We have had this amazing printer for close to 15 years now. (I actually won it in a travel photography contest) The other day it was happily printing my new song boards for September. In walks my husband who nonchalantly says, “Wow, that printer has really hung in there a long time”. I should have sent him directly to the store. At.That.Moment. Because we all know what happens when you toss things like that out into the universe…the next time I pushed “print” (literally) it made a sound like it was a race car, refused to move, and kept turning back on after I turned it off. Ugh! So any tips on new printers would be fantastic!
It’s time to start cutting!
I had at least printed my new calendar and a few materials for September so I was able to get started cutting! With all of my materials, I make a point to format the cards in such a way to minimize the cutting. Who wants to cut out every single edge of every single card? Not I, said the SLP! I was so thankful for that as I started prepping my cards. It turned out to not be a big task at all.
This past year I started printing many materials in b/w onto color card stock. This helped me save on color ink yet not give up the “pretty”. I recently decided that I should also try printing my color pages onto white card stock. This saves me from having to print on paper then glue to a sturdier backing. I’m not sure why it took me so long to discover this trick but it has been a lifesaver! I pick up card stock at Michaels when it goes on sale (pretty regularly). Now I need that sale to pop back up (along with a fantastic sale on printers!!) The thickness is perfect for picture cues, game cards…basically anything that little hands will be holding. Now to drop them off at school for the laminating cue and they will be ready for the velcro part of the assembly line.
Speaking of velcro, you will also want to have a dedicated set of scissors when cutting velcro. My “velcro” scissors are content being sticky until I get around to cleaning them. And even after cleaning they cannot go back to regular cutting…they will forever be my friend for velcro 🙂 In a perfect world I would use the velcro dots for everything, but at the rate I use velcro, that’s not very economical! Does anyone have an easy tip for cleaning off the sticky residue?
With all the thematic game cards and picture cues for my new song & story boards, I wanted to have an accessible storage system. I am running low on hidden space in my room (filing cabinets, drawers, and cabinet space) so I decided I would try binders. I’m not sure how many will fit in a binder…I would love for them all to fit in one but I might have to break them apart by seasons. I bought the ez-slide gallon size bags on sale at my grocery store and duct tape at the dollar tree. The dollar rolls are 15ft…later I saw some 30 ft rolls on sale for $3 at Walmart. Definitely more variety in style but I wasn’t super picky so the ones I found at the Dollar Tree will be perfect.
Here are some bags before I’ve loaded them with completed boards
I’m sure you’ve seen the tutorials on Pinterest. All you do is measure a strip, cut it, fold it over the left edge of the bag, then 3 hole punch it. You can use regular bags too, but I chose the ez-slide because they are easier to get closed. the song/story boards print on normal size paper and they fit easily into the bag. Also, I will note that I decided to flip the bags over to have the white printing (open/closed/date/contents) on the back. I don’t know why little things like that bother me, but now when the song/story boards are in the bag you will not see the white writing and all will be right with the world 🙂
Okay, back to the velcro situation. Remember how I said, in a perfect world I would use the dots? Well, I decided to look up on amazon to see the price. As I was searching I was calculating the amount of cutting for each picture cue. I decided that today I am operating in a perfect world!
A set of 200 beige dots
As I was writing this post I ordered some of these time saving, life altering bad boys and I am so excited! They were under $14 for a set of 200 dots on Amazon. (I saw similar prices online at Walmart, but Amazon will deliver to my door.) Seriously, my time and my hands are worth the splurge!
If you have any tricks and tips to share for preparation, storage, or organization of materials I would love to hear them! 
