DIY - Card Protector Sleeves with We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

There are many different types of protector sleeves on the market and lots of great places online to get them. I found a couple places that sold them in lots of 100s, but the shipping was the same price as the product alone. Now, I may be cheap economical, but I don't really want to pay the same amount in shipping as I do for the item being shipped. Especially in Canada where the exchange is not super awesome at the moment.

I recently had a need to have a whole lot of protector sleeves because there is nothing worse than having super cute dimensional cards with embellishments getting ruined because of improper storage.

So today, I have a step by step tutorial (with pictures) to show you how to create your own for way less than the cost of ordering and shipping and (in my case) exchange. Let's dive in!

The first thing you are going to need is a regular sandwich ziploc bag. It doesn't actually have to be the Ziploc brand, but like anything else in the DIY world if you use cheap stuff you'll get a cheap finished product.

I'm not saying go out and buy super heavy duty bags, but something mid range that you would trust your snacks to will work just fine.

Use a straight edge and an knife to cut the zip part off the bag. This will be the opening, so you you don't want to have a hack job. Unless you want to have to tidy up the edge later, take an extra moment to do this part neatly.

In order to size the bag, use the A2 envelope as a guide, the larger size of the envelope will ensure that the card will fit with room to slide in and out as well as have room for dimension and embellishments and all the things that we love about card making.

Next, heat up your fuse tool. Place the ruler and fuse!

Because the plastic from these bags is lightweight you may have to play around a bit with speed and pressure when fusing. This plastic melts much faster than the stuff you may normally use, so use caution.

I also found that I could only do these in batches because there is no temperature control on the tool, so it needed a break to cool down then I could start again.

To remove the extra piece, I recommend using your cutting tool instead of a ruler and blade. The plastic is quite slippy so it may not stay straight. But do what works for you.

Here you can see what the protector looks like with the extra piece removed and the envelope still inside.

Here we have the finished product! Your own A2 card protector sleeves to keep your works of art safe, for only a few cents and no shipping costs.

YAY!

While the envelope will fit in the sleeve along with the card, it may be a tight fit and in the event that people are pulling the card in and out to have a look at it, it may be tear the bag. But totally your call.








I hope you found today's post to be helpful and economical because really, let's be honest, at the end of the day people are just going to toss the sleeve anyway, right?

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Have a great day!