A few months ago I decided to become a ‘professional mother’ and create my own EK cards. A few of them can be shown on the computer, and a fair bit can be printed, but many more need to be made from scratch.
I bough: an A3 laminator (AUD$50) new
300 laminating pouches (AUD$ 40)
300 regular A4 white sheets (AUD$ 6)
For the material, i posted an ad on the local eBay asking for old magazines, books, calendars, encyclopedia and bough a big box of those for only AUD$15!
I have anything from anatomy books to calendars with birds.
The next step is to cut the image, save the description and stick it at the back, put the image in the pouches and laminate. Veeeeery time consuming.
I usually laminate once I’ve done about 10 items.
I need to add to this: the price of electricity to run the laminating machine and a tube of glue at least (let’s say AUD$20 as an estimate…)
I do not count anything for my own time as I do it at night during my ‘off’ hours
So for for 300 EK cards, it roughly amount to 43 cents per card, around US$0.32
(Although, I get to keep the laminator of course, so I might say it is cheaper than this).
Hum, interesting figure… Cheaper than buying them all made, but worth many many hours of work!
You can print great pictures off of areas like google images as well. Just type in what you are looking for and it will give you many options to choose from.
I don’t have LR yet, but I’ll be getting it tomorrow so I’m not sure if you can do EK in LR. I think it would be more cost effective and less time consuming to do it in LR. I’m not even sure if it is possible, but it is a suggestion. Does anybody know? :wub:
Oh yeah i forgot to add, at back to school time, stock up on poster board. You can usually get it for 9 cents a piece. You can get 4 cards out of each piece. Save time by going to Kinkos to cut it, you can use their large paper cutters for free! Order rubber cement in bulk, instead of small jars at the store, get it off the internet from somewhere like dickblick. The Mardel’s Christian Education store by me has laminating for 25 cents per linear foot. I go when they have their 20% off days. Check out teachers stores by you, they usually have inexpensive laminating. Don’t use kinko’s, they are WAY expensive. If you print your own pictures, use refurbished ink cartridges. I found them online for my printer for like 10 dollars a cartridge. I think it was clickinks. It takes alot of time, but you can do it. I work full time and while I don’t do 10 categories at a time, I do what we can. The other thing you can do is join the weekly collaberation group, and share bits and pois with others, and reducing your workload.
and create my own EK cards. A few of them can be shown on the computer, and a fair bit can be printed, but many more need to be made from scratch.
so I’m not sure if you can do EK in LR. I think it would be more cost effective and less time consuming to do it in LR. I’m not even sure if it is possible, but it is a suggestion. Does anybody know? :wub: