h is for happy

I've been so busy the past week. Today I finally had some time to sit down and do some stamping and it felt really good. I had to make it power-stamping to get my project done before baby got up from her nap so I did Meridith's Sketch Challenge for the week...that way half the thinking was already done for me, ha ha. I loved the color challenge this week, really pretty. I used our Le Jardin stamp set and the sentiment is from Fun to be Floral. It made me happy.

I liked this card so much that it inspired me to use this idea for a home-decor project that you may get to see in the very near future... ;)

mini golfer

Have you ever tried mini-golfing with a toddler? It doesn't work so well. My ball is the green one.







I gave up at about the 5th hole and just let her pick up my ball and throw it wherever she liked (the water feature holes were a little tougher.) We weren't keeping score anyways.

I guess mini-golf is out for a year or two but these photos will make for a good scrapbook page ;)

holiday lane back in stock!

Hi everyone, we're pleased to announce that Holiday Lane is now back in stock!

Angel Policy news...many of you have asked us if we have a Lizzie Anne Designs copyright logo or stamp that you can use on the backs of your samples that you intend to sell. We have two options for you. We will now have a copyright stamp available on our website for $1.00 (shown to the right) or you can download copyright labels on our website for free. The label PDF file can be found underneath our Angel Policy information. The LAD copyright logo will be available on our website alongside our catalog. We will only be keeping a small quantity of copyright logos on hand.

Thanks everyone!

how do you like them apples?

Another Happy Harvest card using the bushel of apples image. I colored in the apples with colored pencils. I think the waxy look of the colored pencils was perfect for apples.



the sentiment is inside...



My favorite stamp in this set is the swirly "leaves blowing in the wind" stamp. You can see it stamped across my patterned paper...and I love how Meridith used it on this sneak peek sample. It's so easy to use! When this set was being designed, I had said to Meridith that it would be cool to have some autumn leaves blowing in the wind-- though I had no idea how we'd pull that off. This image is what Meridith came up with and it's perfect!

a well-dressed scarecrow...

I've been excited to show you this card because it's the first time I've tried the "patterned paper for clothing" technique. Do you know the technique I'm talking about, ha ha? :) I see people doing this all the time (especially our Design Team.) You stamp your "person" on patterned paper and then cut out the clothing. Then you stamp your person on another paper and glue the clothing on top! How perfect did this work for our scarecrow? And then I was quite happy with my button-sunflower too. I'm really enjoying playing with this set!

Enjoy your weekend!

happy birthday meridith anne

Today is Meridith's (Anne's) Birthday! Happy happy birthday. Now you are as old as me. Ha! This is a birthday card for Anne featuring our new Gizmo's and Gears set. I really enjoyed reading some of the guesses during Meridith's blog candy bash as to what this set would be. Quite a few of you guessed that it would be a robot set!

I used a brad I had that was in the shape of a screw head...is that not perfect for this card? I'm just in love with all those gizmos and gears. By the way many of you have said that you love 2-step stamping and two of these gears are designed to coordinate with each other...both the big and middle-sized gear have a solid and a outline version.



I used some circle punches to cut out my gears and I also punched the sentiment out and put it in the right hand corner inside the card.

Enjoy your birthday Meridith!

holiday lane update!!!

Okay, so you love our new Holiday Lane set, we can see that. We're already sold out this morning. This is a first for us!

Here is the good news...we had our feelers out and knew this would be a popular one so we already have another shippment of these stamps on it's way. It will be here early next week! So sorry to make you wait, but rest assured more are coming very soon!

If you were hoping to purchase this set today and take advantage of our free Many Merries stamp promotion, please email us at info@lizzieannedesigns.com. If you want to hold off on placing your order until these stamps arrive, we will make a list with your name so that when the stamps become available again **you will still get a FREE Many Merries set with your order when it ships.** To qualify for this, your name must be on the list by today, and when you place your order Holiday Lane must be part of your order. We will email you when they are here!

Of course any order that comes in today will get the Many Merries stamp FREE!

