it's a flowery kind of day

I've been playing with our Dreaming of Dots set...


This photo doesn't show it well but the card above also features the "Friends" stitch from our Shapes and Stitches set subtly stamped beneath the flower row.


I don't know what inspired the color combination for my green/orange card above but I really like how it turned out! I'm into ric rac ribbon this week as you can see. I have two other projects that will be featured in our newsletter and March POTM page that also has ric rac. LOVE IT! It's a ric rac, flowery kind of day....

Speaking of flowers, check out Debbie Olson's blog today! She has an awesome sample up featuring Jolies Fleurs! She is such a sweetie, we really enjoyed meeting her at CHA.

I've been soaking up the stamping time this week knowing that starting next week I'll probably be too swamped to stamp for quite awhile! A huge stamp order we placed with our manufacturer is about to arrive and then I'll be crazy busy filling orders from CHA! Our newsletter is going out this Saturday too and will feature an Easter project, so if you haven't signed up for our newsletter make sure to do so by Saturday!

By the way, anyone watch American Idol last night? I have a friend who's brother is the guy who Brooke is a nanny for. He was also the winner of the first season of The Biggest Looser. Never met either of them but it's still kinda cool how small a world it is huh? :)

cosmo cupcakes

Okay fess up, I am not the only one who bought the Cosmo Cricket special value of the day on the QVC Scrapooking Day last month. Right? This kit had SO many great cardmaking papers.

So I started making some little cards with our Cupcake stamp. I used our So Swirly set also...the swirls remind me of frosting swirls. Yum. This is the first card I made (above).


I made the first card a little smaller than a standard card and found I had a lot of left-over pieces. I have to admit, I am usually not one to save my scraps. I just couldn't throw away these little scraps of Cosmo Cricket paper I had though...they were too cute. They already had the scallop-edge I had cut with my scallop-edge scissors too. So guess what? I made little mini-cards! One card was big enough for the cupcake and the other card I just punched out a small scallop oval and stamped one of our sentiments from Say it in Script on there. I love that little card! These would be perfect to stick on the top of a little gift for someone, just like a tag. So cute!

labor of love

I wanted to share with you that something we at Lizzie Anne Designs are very proud of, our 2008 catalog! So much time and effort is put into our yearly catalog. We collect the best samples from our Design Team throughout the year to print as card and project examples. Our very talented friend and Design Team member Joslyn is a great photographer and helped us photograph samples. Meridith designs the catalog herself and puts countless hours into its production. It is truly a labor of love from the entire Lizzie Anne Designs team.

We took our catalog to CHA with us and it was well received...we are so excited! Something we were asked a lot last year is if our catalog could be available to the general public. Our catalog is free to all qualified retailers, however this year we did print extras so that we could offer them to anyone who would like to purchase one. We now have them listed in our shopping cart for $2.99 each, while supplies last. This price is BELOW our cost for the printing of the catalog! We hope you enjoy the catalog as much as we enjoyed creating it and are inspired by all the wonderful samples from our Design Team!

help me obi wan kenobi

Still have warm weather on my mind because I reached for my Shore Thoughts set. I've noticed this set has been getting ordered a lot lately so I'm thinking I am not the only one who is California Dreamin'! **secret** there is a sister-set to this one that I'm working on for our summer release. Okay now forget I said anything (right.)




If you have young children and are looking for a new way to entertain them (or a way to keep them busy while you are making cards) AND you have hardwood floors I highly recommend this R2D2. All I have to do is turn him on and my daughter crawls around the floor frantically trying to catch him. It can keep her entertained for about an hour, which is a considerable in baby standard time. She thinks he is alive. And my son walks around saying "R2, Play Message!" which prompts the "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" message from Princess Leia, which makes him seem even more real to my daughter because now he's talking.

I have to admit...it's a little creepy how real this toy is. He will randomly scoot himself around the floor "looking" at stuff. He never runs into things and he makes the little R2D2 beeping sounds like he's talking to himself. Sometimes he stares at me like he's contemplating shooting his laser beam at me.

R2 can stare at me all he wants for some stamping time. ;)

no spring skips its turn

Spring where are you?!!! I know should not be complaining because it's actually been very sunny all week. It's just been COLD! I have to admit, February is not really my favorite month. I like it a lot more now that I live in Seattle (I'll take rain over snow any day) but I'm still always counting down the days for March to begin. Sometimes March weather feels the same as February but at least it's closer to April/Spring than February is. ;) So when I did the Sketch Challenge last night, Spring was definitely on my mind and that's why I chose this sentiment from our Say it in Script set. This is the only stamping on this whole card...sometimes you just need some pretty paper, some ribbon, and the perfect sentiment.

