 Hi everybody, it's Sandy and it's sunny in my studio! I'm so excited, but I did not come here just to brag on my sunshine. I came here because I have 10 things to say, and Toastmasters tells me that 10 things is too many. So I'm going to combine a whole bunch of them so that I have three things to say, or three categories of things, and maybe that will be doable. We'll see if it's just too confusing. The first category is talking about sales on classes and new classes. Yes, that's a big subject, squished into one, so pretend it's one small subject. And I also want to let you know I have some notes that I'm looking at, so if my eyes are averted it's not because I don't love looking at your wonderful face. You look fabulous today, by the way. Your hair is awesome. First off, I have four new classes that are open for pre-registration. Do not, do not pre-register for the classes. Do not. Just going to tell you that right now. In this particular case, the classes are not on a pre-registration discount. They're up there for full price to discourage you from buying them right now. I want you to wait until Friday because there's a sale coming. Why would you waste money that you could spend on art supplies when you can get a sale, okay? The first class is Hunger for Hope, and it's a Bible journaling fundraiser class. The themes for the class and the four lessons that have multiple videos in each one are the four Sundays of Advent. Hope, peace, joy, and love. And it's a combination of all of my previously created videos for Advent all put into one class so it's all their neat and tidy, and the class will be added to over the years. So if you sign up for it, you'll have this class forever. Why would you sign up for this class when all of that content is already on YouTube? Well, because it's a fundraiser for one, and you can help out hungry people by throwing 10 bucks into the kitty so we can do some good together. But also, you get all of this year's videos on the first Sunday of Advent. Well, actually, you get it on Friday, since that's when all the content is going to go live for these. So yeah, you get the content early for this year. You can get all your Advent Bible journaling done early and have lots of ideas to do it. That's the first class. Second class is called All Season Watercolor Cards. And this one has the four seasons plus one with two spring, one summer, one fall, and one winter scene in them. So you'll learn some techniques. This one is taught with stamps. Not many of my classes are. And Purple Onion Designs, who is also going to have a sale on Friday, is going to have a bundle of the stamps that are used in the class. You can get them all once, make it really easy. Third class is called Copic Blueprints. And this one is a level four class. So if you've made it through a bunch of the mini classes and you feel like you're rocking them, you're feeling comfortable being able to draw with your Copic markers, this class is the next big step for you. It's not a mini. It's a level four and it has 10 lessons on making indoor scenes. And it's called Blueprints because on the outside borders of the printout, which has a big blank in the middle for you to do your drawing in, there are little blueprints, little lines to tell you where the horizon line is and what the angle of the counter is, et cetera. Hopefully this is a way to teach you perspective in a way that gives you guidance along the way. If you've taken drawing 101, you're going to love this because it's applying everything you learned in that class to making scenes or cards. And last but not least is Watercolor Trees 2. In Watercolor Trees 1, we started with single trees. And in Watercolor Trees 2, we're going to do paintings that have whole tree scapes in them. My favorite one from this class is this painting, which I think came out absolutely gorgeous. And I absolutely love it. And I think it is one that you are going to enjoy painting as well, if you're interested in learning how to paint larger format. Class previews for all of these videos are in the classroom page. And all of the supplies are in the pre-class so that you can go and order up all the things that you need and put them in your carts in the stores. And then when they come out with their coupon codes on Friday, all you have to do is put the coupon code in and click buy now. And then you'll have all that done. All the work can be shopped for ahead of time during this pre-registration period. And speaking of Friday, that brings me to the sales. I'm going to have one coupon code that I don't know what it is yet. Hopefully by the end of this video, I will figure it out. One coupon code that's going to run from Black Friday all the way through Christmas Day. And I'll tell you how that's going to change throughout because behind the scenes I'm going to change the value of that coupon and what it's good for all month long. Black Friday is the biggest day of course. 30% off all classes over $20. So basically not the mini classes and not the kids classes and of course not the charts and things. Just the classes with meat on their bones. 30% off those classes. Then on Saturday it goes to 20% and then on Sunday it goes to 15%. So all week and long you can get a deal but you'll get the best deal on Black Friday. The rest of the time between then and Christmas, I'm going to have pop-up sales. And those are going to be based on the card that is shared on my social media each day. So the cards have a background element or something in them that points to one of the classes. They're all Christmas cards and those are going to link to whichever class is on sale that day. It's going to be on sale for 24 hours till the next morning when a new card goes up to the top of my social media. So follow along if you're looking for sales on mini classes that is the season to find those sales. And on Christmas morning all adult classes will be on sale for 20% off using that same coupon code. The same one because if you get a gift card from Santa Claus, I want that to stretch as far as possible for you. So you'll want to go use that right away on Christmas morning. I realize that telling you all of this ahead of time is a dumb move as a business woman. I am not a business woman. I am an artist and I'm just going to own it and say I want 2020 to not suck for something because there's so much that 2020 has had that's been so stinky that I want art to be the good thing. I want you to enjoy your classes. I want you to get a discount if that's what you want. I want you to learn something new and go create beautiful things because our world needs beautiful things big time, right? Now the second thing I want to talk about in this video and yes all of that I'm considering one thing. So my second topic is links. Many of you have noticed that my vanity URLs for all of my product links went belly up a few months ago. I have been working hard trying to fix it. It has not been fixing. It has not gone well at all and I am very very sad about that. The whole affiliate program that I've been on has just gone belly up because of that and unfortunately