Hi, it's Cathy Zielske here from Simple Scrapbooks Magazine, on behalf of Big Picture Scrapbooking.com. Hi! Hi there! Hi! I am totally psyched to be recording this little promo to announce that I get to teach a class in 2008 at Big Picture Scrapbooking.com, and the cool part is, apparently I'm one of the experts for 2008. That's right! I am one of the four experts that's going to be bringing you the coolest on-line education you're going to find anywhere, and I'm absolutely honored to be a part of it. I get to do design, and I guess it would make sense, because, okay, there are some things I am an expert at. I'm an expert at obsessing over things. I'm an expert at food intake. I'm also an expert at, did I mention obsessing? Anyway, the other thing that I happen to know a little about is design, so I'm totally psyched to be doing this class at Big Picture.

The class is tentatively called Designing Your Life. It's kind of a three-fold thing, and I'm just going to give you the highlights, the high points, because there will be no low points…come on…no I'm kidding…okay, maybe a few…no, there won't be any, I'm just kidding…stay with me here! The class is going to be about design, but here is what I want to do. I don't want this to be a class that feels very formula-like, in terms of like every week you get a lecture from me through an audio podcast or whatever, where I'm like…"and today we're going to talk about symmetrical design, and symmetrical design…." I don't want to do that. What I want to do is cover graphic design in a much more organic fashion, because here's the thing, at the end of this 12 weeks together, I don't want you to be scrapbooking like me, because, let's face it, that would be boring. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like my pages, I'm good enough, smart enough, etc., but the thing is, we all bring unique styles to the table when we're scrapbooking. Scrapbooking is all about exploring your personal style, and what I want to do is I want to give you design in the real world and take these principles and ideas and apply them to your own pages, you know, so that your style becomes a better design version of you! So that's point one.

Point 2 of this three-fold approach of this class…that doesn't make any sense, but okay…um, the second part of the class is that every week I'm going to be giving you some exclusive content that you're just not going to get anywhere else. I mean, you're going to get the audio message, you're going to get access to me, but the cool thing that I'm working on now is a whole series of design schemes that will tie into weekly assignments, so you will get those, and then you'll also get the corresponding layouts from me in your handout, so it will kind of be fun because you'll get like almost a chapter of an idea book over the course of 12 weeks in terms of new layouts from me…so there's that.

Okay, the next part is kind of cool. In addition to talking about design, because this class is called Designing Your Life, and design isn't like the end-all, be-all, absolute most important thing…in other words, you can't just focus on one thing, we have to focus on a lot of things. So, our weekly assignments are also going to be tied into challenges about scrapbooking, and the thing that I love to scrapbook about more than anything is everyday life. So, a lot of the assignments, not only is there going to be the design aspect, but there is going to be subject prompts. I'm going to give you ideas for things that, you know what, they might not get you out from under the piles of photos that you have, but I guarantee you they are going to be fun and challenging and maybe even have you looking at scrapbooking a little differently than perhaps when you started class. We are tying in every day subject themes, and third, I am going to challenge you every week in your assignments to use your stash. Because, you know what, if you are like me, you have a huge amount of stash, and if you've got a piece of KI paper that you just can't part with and you got it five years ago at a scrapbook store, I want you to pull stuff like that out and use it because design doesn't require the latest and greatest products. My personal goal in this class is not to use anything super new. I kind of have an angle that you don't have because I do get product from scrapbook manufacturers, and bless them for doing that, but I'm going to try to not just go to the latest and greatest, and I'm going to try to just use up my stash because I've got too much stuff and it's waiting to be used. So there's that.

To tie it all together, we're going to be building an album with all of our assignments and all of our handouts and all of our stuff. But here's the other fun part, and I wish I came up with this idea on my own, but I didn't. A couple good friends of mine have already done it, and I thought it was brilliant. We're going to take one big binder and we're going to make layouts of every shape and size. Okay, maybe not shape. I'm not really into shaping things, but we are going to do 12 x 12 pages, 8 ½ x 11, 8 x 8, 6 x 6, some are going to be single page, some are going to be double page, some will have tons of photos, some will have no photos. Basically what we're going to do is we're going to break down any sort of preconceived notion that one size is more design friendly than the other, and when you're done, you're going to have this cool collection of layouts of all different shapes and sizes and covering things from your everyday life, and I think in addition to being a great design resource, it's just going to be a cool little piece of 12 weeks of your life.

So, that is what I'm working on, and lucky me, I'm not until the 4th quarter of 2008, so I have all the time in the world to basically make this as cool as I possibly can. There will be other things that I'm going to be brainstorming with Big Picture to try to develop, other added ways to bring content. So, that's my little preview of the class. I'm totally excited and honored to be a part of it, and I'm looking forward to sharping 12 weeks with you and Designing Your Life. Thanks a lot and we'll see you in class.