It’s Stacy Julian for Big Picture Scrapbooking.com. It’s just me and my new little microphone. I’m pretty excited about this new adventure of ours. You know, It’s All About Me…testing….testing…1, 2, 3…are you there?

I don’t mean that it’s all about ME, I mean, It’s All About Me, the free class, and I am just so jazzed that you are here.

First of all, if you are hearing this or listening, thank you so very much. I should start out by saying thank you very much. Thank you for getting in the picture. Thank you for giving us a try. I cannot believe the response and the support for Big Picture Scrapbooking. It totally blows me away. Seriously, though, thank you! Thank you for loving life enough to be a scrapbooker. I think that’s what I want to talk about today, the fact that I love scrapbookers. I love the stories that scrapbookers tell. You know, we tell all kinds of stories, about kids, and pets, and vacations, and birthdays, and family, and good stuff. But honestly, I think that we have a hard time telling stories about ourselves, and that is the purpose of this It’s All About Me class, to talk a little bit about how we can get better at revealing the interesting tidbits, the things that we love, and the things that we surround ourselves with, and the things that we would spend our last dime on…and the kind of stuff that really makes us who we are, and really makes us unique. You know, I can’t believe I’m sitting in my office talking to a microphone. Hello microphone!

I’m going to have a little fun here with you, because I cannot see you, and therefore I can completely embarrass myself. I’m going to have a little mock interview with myself just to kind if illustrate our general tendency to describe or to talk about ourselves, and maybe do something a little bit new, a little bit different, that hopefully will then lead you to create this fun project.

Okay, so it’s interview time. Here we go.

“Yes, we are here with Stacy Julian from Big Picture Scrapbooking. Stacy, why don’t you tell the folks listening a little bit about yourself?”

“Okay, gosh, I don’t know. I was born and raised in Seattle, and I live in Spokane, Washington now. I am married to Jeff. We have four sons. We have a lizard, who by the way attacked me last night. I’m looking at scratches on my hand -- I guess you didn’t really need to know that. I work for Simple Scrapbooks Magazine. I have launched this new and exciting website.”

You get the picture, right? No pun intended. You know, as women, and I’m not excluding the men listening, but I think that especially as women, we have a tendency to launch into this list of the titles that we bear, and the rolls that we play, and that’s good vital information, but I think that it’s time that we get down and we get a little more specific about sharing who we really are.

Let’s try the interview one more time…here we go.

“Yes, we are here with Stacy Julian from Big Picture Scrapbooking. Stacy, why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself.”

“Okay, I so will tell you all about me, because It’s All About Me. I don’t know if you know how much I love brownies. I love brownies! I bake brownies probably every single Sunday afternoon. Then I put them in little baggies and I hide them up in a basket so that I can find them when I need them during the week. Maybe it’s because I love brownies so much, that I also love and need to jog on a regular basis, I don’t know. I love to jog. I totally love to exercise by myself outside. A lot of people think this is weird, but for me this is a mental escape. If you have my new book, you have read about it. I need to go jogging. If I go three or four days without jogging I get exceptionally cranky, and I’m no fun to be around. I also burn scented candles. Now I know there are people that love scented candles, but I “really” love scented candles. I have a candle lady. I order candles from my candle lady. I recently spent an exorbitant amount of money, like about $150, on scented candles. I, of course, told my husband that I was purchasing these candles for gifts (you are not going to do anything to upset that story?). Okay, I love scented candles. I burn them summer, winter, I have one burning right now. I love Uniball black pens. I don’t like writing with other pens. I just like the way they feel. I kind of get nervous if I run low. I like to buy these pens by the box at the office store so that I have a ready supply on hand. Aside from evergreen trees, and I did grow up in Seattle and love the protection that evergreen trees seem to offer, my favorite site in the world is a dogwood tree in bloom. I absolutely love dogwood trees. If you have never see one you are missing out. They are absolutely gorgeous.”

This is the kind of information, girls and boys, that I want you to be able to share in this It’s All About Me project. Now, what you are going to do is you are just going to step back and watch yourself for maybe two, three, four days, and notice the things that you do on a regular basis. Notice as you go to pick up things at work or at home, what are the things that you surround yourself with that are you, that say “This is Stacy!” You have probably played that game when you go to a party where you put a couple of items in a paper bag and then everyone passes the bags around and you open up the paper bags and you try and guess who these items describe or represent. That is the idea behind this project. I want you to become more aware of the things that define you. Each time you add one thing to your list and one little photo to this little accordion album in a tin, you are becoming a little more unique. Yeah, there are a lot of people that love brownies, there are a lot of people that love scented candles, but nobody anywhere loves all of the things that I love, and that’s the kind of stuff that I want to be able to share in my scrapbooking.

So, there you go, that’s it…it’s your turn. Here is how this whole Big Picture thing works. You listen to the voice file, you listen to me talk to you, and other fantastic teachers, like Donna Downey, and Cathy Zielski, and Beth Proudfoot, and Kathleen Samuelson, and we have so many more teachers that we are bringing to you. You listen to the voice file, you download the materials list, the list of stuff you are going to need, and then you download the step-by-step instructions and the images. This project, It’s All About Me, is a project that’s in my book, but in the class you are going to see more of the images, and I am going to walk you through it step-by-step. There is a list of questions that you are going to answer. As you answer those questions, hopefully I will help you discover some of the things you might want to take pictures of to put in this little accordion album. You are going to need to buy one of those little Altoids tins. I got my tin at Target, but any little tin of mints will work…so I guess if nothing else you will come away from this whole experience with really fresh breath. So, anyway, go and have fun. We love you! We are excited about Big Picture Scrapbooking! So come back for more. This is so BIG…just trust me, it’s so BIG.