Thank you so much for your support!

new stamps released today

Stamps used on the card above: Super Hero and In the Background

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining in on all the fun for our Anniversary Celebration, I'm kind of sad that it's over, sniff sniff! We had a good time with a bunch of you last night...Meridith even brought out her coconut bra and grass skirt for the Luau. :)

If you didn't catch the party, we announced the winners of our Birthday Sketch Challenge Contest! You can see all the entries here in our Sketchbook where we will leave them up for awhile...as you can see we had a difficult decision to make because we got some ROCKIN' entries!

Winners are as follows:

Grand Prize Winner: Kisa Peters for her Birthday Blast card. Check out the monkey from our Born to be Wild set in the window of the rocket...how cute is that?! Our little monkey is going into outer-space, we're so proud! And she made the rocket herself. Very out-of-the-box! Kisa wins our entire summer stamp release!

Sketch #1 Winner: Debbie Fisher for her Hey Cupcake card featuring our Cupcake single of course. We loved her gorgeous colors and the stitching, it made us want to go eat a chocolate cupcake with pink frosting...mmmm.

Sketch #2 Winner: Lana Lepinksy for her Happy For Blissful Blossoms card. We love the use of color on this card, the blue Blissful Blossoms flowers really stood out. Beautiful!

Sketch #3 Winner: Maren for her Little Animal card. We loved the use of the acetate window over the stacked animals. Very original!

Congrats to all our winners and thank you to everyone for your entries!

The party isn't officially over yet because today all our summer release stamps are officially available for purchase! Just go to Products > New on our website. Our new stamps will also be coming to stores near you very soon. ;)

Also, today is Christmas in July day. What is that you say? We are giving you an early Christmas present...every order that comes in today will receive our new Many Merries single FREE with any purchase, all day long! Happy Christmas in July! We learned last night that many of you are already getting a head start on your Christmas and Holiday cards (and I admire you for that.)

I've got lots more samples ready to show featuring our new stamps, so check back soon!

sneak peek day #4

Today I am presenting the following new sets:

Silent Night
Holiday Script

Yesterday I mentioned a childhood memory of our little Christmas village. Another decoration we always had up at Christmas was our nativity scene. My mother made a "barn" and covered the top with craft moss and then inside we had a ceramic Mary, Joseph, animals, and of course a manger. I wrote my name on the bottom of the manger when I was 7 or 8 years old, you can still see it there. It must have been my favorite piece!

We've had a lot of requests for a Nativity/Bethlehem set for Christmas and so I present to you Silent Night!

I wanted to make a card with the Nativity scene white. I stamped the scene on white cardstock with Versamark and then heat-embossed it with clear embossing powder. Then I used a sponge dauber to sponge blue ink on top of the image. The embossed image resisted the ink but the paper all around it turned blue. It's a very elegant and clean look!



I did the exact opposite with the Bethlehem set and and made it black (I imagined this is how the city would have looked from the hills as shepherds looked on...) We have three "starry night" images...a big star, a smaller star, and a background stamp with twinkling diamond shaped stars to make a night sky.



The second set I'm revealing is our Holiday Script set. Our Say it in Script set is one of our most popular sets, and we thought you would love a set in this same style that is all Christmas and Holiday sayings (I know I wanted it, ha ha!) The great thing about this set is you can use it for sentiments on both the outside and the inside of the card. I'm always looking for sentiments to stamp inside cards...especially Christmas because sometimes you don't want to say much more than a Holiday greeting (especially if you're mass producing 50+ Christmas Cards...I don't always have time to write a personal greeting in each card.)



I have this sentiment stamped inside my Silent Night card...



Meridith is revealing our Rockin' Holiday set (we've got a Santa set now! :)

Check these Design Team blogs for more sneak peekin'!
Joslyn, Jeanne, Kirsten, Katie, Kendra, Taylor, Rose Ann, and Cambria.

Thank you to all who entered our Birthday Sketch Challenge contest...the contest is now officially closed and our Design Team is judging the entries this morning. We will be announcing the winners at our forum party tonight...so we hope you can drop by! Oh and start looking at the flower sets on our website... ;)

One last thing...check out the links in this Customer Gallery Stroll post in our forum *and* check out the card contest entries here! We've got some talented customers!

