Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Sheet Protector Dividers

Recently, while putting together a binder of recipes, a disappointing thing was discovered. We were using sheet protectors to keep the recipes safe from cooking spills and splatters. The disappointing thing is that it is not possible to use normal dividers with sheet protectors. The picture below should make the problem obvious. 

The divider tabs don't stick out past the edge of the sheet protectors. This makes it impossible to see the section labels, which defeats the purpose of dividers. 

Luckily, there is a rather easy, if not immediately obvious, solution. Put the dividers inside a sheet protector. 

This requires cutting a slit through the edge of the sheet protector for the divider tab to stick through.

This is much more effective. You can see the tabs! 

The only tricky part is for the first one in the set of dividers. If you cut the slit at the top of the sheet protector, right at the page opening, the corners will be loose and floppy. To avoid this, flip the sheet protector upside-down. The tab sticking through will keep the divider from falling out the bottom, and there will be no loose plastic corners to get crumpled.

Here is the finished result:  protected pages with section dividers. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

1 comment:

  1. Not obvious to all of us . . . you are brilliant! (Hope you're working in cancer research or teaching children or something . . . we need more creative solutions like that!)! Do you have thoughts on peace in the middle east?

    ReplyDelete