Projects, Projects Everywhere, and Not a Finished One In Sight!

I am officially heading towards panic time.

I have tons of things going on and nothing is really getting finished up. My stack of file folders to offer for sale is growing, but everything needs to be laminated, velcroed, and finished before it can be considered "ready." I have things that I need to get printed and then bound into books. I have projects that I want to make and offer just for fun because I remember how thrilled I used to be to find things about music therapy. I would like to give that thrill to someone else out there.

Maybe that's what I will do right now - forget about the stacks of things that are on my living room floor, forget about the existential crisis that I am slipping into because of other things happening around me, and forget about the pressure that I am placing on myself to achieve the vision of perfection that I have in my head about how I want all this to go, and just create some stuff.

I'm going to play around with paper and music therapy thoughts and file folders and cutting blades and all the things that I love.

Here's a preview of what I am putting together for folks to purchase at the Midwestern Region AMTA Conference.

Now that I have all these pictures lined out, I feel a bit compelled to fill up the space with writing, so I'll postpone my creating for just a bit.

When I look at all the things that I've created over the years, I feel pride, awe, and a bit of consternation - all at the same time. I am proud that I am able to figure out how to make things for my clients to use. I love making things with paper - visual aids, charms, books, journals, you name it! My love of paper crafting has led me into hours upon hours of creating things that I take in for my clients. 

I blame my internship director for this particular hobby of mine.

My internship director, Sheryl L. Kelly, was a wonderful mentor. I loved almost every single moment I had with her at the Center for Neurodevelopmental Studies, Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona. I have to add in that clarifying statement because of one thing.

I had to spend lots of time laminating visual aids.

That doesn't really sound all that bad, but this was in the dark ages of the 90's where personal-sized laminating machines were not available. I had to use (shudder) clear contact paper to cover all surfaces of all the visual aids that I had to construct in order to earn my internship hours.

I swear that clear contact paper takes a look at me and wrinkles into a bumpy mess. I don't even have to touch it before it ruins a project that I am working on. I ruined and had to redo SO many visuals because I had to work with clear contact paper that I established this task as a habit before I even really wanted to do so. All of a sudden, I was hooked on making my own visual aids - BUT I BOUGHT MYSELF A LAMINATOR so I NEVER HAD TO USE CONTACT PAPER AGAIN!

I learned that particular lesson!!

I purchased my first laminator at a time when the money wasn't readily available. I was paying student loans and tuition and didn't really have the $80 that I needed, but I was tired of constantly having to throw away projects that I had worked on because of the laminating method that I could use. So...

I bought the laminator and have never looked back. I now am the proud owner of four laminators of different sizes.

Are you thinking, "why do you have four?" Well, dear reader, I have four because I enjoy taking my stash of paper stuff and visual aids around the country to teach other people how to make their own music therapy visual aids and it is more efficient to have four laminators than just one when there are more creators wanting to laminate things. So, that's the official reason (but I like having laminators convenient to me every place I create, so that's the unofficial reason!). I need to bring my big laminator from work home so I can run two folders simultaneously. 

I still have lots of space to fill, so let me tell you about some of these products. I am making completed file folders of many of my Teachers Pay Teachers digital files to take with me to the conference, but I have many more things that I've made that aren't on the store site. For example, I make lapbooks to use during sessions - manners songs, instrument family lapbooks, holiday lapbooks - really, whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. 

My intention is to have a couple of completed copies of everything that I have in my inventory and then offer digital copies when the completed ones are gone. I have drawn original monkeys for various songs, made generic game boards for all sorts of clients, am currently putting together all sorts of little bitty file folders with musical concepts. I want to offer my sing about songs series of books - those will probably have to be completely digital purchases as print costs would make the purchase price absolutely ridiculous! I am figuring out how to take credit card payments and how to digitize all of my products for immediate delivery. All of this is fun, but challenging. The pictures here are some of the things that I will (hopefully) have ready for you if you will be at the conference. But, there is much more that I'll have as well. I hope to see you there!

(By the way, the cat will NOT be part of the available purchases!)