Only seven more days to go until March!

the man has taste

My darling hubby presented this gift to me before the show and I just had so share it with you because isn't it cool?! He sure knows what I like. I've mentioned in a past post that I have a notebook that I jot all my stamp-design ideas in, and when I'm getting ready to design a new stamp or set, I go to my notebook. That notebook is precious because I very often find that if I don't remember to write my idea down when it comes to me, it's lost forever! I've panicked over misplaced notebooks. So now when my husband is trying to think if a gift for me, he almost always chooses new notebooks.

Smart man.

forum...

Hi everyone,
If you've been trying to access the Lizzie Anne Designs forum today, it's being worked on and so it will not be available for awhile. We're working with our ISP and they are saying the changes and repairs they are making will take about 24 hours.

In the meantime, Meridith has posted a sketch challenge we were planning on posting to the forum yesterday to her blog if you want to play along. We'll add it to the forum as soon as it's back up.

Another thing to mention....we've been adding a lot of new samples from our Design Team to our Sketchbook and if you want to see the most recent uploads, click on the NEW button. Samples that have been uploaded within the last 30 days appear in the New section, and the most recent samples in that category will be shown last, so the last sample uploaded will be on the very last page, etc. Samples uploaded by our customers will appear too and there are some really lovely cards in there, make sure to check it out!

the last photo

I have one last photo from CHA to share with you. This is a photo of us with Lauri and Tommy from Wood Mounts Ink. We first met these two when we had booths next to each other at last year's show down in the New Exhibitors area. These are the nicest folks you've ever met. We had so much fun joking around with them our first year...there were some truly hilarious converstations that we'll always remember (I won't bore you with our inside jokes...we were pretty silly though.) We were laughing about the fact that we, an unmounted-stamp company, were placed next to a company who makes wood mounts for rubber stamps. Kind of ironic, ha ha! We all took it in good humor though and hey, if you are in the market for some wood mounts they make really, really nice blocks! :)

Anyways, we made sure to visit these guys often at this years show and look forward to hooking up with them again next year! It's amazing how many awesome people we've met the past year. I just love the people in this biz!

i heart cha

Hello everyone, we are back from the show! Yesterday was a crazy day...we were very busy in the morning and then when the show closed at 2:00pm we had to quickly tear down our booth, pack it up, and rush to the airport. A bit of a bummer....the airline lost one of my bags! And it was a bag with a lot of my displays in it like my tag tree, boo hoo! I'm really hoping it will show up here soon.

All in all though everything went very well and we agree it was one of the best times we've had at a tradeshow. Every time I go to a tradeshow I learn a lot. Here are the things I learned this year...

1) DO plan in time to get together after the show with fellow exhibitors and stampers and customers and SCSer's, etc. This is what made this trip SO much fun this year.
2) DO NOT bring your son's laptop with the missing "G" key (that he pried off the keyboard at some point) for blogging. Sometimes the letter "G" is needed in a word. (I had to press really hard...)
3) DO bring your good camera. I brought my point-and-shoot and was missing my SLR.
4) DO plan in some extra time for "booth" emergencies...like our sheet/swag thing. SO glad we had the time to find a solution. Our booth turned out lovely because of it!
5) DO save time to walk the show! This is something we didn't do last year. This year we made sure to plan in time to see everything we wanted to see. Fun fun fun!

Those are the five I can think of...there are always lots more but I think I'm getting this show thing down! :)

Make sure to see the photo that Debbie Olson took of us in our booth. Debbie was kind enough to give Meridith and I a little private Copic lesson, it was so great!

Debbie has a lot of good CHA picts so make sure to check them out. She was smart and brought the good camera ;)

There's another cute photo of Meridith, Trudee, and Lori on Trudee's blog...


I know more stuff is going to be popping up and we have more picts to share too so stay tuned.

Last but not least, Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Enjoy those chocolates!

Card features stamps in Little Bits L'Amour

doin the cha cha cha

I've had so much to blog about but NO time!!! And the internet connection in our hotel room last night wasn't working either, so this is the first chance I've had to even check my email. By day we are rockin in our booth, checking out all the other booths, watching the demos (we got our own little private demo from Debbie Olson in the Copic booth and today we saw the new MM Slice machine. Very cool) chatting more with our SCS friends, and rubbing elbows with the stamping and papercrafting celebs. Lisa Bearnson just happened to be in our elevator as we rode up to our hotel room and we were trying to look inconspicuous but she caught us staring, ha ha. She was very nice and we chatted all the way to the 6th floor. ;)


Last night we had our Design Team Dinner and we also hooked up with the gals from My Favorite Things and the Cats Pajamas. We had 24 people at our table, check out the pict! The Lizzie Anne Team is sitting on the left hand side of the table (Me, Meridith, Joslyn, and Zena.) If you look closely you may recognize some other SCS faces!

