distinction between both a laminating pouch and a laminating sheet even though the phrases are frequently used interchangeably in the laminating industry. They both contain polyester and adhesive, however, lamination pouches often have a far higher ratio of polyester to adhesive than lamination film. Lamination pouches feel significantly stiffer as a result of this than laminated with roll film. This is the key basis for why roll laminating is less expensive than laminating pouches. 

    Laminating Pouches: 

    A “laminating pouch” is a laminate film piece with a pre-sealed edge making a pouch or sleeve. A laminating pouch, available as a cold pouch or thermal pouch, is used for two-sided laminating. The cold laminations can be produced without a machine or using a laminator that has a cold option. A heated pouch laminator is always required to seal thermal pouches. 

    Laminating pouches are ideal for providing all-around protection for a variety of documents, including ID cards, multipurpose papers, and images. Both the front and back sides of your page will be safeguarded because they totally enclose it. They also increase the document’s rigidity and stability by two, which increases its durability and resistance to bends and tears. 

    TIP: Your laminator is too hot if your pouch comes out wavy. It is too low if it turns out milky. Accordingly, alter the speed or heat settings. You could use or skip a laminating pouch carrier to either shield your pouch from excessive heat or enable more heat to reach it if there are no heat or speed adjustments. 

    Laminating Sheets: 

    The typical laminating sheet size is made for papers up to Letter or A4 size. This means the sheet is somewhat bigger (9 x 11.5 inches) so that your document has an edge on either side. If there is too much extra plastic at the borders or if you are laminating anything smaller, you can trim the sides of the laminating sheet following centering and sealing your paper. 

    A single piece of laminate film that isn’t sealed or joined to another sheet is referred to as a “laminating sheet” in simple terms. To laminate one side only, use a laminating sheet. Most of the time, they are self-stick, thus laminating your paper does not require heat or a machine. Rather, they merely apply pressure. You would peel off the paper lining covering the glue and stick it to your page. 

    For certificates, flyers, signage, schedules, and more, laminating sheets are ideal. Typically, there aren’t many sizes available, but they can always be shrunk. They provide a little bit more stability for your pages than plain sheets, but not the full protection from spills and bending that a completely contained laminating pouch would provide. 

    Advice: Only peel off the corner of your line, then fold it back so that the adhesive is visible. Use the grid if the liner has one to align your page correctly with the bag before pressing it down to the exposed corner. While placing your page into the laminate sheet and smoothing it from the corner toward the edges, slowly peel off the liner. Either by hand or with a little roller are options. 

    Shop Laminating Pouches
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    Give us a call at  1-800-944-4573  if you have any questions, and we’ll be happy to help you choose the best sort of lamination for your needs. 

    How to Preserve and Store Your Child’s Artwork

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    Children are constantly coming home with a new art project they’ve created.  While these52154011-ma masterpieces are near and dear to every parent’s heart, they can clutter up your home become a messy pile of paintings.  Or they may end up as a jumbled assemblage of papers stored on your fridge.  Wouldn’t you like a way to compile these creations into an organized collection that you can both display and store for years to come?  Here are a few ideas.

    Before you begin, you may want to choose only your favorites to save.  Or let your child choose.  This will result in an art collection spanning their childhood composed of treasured pieces, rather than every page ever brought home.  One thing recommended by many professionals is to have a back up.  Before you discard anything, consider scanning it into a computer.  Keeping scanned images is a great way to preserve things without the added bulk of storing the actual project.

    The first step in preserving artwork is to decide how you’d like it protected.  Sliding designs into page protectors lets you switch them out as needed.  Sheet protectors come in varying thicknesses.  Be sure you choose archival quality so the items won’t fade or yellow with age.

    For long term protection, we recommend lamination.  Now before you start thinking that a laminator is more expensive than page protectors, keep reading.  While the initial investment of a laminator may cost more than a box of sheet protectors, you can get a decent machine for less than $40.00 that will cover both letter and legal size items as well as numerous smaller things. For just a little bit more, you can find a quality Fellowes laminator that will accommodate pages as large as 11″ x 17″, which is often the size of children’s art.  The protection offered by lamination as well as the versatility in size makes it a worthy investment.

