Your Own Private Project Runway

OK, I'm forewarning you: do NOT go to this site unless or until you're prepared to throw your entire day off schedule, because you're going to get totally consumed here...

Who of you out there remembers the toy activity called "Fashion Plates" from back in the day, circa 1978?

I'm here to tell you that if you don't know what I'm talking about, boy, did you miss out on hours of fun, mixing and matching tops and bottoms and rubbing colored pencils down to the nub to get the perfect texture on your design creations.

But you are so fortunate, because now, you can have an online experience that reminds me of such fun times, but blows them away exponentially, because THESE designs can be made to look like you and your friends!

I'm talking about Design-her Gals. A beautiful web creation headed by Jeanne Fitzmaurice that I discovered on Oprah's 'O List' in the May 2005 issue.

On this site you can create a Gal in your likeness, and add her to personal stationery, business cards, t-shirts, invitations--they give you many, many options.

And just recently, I learned that you can add her to your e-mail signature, blog or website. So I took Designer-her Gals up on their offer and they helped me come up with my Thanks Ranks Radio Gal (**If you're having trouble viewing this with your IE browser, and you really do care to see it, please try cutting and pasting this link http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thethanksranks into your address bar**).

Admirably, 5% of every Design-her Gal sale goes toward their Gal to Gal Foundation's effort to raise money for Stage 4 breast cancer patients.

So you can feel good about all the time you're going to spending on this site--which I'm telling you, is going to be A LOT! I introduced my parents to the site yesterday to show them my Radio Gal (and I'll admit, I've got more than a few "Lisa Gals" saved that I've designed since first discovering the site), and they got hooked designing one for my mother--with my father having very strong opinions on which features did or didn't most resemble her. Guess he figured after almost 37 years, he should know!

I love my new Thanks Ranks Radio Gal, and now I'm ready to launch. Jeanne, Mary, Erica, Dewey and Sue, for making her possible and making your work worthy cause-focused, you've just been added to The Thanks Ranks.