See you tonight!

sneak peek day #3

It's time to take a stroll down Holiday Lane! I've been so excited to show this set. One of the things I love about Christmastime is the childhood memory I have of the little Christmas houses my mother would set up around our fireplace. We would get one new house a year and our village kept growing. As I got older I insisted on helping to arrange the "Christmas village," complete with a church and a store and several houses and of course little trees and cobblestone fences. Now I collect Christmas houses...I have a little obsession with Department 56! My husband bought me my first Christmas house on our first anniversary (which is Dec. 17th). It was "The Old Curiosity Shop" from the Dickens collection. We've bought a new house every year for the past ten years and now I have my own little Christmas village! My kids adore it.

On to the stamp set...Holiday Lane was inspired by my love for Christmas village houses. This set features two houses, a store, and a church for you to make your own little village right on your card! Of course there must be accessories so you will also find a lamppost, fences, a cobblestone path, trees, and a little snowman. And the perfect sentiments to match! I can't even tell you how much fun I've been having playing with this set! The card at the beginning of my post is my first creation. Here is a close-up...as you can see these little houses have a lot of detail.



This is a card featuring the church with the "Christmas bells are ringing" sentiment because the church has a bell tower! I used some Basic Grey snowflake paper in the background and I made a ribbon tag for the sentiment with one of my Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Trio dies. Elegant!



Up on the housetop... see the little Santa feet going down the chimney? :)



Close up of this card...



I see many Holiday Lane cards in my future, I can't put this set down! Thanks for joining me for today's sneak peeks!

Meridith is presenting our Gizmos and Gears set, Super Hero single, and Little People set!

For more peeking, visit these Design Team blogs today:

Kirsten, Jeanne, Joslyn, Cambria, Katie, Kendra, Taylor, Rose Ann, Sherry, and Lauren.

upcoming events!

Hi everyone, I hope you have been enjoying our Sneak Peeks!

It's July 17th which means today is the last day you can enter our Birthday Sketch Challenge Contest! You have until midnight tonight (PST) to upload to the Sketchbook. Something to note about your uploads...they automatically get approved now but we still need to go "rebuild" the Sketchbook page before they show up. So your uploads may not show up immediately...give it a bit and check back. We've been rebuilding the Sketchbook several times a day during this contest, but if you are worried that your upload didn't work you can always email your entries to us as well. We're enjoying seeing your uploads and we can't wait to give away our new stamps to some lucky winners! Our Design Team is going to help us judge the entries and we'll be announcing the winners on the night of the 18th.

Speaking of Friday the 18th, there are two fun things happening...

1. Customer Gallery Stroll! What is that you say? It's a day where you can post any Lizzie Anne Designs card or project to your blog or SCS Gallery or our gallery, etc. and then let everyone know about it on our Forum so they can come leave you lots of wonderful comments! It's a Lizzie Anne gallery stroll and you are the artists! :) To participate in the stroll, just list your blog or gallery link, etc. in this thread on our forum. Come back on Friday and see who's got a work of art to show off! (Feel free to post your card contest entries if you like!)

2. Anniversary Party on our forum from 5:00-7:00pm PST. We're having a Luau for all our loyal customers! We have a fun trivia game planned for you...start familiarizing yourself with Lizzie Anne "flowers"...(hint hint!) Come join the chit-chat... and of course we will be announcing the winners of our card contest at the party too!

Saturday the 19th is when our new stamps are officially released, and it's also Christmas in July day. What does that mean? Well, what it means is that every order will receive our new Many Merries stamp free with any purchase, all day long! Don't you just love Christmas? Even in July. :)

sneak peek day #2

Welcome to Summer Sneak Peek Day #2! Today I am revealing:

Witch
Witch Saying
Happy Halloween

Witching you a Happy Halloween! Today I present to you our new Halloween stamp singles...I just love Halloween! I've been telling Meridith we need a good witch stamp now for some time. A cute witch with striped socks and big buckles on her shoes and hat.