Tonight we attended the CHA California Adventure Party and it was a blast. We had a lovely dinner and met some great women at our table who just happened to be store owners located not too far from us in Seattle. We felt right at home in their company. After dinner, there was dancing, a band, dessert, and *unlimited* rides on Soarin' Over California. I think I've mentioned our Disneyland addiction? Well, we rode that ride seven times in a row. SEVEN. I'm pretty sure nobody at the party could claim that but us. What can we say? We're all about having a good time!

Tomorrow and the rest of the week will be busy. We sadly will be saying goodbye to our booth, CHA, and the warm weather and heading back to Seattle very late tomorrow night. It's been such a great week.

we're here!

Today was day #1 at CHA and it's been just lovely. Our stamps are getting such a GREAT response from the crowd, it's so exciting and rewarding. We just love that we are making a product that so many other crafters like us are having such a fun time using. I love this hobby (I know you do too!)

I can't believe how quickly the time is flying by! We got our booth set up on Friday. Saturday we put some finishing touches on the booth...including some improptu swags we made out of curtains from Target after discovering the curtains behind our booth were a not-pretty shade of bright red. Disaster averted and our swags look lovely! We then spent the day at Disneyland, whoo hoo! We kept having this incredible luck at Disneyland. We were on Space Mountain and they *forgot* to let us off the ride. I'm not kidding! So we got to go twice in a row. ha! And then we were in the hour-long line for Splash Mountain and one of the cast members decided they liked us and gave us fast passes, so we got on the ride in about 5 minutes. It was a good omen! Here's a shot of me with Zena and Joslyn.


Later that night we went to the SCS Cupcake Reception and met the SCS peeps! It was so much fun being able to *finally* put a face to many of the people we talk with online. We met a few of our Design Team gals...Lori Craig, Sherry and Jeanne (and those two were just as fun and crazy as I imagined they would be!) and we met Kim and the team from My Favorite Things and of course Sarah and Jenn from SCS. Somehow I missed Daven but he stopped by our booth today as well as LOTS of other SCS'ers! We met a lot of our retailers and folks from the craft magazines and owners of other companies....there are really too many to even list. We were running into fellow stampers all over the place, it was like a stamping high-school reunion where we hadn't seen each other for years. (And in our case, we had never seen *most* people other than their avatars!) What fun!

Here's a picture of our sales team in our booth. Looking forward to tomorrow!

leaving on a jet plane...

I'm off to CHA today...me and my two 50 lb suitcases. At least I'm hoping they are only 50 lbs each so I don't get charged by the airline but I'm feeling doubtful.. ;)

We'll be checking in on our forum and our blogs. So the next time you hear from me, I'll be at the show!

speaking of Valentine's Day projects...

...we just added a fun cupcake project by Kendra on our Projects of the Month page. It is just adorable, you have to see it! There is a "froggie" version too!

pixy sticks valentine

This is one of our February Projects of the Month on our website. I thought you might like some more detailed instructions on how I made the Pixy Sticks Valentine. I just *love* this little valentine because I think it's such the perfect project for kids, very easy and a great shape to drop in those little Valentine's Day boxes at school.

The first step is to use a large scallop circle punch (I used my Giga Marvy punch) and punch in red paper. Have your child write From: and then their name on the edge in a white gel pen. Then using a slit punch (SU) make two slits on opposite sides of the circle for the pixy sticks to slide through.





The next step is to slide your pixy sticks through the slits. I found my pixy sticks in a bundle in the Valentine's Day candy section of my grocery store.






The third step is to make the "topper". I first stamped the Sweets and Treats image from Celebration Frames in black, and then a sold heart from Heart to Heart in Rose Distress ink. I finished it by stamping the swirly heart image from Heart to Heart over the solid pink heart in red.

Using my Marvy Super scallop punch, I punched out the stamped image, and then layered it on top of a pink circle I had punched with my Mega scallop punch. Using glue dots, I glued these two peices together and then glued it on top of the pixie sticks/red circle. I also used my white gel pen to make little dots on the pink scallop circle.

