More Tools I Use!

Yesterday I shared some tools that I depend on in my classroom and as promised - here are a few more! First up is this little hammer/screwdriver combo. I picked this up at Sears around this time in the stocking stuffer section a few years ago. Of course, the flowers caught my eye and I just wanted it because it was a cute girly hammer. But it's actually so much more. The bottom screws off and there's a little screwdriver hidden inside! You can even flip the head of the screwdriver over and it changes from a standard to Phillips head. This thing has really, really come in handy. People come in to borrow my "little girly hammer" all the time. Not sure why the battery is there...I use a lot of those too, but there's nothing special about this particular one. Dumb photobomb battery.

This next doojiggy is called a Crop-a-dile and it is the schinz-nit! It's really made to set eyelets, like this the one on this journal. This is a standard composition book covered with scrapbook paper.

Before you can set the eyelet, you have to punch a hole through the material you're using, which is basically the only part I use of this tool lately. It looks a little like something that you can use to pull out a molar, but this thing can punch a hole through just about anything! I've even used it to punch holes through thin sheets of wood and Altoid tins! Below you can see how I use it in my classroom. That AR pennant banner (a freebie you can get here btw) is printed on 6 sheets of card stock and laminated. I held them all together and with one gentle squeeze, punched a hole through all 6! Not that you'll ever need to do this, but you can also punch a hole clear through a stack of bandaids! {I was trying to get another quick action shot to share the awesomeness that is the Crop-a-dile...}

Finally, one tool that I would be completely and utterly lost without is my Xyron machine. I actually should say Xyron machines, plural. I have 3 of them and I use them all! 

You can change the rolls inside which allow you to laminate, laminate on one side and magnet on the other, laminate on one side and sticker on the other, permanent or temporary adhesive backing...seriously amazing possibilities. Before I bought my own home laminator, I would use this to laminate some things, but really I mostly use it for the sticker making capabilities. Anything you roll through it is instantly turned into a sticker! You can even roll ribbon, material or really thin strips of wood through it and it gives it a great sticker backing. This is how I make most of the labels I use in my classroom and for things like my shaker bottles. Getting a label to stick to a glass or plastic bottles can be tricky, but the Xyron makes it foolproof.  I'd really be lost without these babies. Here are my library bin labels that are laminated and turned into stickers.

In case you're wondering how I know about all of these things I'll let you in on a little secret. I have a major craft cave in my house. Before I started my digital life blogging and tpt creating, I was a pretty heavy duty hardcore papercrafter. I would make all kinds of crafty things like clipboards, cards, notebooks, basically anything I could figure out how to cover with paper and glue a ribbon to. I would travel around to craft fairs setting up my little booth and I even had an Etsy shop for a while. It started to turn my hobby into more of demanding business that sucked the fun out of it,  so I put a stop to that. Now I just craft for myself or to make a personal gift for a friend or my teammates, but as you can see I've managed to figure out how to use a lot of my stash in my class!

Anyone want to come over for a play date in my craft cave?