I don't have the time to go back and edit everything all at once and just make everything better. So you're going to find some links that are broken and I apologize for that ahead of time before you find them. However, I have fixed all the links at art-classes.com. I did a search and I went through every word on the page and that vanity URL no longer appears in anything and the links should be all good now including the massive class that you now have available to you. If you have an account at art-classes.com you have a free class called my virtual studio. If you haven't taken it before you might want to go check it out because it has a lesson on every different medium and some of them have several lessons on the medium like a whole thing about Copic storage or a whole thing about watercolor brushes etc etc. I even updated the how to make a video part to have my new microphone and my new camera and all my new stuff linked in there. So all of you who have been asking about that that's where you can find all that information. I've made that class completely open and public so you don't even have to log in to go see the content on it. So if you're ever looking for like what was that brush she used you can always go look there and I may end up making that one of the solutions to provide just one big watercolor link on watercolor videos that are older. I'm going to try to fix some of them that are more popular or more new and see how that goes because I just don't have the hours in the day to fix all that but I appreciate your patience with me. I really do. It means a lot. While I'm talking about links let me answer one question about how affiliate links work because a lot of people have asked this question and it's how does the credit work that different people get when they post affiliate links? Well when you click on an affiliate link then there's a little cookie that's attached to you and you use that one affiliate link you go to the shop and you start shopping and you buy 10 things. It might not be all 10 things linked from that particular original affiliate link but your cookie still travels with you. So everything on it ends up being credited to that creator whoever gave you that first link and if you click buy then they get credit for all of those things. It doesn't cost you anything extra to use an affiliate link but it helps the creators to make a little tiny percentage on whatever it is that you're shopping for. It gets a little complex and a little messy when you keep adding to your cart over time from different websites. So if you shop from Susie's blog and you find 10 things that you add to your cart after clicking on Susie's link you have the cookie for Susie but then the next day before you click to finish your purchase you go over to Karen's blog and Karen has something really awesome and you click to go add that to the same cart from Karen's blog. Now your cookie is from Karen's blog and if you hit buy then all of those sales and I believe this works at most places the same way all of those affiliate sales end up being credited to Karen because Karen's cookie is the last one you touched. So if you're looking to credit a particular creator with the sales and I recommend spreading the wealth you know change it up from time to time and give different people credit or if you just like my dogs and you want them to have more cookies then go assign yourself a cookie by going to say my website where I have an affiliate page there's a link to it in the doobly-doo down below if you click on that that will return you in general to the website of the shop that you're looking at and it will establish that cookie again you don't have to buy anything extra it'll just re-establish that cookie as being from that creator. The third area that I want to talk about today is just real short and it's on coming attractions. On Wednesday this week I am working on a project if I get it done by Wednesday if not it'll be done by Thanksgiving. I am writing a storybook letter to Santa Claus with pictures and everything and it's so cool I think you're gonna really love it it's a letter telling him how to give presents to artists and it has it's really cool you're gonna really love it and you're gonna want to send it to Santa so Santa knows what to get you for Christmas if Santa doesn't know what's already in your art or craft studio. On Friday it's a big day I know it's Black Friday but it's also my traditional last card it's it's kind of grown to be this tradition that I have taken December off from card making because the onslaught from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas through the whole fall and winter is just exhausting and what I have decided is to give myself the month of December to just play so my last card is always on Black Friday and so that's what you're gonna get on Friday make sure you stay tuned it's gonna be rather epic and then next week since December starting I'm gonna be starting I don't even know what yet I haven't even had time in my brain to plan I am gonna try to do some live things here on YouTube I'm gonna do some live things on Crowdcast I'm gonna do live things on Facebook I still have a video that's gonna be over on Ellen Hudson in December on the first and I have my normal card making video that's gonna be over on MFT on the second Friday I think of December so those are still gonna go on as usual but this channel is gonna transform into a fine art channel for a month just so I can recoup and get a break and try something different some of them may have voiceover some of them may not I don't really know I have no idea what's coming but I'm looking forward to the rest I really am and I hope you'll stick around with me through that period because I think you're gonna enjoy it at least I hope you're gonna enjoy it we'll see all right before I close out I want to say thank you thank you to all of you who made 2020 bearable for each other all of you who loved on each other and gave each other hope and encouragement and solidarity through a really stinky year it's been tough it's been tough on all of us in a lot of different ways for those who lost loved ones this year I'm sorry my heart is with you for those who celebrated things this year I'm excited for you for those who took up new challenges in art I am just thrilled to pieces for the progress that you're making and I want to thank you for watching my videos and taking my classes and following me on social media leaving comments and all the wonderful ways that you helped me to be a better artist and a better teacher and a better person it means a lot to me to have you guys in my corner and I just want to say thank you oh that would be the perfect coupon code let's use thanks 2020 all caps because thanks should be screamed in all caps and that's going to start on black Friday and run all the way through Christmas with varying things going on for what it's good for behind the scenes okay I will talk to you guys again on Wednesday when I have my little storybook to share or Thursday happy Thanksgiving if I don't see you before then bye guys