Finish it off by tying some cute strips of ribbon on the top and the bottom of the circle. That's it!

paper jolies lampshade

I have another CHA booth sneak-peek for you! These adorable, paper-flower embellished lamps will be displayed in our booth, adding a warm, inviting feel. These lampshades are a project you could easily do for your home. I plan on putting one of these lamps in my daughters room after the show!

Here's a little tutorial on how these were created...



Start by stamping a favorite flower on white paper and color them in. I used the big flower from Jolies Fleurs, and I've colored them in with Copic Markers in shades that match our booth (and my daughters room, convenient, huh? :)) Cut out the flowers.


Bend the corners of the flowers up a bit to give them a dimensional feel. Then attach them to the top of a cute lampshade! I just put a few glue dots on the back of my flowers and they worked great! If you want them a little more permanent, I'd try double-sided tape.

Another idea...try adding some sparkle with a jewel-brad in the middle of your flowers! This one is from SEI. Super cute!

the tag tree

This is a "prop" we'll be setting on our front table at our booth at CHA. We wanted a way to show a little sampling of our stamps. I thought it would be cute to have some type of tree to hang little stamped tags on...a "tag tree"...each little square with a different image that showed our range of stamps and styles.

I found this tree on eBay and I just love it. It is made by Hallmark and you can't get them in the stores anymore, they are only available on eBay as far as I know. This tree was meant to hang little photo frames. However, after I use this tree at CHA, I am going to display it in my house and decorate it for each season...stamped hearts for Valentine's Day, Easter Eggs, Sea-Shells for Summer, Halloween and Christmas images, can you imagine the possibilities?!

hey sugar...wanna watch some football?

...speaking of Cosmo Cricket's Hey Sugar Cupid paper, here's another card featuring that paper for the sketch challenge Meridith posted on our forum. The twist was to make it a masculine Valentine's Day card. I think this is pretty masculine, don't you? Barring putting a motorcycle or an X-box on there (which I could have done with our All Guy set actually...hmmmm) Stamps used: Heart to Heart.

I had said that I was going to give my "Eiffel For You" card to my hubby for Valentine's Day. I've changed my mind, he will receive this card. I can't part with the other one, it's one of my favorites and it will have to go in my personal card stash. (You know the stash I'm talking about...we all have one, don't we?)

----
So. Tomorrow is the Super Bowl! Are you excited? I am, because it means that while my boys are watching the game I'll sit the baby in their lap and enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted papercrafting time! ha ha! I'm not saying I don't like football--I do. I'm more than happy to have it playing in the background as I make cards. ;)

Funny, little-known-fact about me. I used to be a web designer for ESPN.com. Yep,that's right! Me...designing sports websites for ESPN. I designed the ESPN/MLB World Series website one year, it was actually pretty cool. Quite a departure from what I'm doing now, eh? My ESPN days were back when I was "young"...I stopped working full time when my son was born 5 years ago. I then went on to pursue my dream of designing for the craft I love so dearly (thus Lizzie Anne Designs was born) but I do fondly remember those years...I grew to love Mariners baseball and had a great time zipping around the streets of downtown Seattle, sipping Starbucks on the corner with work colleagues. It was an awesome job.

I remember hosting a Stamping Up party when I was working for ESPN.com and inviting the *very few* women in my department to come. (We had a very male-dominated department...no surprise!) I remember looking at the catalog with everyone on our lunch break! And then I'd turn around and start designing some logo for the NFL or something. HA HA. Talk about shifting focus!

I much prefer what I'm doing now. But those are fun memories. Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me!

I'm about to post one of the CHA projects I've been working on (two posts in one day for me! This doesn't happen often but I'm too excited to show you my Tag Tree. It can't wait until tomorrow. ;)

soul mate

A few of you have asked what printed paper was used on this little card that was in our February newsletter that went out today. Well let me tell ya...it's Hey Sugar Cupid from Cosmo Cricket! One of my favs. Stamps featured on this card are images from Celebrations, Celebration Frames, and Just Words II.

Also noteworthy, did you see the cute little cherry-tree teaser card in the newsletter? That was designed by Lauren Meader. If you missed it...you'll have to wait for her to post the full-sized version to her blog! It's pretty darn cute. Sorry to be such a tease! :)

I'm working on two different CHA projects right now that I'll be posting shortly. If you're not headed to the show, you'll get to see all the fun props from our booth right here on our blogs! Did you see Meridith's ribbon boards? We're displaying card samples from our Design Team on those boards. So cute...we used these in our booth at CK Seattle last November and we had tons of people taking pictures of them. Now you can make one too!