    Once protected, decide how you want to store these items.  If you’ve chosen to put everything into page protectors, you can easily arrange these in a three ring binder.  Putting them in order of their creation date will give you a timeline of your child’s progress.  A smaller binder could be used for each individual year while a larger binder could store multiple years separated by index tabs.

    Laminated creations can be stored a number of different ways.  You can purchase large folders specifically designed for saving wider pieces of artwork created by your little one.  Some people keep pictures in a box or scrapbook.  Or you could bind them together in a book.  A plastic comb binding machine is another inexpensive tool that you can use to save things.  Many of these smaller devices offer a built in manual punch.  This is another way to preserve creations year by year.

    Using these suggestions, you’ll be able to effectively store the masterpieces created by your children without giving up the front of your refrigerator.  And they’ll appreciate the compact storage and the time you put into it more than they would a box full of colored pictures.  Getting a start on this while your kids are young will help keep you organized for years to come.

    Five Things No Administrative Assistant Should Be Without

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    Being an administrative assistant – or receptionist or secretary, as they’re sometimes calledmartin-yale-1624-sm14-ma – is often one of the most challenging jobs in an office environment. Over the course of a business day, an admin assist will answer phones, great clients, make copies, put documents together, and open mail. And that’s just for starters. However, with the right tools, you can make your assistant’s day go more smoothly so that he/she will be happier and your office will be better organized and more productive. Here are five things no administrative assistant should be without.

    1. Martin Yale P6200 Desktop Letter Folder. Folding correspondence is time-consuming and worst yet, it can be difficult to do it quickly and accurately when a worker is being distracted by a ringing phone and demanding clients. That’s where the P6200 comes in. This device is small enough to fit on top of a desk and it can fold a 3-page document in seconds. It is capable of folding up to 30 letters per minute or up to 1,800 sheets n an hour. The P6200 can even handle stapled sets, which can help your employee save time. This device really makes it fast and easy to prepare documents for mailing.
    2. Martin Yale 1628 Desktop Letter Opener. Obviously, opening mail can be just as time-consuming as getting it ready. Luckily, the 1628 makes opening incoming mail incredibly easy. This machine will automatically feed and open a 1-inch stack of envelopes and has the ability to open 3,000 pieces of mail in on hour. It operates quietly and safety, with the blade being fully enclosed to prevent an injury from occurring. The 1628 is small enough to be a nice companion to the P6200.
    3. Quartet Designer Tack and Write Cubicle Board. This board is really two boards in one. It is a whiteboard that can be used to keep track of assignments and phone messages, and it is also a tack board for pinning up important documents for convenient access. This board measures 23.5″ x 17.5″, so it is perfect for small spaces. It’s also easy to install and can be hung both on a cubicle or dry wall. This product comes with a Quartet dry erase marker.
    4. A good stapler and hole-punch. Every admin assistant can benefit from having high-quality staplers and hole-punches nearby to reduce fatigue and get the job done faster. Some of the best products are made by Swingline. A great stapler to consider is the Swingline High-Capacity Desk Stapler, which requires 30% less effort when stapling and can fasten up to 60 sheets of paper. Plus, you only need to use one size of stapler with it, making it very convenient. As for the hole-punch, the Swingline LightTouch is a great choice. The lever is soft to the touch so it makes punching large amounts of paper painless. It will punch up to 20 sheets at once and the punching heads are semi-adjustable so it’s possible to produce different hole patterns. These two Swingline products would go great together.
    5. The GBC HeatSeal H220 QuickStart Pouch Laminator. A pouch laminator can come in handy when your admin needs to make I.D. badges, informational placards, and other office items. The H220 is ready and seconds and can handle laminating pouches that are 3 and 5 mil thick. This machine will shut off automatically when not in use and it will laminate your documents beautifully every time. It is also easy to use and promises jam-free operation.

    All of these things can make an admin assistant’s day a little bit easier and give him/her ways of rising up to almost any office task. So get these things today so your whole office will run much more smoothly.