Clothing Tag Character Bookmarks

Looking for a fun way to encourage your children to read?  This nifty little hint could be just the ticket.  When you buy character-themed clothing or other merchandise at the store, it often comes with an attractive hang tag next to the price tag.  I've found that these brightly colored character tags make for fun, durable bookmarks after they've been laminated.  And your kids will love them!   Here is a snapshot of a few clothing tags to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

I have a GBC Heat Seal laminator that I purchased at OfficeMax several years ago.  The laminating pouches can be purchased in many different sizes.

For this project, I used a legal-sized laminating pouch.  It's important to make sure that you put enough space between the tags so that there is room to leave a margin of the laminate around each one when you cut them out.  This prevents the edges from peeling.  Here is my completed sheet:

As you can see in the bottom right corner, you can also laminate homemade bookmarks such as the sweet "I love you Mom" sticky note that my son left on my teacher binder one day :-)  Now both the kids and I have fun bookmarks to use for our reading times!