The Harwick Hubabaloo

Scrapper's Bliss Celebrity Chat with Cathy Z!

Ok, ok, I promise to update the personal side soon... but in the meantime, I want to share that Cathy Z will be at Scrapper's Bliss (www.scrappersbliss.com) tonight, Wednesday, August 29th, at 8:00pm CST!

Please come join us!

Cathy Zielske is the creative director for both Simple Scrapbooks magazine and the newly launched Digital Scrapbooking magazine. She helps guide the visual direction for both magazines, as well as writes a column on design theory to help scrapbookers create savvy pages with better flow and balance. A graphic designer by trade, she transfers her time-tested design concepts to the scrapbook page for her classes at national consumer scrapbook shows and at Creating Keepsakes University, as well as classes taught abroad.

Cathy believes that stories carry equal weight with photos. She strives to help scrapbookers find their authentic voices, have fun in the process and make layouts with a strong visual appeal.

She is the author of Clean&Simple Scrapbooking, and Clean&Simple Scrapbooking: The Sequel. Both books inspire women to take a more streamlined, well-designed, and hipper approach to telling their stories through scrapbooking.

Cathy also reaches scrapbookers through her popular blog, Bits&Pieces, found at cathyzielske.typepad.com, which averages between 5,000 and 10,000 hits daily.

A native of Everett, Wash., Zielske is based in St. Paul, Minn., with her husband, daughter and son.

Chat it up with Kristina Contes at Bliss!

We will be hosting a chat with the fabulous Kristina Contes at Scrapper's Bliss on Monday, August 13th at 8:00pm CST!

Please come join us!

(also, short notice for some of you, but Kristina is also hosting a challenge on the site... use transparencies on a layout.. she will be choosing a winner tomorrow sometime after the chat!)

Here is some more info about Kristina:

Kristina likes to consider her style varied from clean line to artsy. She enjoys working with stamping techniques and creating mini books, working in 12x12, 6x12, 8x8 and 8.5x11 formats, creating amazing single and multi photo page designs. Kristina has been published numerous times in Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Answers and Cards. In 2007, she won a coveted spot in the CK Hall of Fame! Kristina also designs for Rouge de Garance, Hambly and The Dare blog. Kristina and her fellow Dare girls are expecting a book, "We Dare You", to be released this month! Kristina is also, wife to Jonathan and doggie mama to Chloe. In her spare time she enjoys, "making stuff".

I hope to see you all there!

Celebrity Chat with Gretchen Schmidt at Bliss!

We will be hosting a chat with BPS instructor Gretchen Schmidt tonight at 8:00pm CST at Scrapper's Bliss (www.scrappersbliss.com) Hope you will join us! Gretchen will be giving away a free seat in her class to a random chat participant! Good Luck!

Here is some more info about Gretchen:

Hi everyone, I’m Gretchen Schmidt. I’m a stay at home mom of 3 kids and wife to a hardworking husband. I’ve been scrapbooking since 1999 and quickly became addicted – I am fortunate to have found such an amazing hobby that lets me be creative and record my memories at the same time, it’s a great outlet to have. My style is always changing from layout to layout, it depends on the photos I am working with, my mood, and how much time I have. I also enjoy card making and altering just about anything. I am teach online classes for Big Picture Scrapbooking and am a designer for my local store, Maridawn’s Scrapbooking in Katy, Texas.