Hello, it's Wendy Smedly from Simple Scrapbooks Magazine, and I am absolutely thrilled to be participating with Big Picture Scrapbooking this year as one of the four experts for 2009.

I have the privilege of kicking off the year with a class based on a book that I had the chance to co-author with professional organizer, Aby Garvey, called The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker. This class really goes beyond the book and provides activities and quizzes and additional ways for you to better understand your unique approach and motivation for scrapbooking.

Let me tell you that you will spend the next three months really beginning to understand why you scrapbook and how you scrapbook. Do you start with photos? Do you start with journaling? Do you start with product? You will really dig in and understanding what it is about your approach that is unique, and how to set up a space that supports that. Also, we will have a constant stream of ideas on ways to organize and store your products and the different types of workspaces, from small to large, from dedicated to shared, and regardless of the size of yours, you're certain to benefit from this workshop experience.

One of the benefits of this class are the women that participate. Last year I had the opportunity to teach this class, I was blown away by how willing the women in the class were to share what they had learned regarding their experience with some of the activities as to where they had purchased certain items or to run and get this or that storage basket on sale at Target. It was really, really cool to see how close everyone got, and how willing everyone was to help each other.

You will also have the opportunity to participate in some live Super Saturdays. That's where we set aside time devoted to some of the more mundane aspects of organization and storage, and that's where you clean things out and you sort, and it's really helpful to have some extra motivation. You will get that in the form of downloads and from chats that you have with me on that day. It's really a fun thing to set aside time to do. You will also have the opportunity to take a step back and look at your reason for scrapbooking and really make sure that what you have in your space supports rather than hinders your scrapbooking habits.

I think you will be really intrigued to see how your experience is in regards to understanding your space. Now it's not necessarily easy, otherwise you wouldn't need to sign up for a 12-week course. What we've done is broken it up for you in manageable chunks of time. One of the benefits of taking an online class is that you can really work at your own pace. If you get a couple weeks behind, you can download the content and do it at your own pace, so please do not let yourself get frustrated. You can work at your own pace.

I'm totally thrilled to be spending the first few months of 2009 with you, and I'm super excited to be participating with Big Picture Scrapbooking, and I can't wait to help you put it all together.