Creative Sketchbooks, Stashbuster Quilts, How it Works

Our Newsletter – 2nd January 2020

Happy New Year to you all. Let’s hope 2020 will be kind, peaceful and filled with creativity. There are many things in the world beyond our individual control but we each have the power to make something of beauty. So, whether it means making time to finish a quilt, or find a few quiet minutes each day to scribble in a sketchbook, try for your own peace of mind to do something creative.
We intend to do exactly that! I’m enjoying working my way through our Creative Sketchbook course and have spent time over the holidays experimenting with new approaches to the activities we devised when we first wrote the course. It’s amazing how much gets done in front of the TV each evening! If you have signed up for the course recently you might be interested to see my work so I’ll be posting some of my pages for you very soon. Laura’s working on that section of the website and we hope to have it ready for you next week.

Over the holidays we’ve received a few questions about DesignMatters Memberships and Classroom Credits so please do read all the newsletter for a bitesize guide to how it all works.

On DesignMatters this week…

Video Workshop – Using Masking Fluid

This workshop is not new this week, you’ll find it in the Membership Playlist, but we’ve been asked for it to be made available for one-off purchase. So here it is! You can now buy this workshop for £1.50 and add it to your library for unlimited viewing*.
What this video is all about:
Join Linda and Laura in the studio as they discuss Linda’s newest quilt tops which are put together from scraps from the stash and hear them chat about how to quilt them.

Ways to watch:

If you have a DesignMatters TV Membership you’ll find this workshop is automatically available to you, just click on the link above.
If you don’t have a Membership, you can purchase this workshop as a one-off for £1.50. You might like to use Classroom Credits to do this. As you know we are gradually phasing memberships out and a couple of months ago we introduced the Classroom Credit option. Many thanks to those of you who have already added credit to your accounts – we hope you find redeeming them against any of the new videos or any title in the Classrooms is really straightforward. And don’t forget, any purchased videos stay in your account for unlimited viewing!

DesignMatters TV – How it all Works

We can hardly believe we’ve been running DesignMattersTV for over 11 and a half years! Naturally, over that time things have changed and we’ll continue to evolve and try to improve what we do. Recently we’ve worked hard on updating the website and making the way we deliver our workshops as flexible and accessible as possible. Here’s a quick guide as to how it all works:
We post a new video workshop nearly every week of the year, usually on a Thursday.
There are two ways you can watch:
  • Become a Member.
When you sign up, you’ll get instant access to everything on the current Membership page, plus any new video workshops that we post there doing your membership period. You don’t get to keep the workshops, they operate on a roll on, roll off basis, with the oldest being replaced by a new one.
  • Pick and Mix.
Browse the Classrooms and choose to purchase the video workshops that appeal to you. Select the ones you want, add them to your shopping basket and checkout. You can pay with a credit/debit card/PayPal or with a Classroom Credit (more on that in a moment).
So which option is right for you?
Membership is great if you want to watch everything we post, but Pick and Mix is our new option and we think it’s much more flexible. Here’s why:
  • You can choose to only pay for the workshops that appeal to you. So if you love sketchbooks you can skip the quilting workshops and so on.
  • You get to keep the workshops forever with unlimited viewing in your library. They’ll never drop off your playlist.
  • You can browse the Classrooms to find all our workshops on your favourite topic. In effect, you can build your own course perfectly tailored to you.
  • You can be a Member AND use the Pick and Mix to get the best of both worlds.
So what are Classroom Credits?
You can shop on our website and pay with your credit/debit card or PayPal at the checkout. This works just fine, but you have to make a banking transaction each time which may mean you incur charges, especially if you’re overseas from us (we’re in the UK).
Our videos are only £1.50 each so it doesn’t make sense to pay a bank charge on top of that!
Purchasing a bunch of credits will only incur one bank charge and the credits can be redeemed for anything on the website at your leisure. You can buy Classroom Credits in the Shop any time.
Next time you buy a workshop, you can choose to pay with your credits and the balance will be automatically adjusted.

Where has the 1 Year Membership gone?

You’ll perhaps have noticed that we no longer offer 1 year DesignMatters TV Membership renewals. This doesn’t mean we’re retiring or closing in one year’s time!

We will be phasing out the Memberships altogether during 2020, and switching to the Pick and Mix system that we’ve explained above. We believe that this offers the most flexibility and creative freedom for both us and you, and means that we’ll be able to continue bringing you the best video content we can, on the widest range of subjects. We realise change is unsettling and of course we don’t want to lose a single one of our lovely viewers! Where would we be without you? We hope if you haven’t already tried the new system out you’ll let us know if we can help in any way. We’re always here to talk to and you’re welcome to email anytime.

Thanks for reading our news today, we’ll be back soon with more.
Bye for now,
Linda and Laura
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