This witch, much like our other "little people" stamps, is fun to color. I loved making her face and skin green. I recently saw the Broadway musical "Wicked" and it made me think of the Wicked Witch of the West...she looks like a wicked witch but she's really a nice witch, ha ha! Our witch wants to go trick-or-treating with her little pumpkin bucket (who wouldn't?!) I made my own little "buckle" with ribbon and hardware as an accent and I stamped the sentiment right on some Halloween-themed patterned paper.

We're also releasing a fun Happy Halloween stamp. It is a sentiment PLUS it has spooky eyes and ghosts and a witch and spider webs all in one stamp! I stamped the sentiment in black and heat-embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it some fun texture. The ghost in the background is from our Spooked! stamp set.



Close up...



Meridith is revealing our new Fall-themed set Happy Harvest today!

Also check out these Design Team blogs for more sneak peeks featuring today's stamps!
Jeanne, Joslyn, Katie, Kendra, Taylor, Rose Ann, Cambria, Sherry, and Lauren.

Enjoy!

sneak peek day #1

It's time for our sneak peek to start! For those of you who may be new, the sneak peek schedule is on this page in the pink box on the right. You will also notice a new link in the sneak peek box that takes you to a page where you can see the new stamp sets / singles in their entirety. Meridith and I will be introducing new sets and singles on our blogs for the next four days and showing samples for those stamps. Our company is based in Seattle so we are on PST. Many of our design team gals will also be showing random samples throughout the week so make sure to visit their blogs! The new stamps will be released on July 19th.

Today I am revealing...

Garden Isle (Little Bits Stamp Set)
Many Merries (Simply Single)
Hand Stamped By (Simply Single)

You know what I love about summer stamp releases? It's the only time of year when releasing Hawaiian/floral stamps and Christmas stamps at the same time makes perfect sense! This is a card featuring our new Garden Isle set. We are just in love with our hula girl...there were many adjustments made to get her just right. I can't stop stamping with her...she's so fun to color! In this set you will also find a surfboard, various island flowers, and the sentiments Aloha and Mahalo (which mean Hello and Thanks in Hawaiian!)



I thought some of you may like to know what Copic colors I used on my hula girl. Here they are!



This is a card I made with the surfboard stamp in this set. For most of the surfboards, I stamped on patterned paper and cut them out. The patterned paper I used is 7 Gypsies Capri. Summery/beachy cards have always been a favorite theme of mine and this is a fun twist on your everyday Thank You card.



Speaking of a fun twist, this is a Hawaiian-themed Christmas Card I made using our new Many Merries single. The Many Merries single says Merry Christmas in seven different languages and can be used in many ways. You could use them all together to make a really cute background on your Christmas cards or you can use one of the words either by inking up that specific word or cutting the words apart (because our stamps are mounted on EZMount this is easily done with a good pair of scissors.) I used my Spellbinders square and ribbon tag dies on this card as well as striped holiday patterned paper from Making Memories. I also heat-embossed the main flower with clear embossing powder to give it a little shimmer!



If you were part of my Blog Candy Bash yesterday here is the answer to the question I asked...the seven languages! I have to say, making this stamp was tough because there are different ways of spelling these words! The German word for Merry Christmas threw me off a bit because apparently there are three different ways to say/spell it (Froehliche Weihnachten, Fröhliche Weihnachten, or Frohe Weihnachten), plus two ways in Italian (Buone Feste Natalizie or Buon Natale). Oh and in British English it is actually "Happy Christmas." Ha ha! We are American though so we went with American-English. The majority of you had it just like we spelled it. If you answered the blog question in *any* of the correct spelling versions you were included in the drawing. Gotta love Google!

Spanish (Feliz Navidad)
Hawaiian (Mele Kalikimaka)
French (Joyeux Noël)
German (Froehliche Weihnachten)
Buone Feste Natalizie (Italian)
God Jul (Swedish)
Merry Christmas (English)

How did we choose the seven languages? Well it was tough but we chose them based on the places that we see the majority of our customers coming from. We may need to add to that list and do a Many Merries 2 someday! :)

The winner of my Blog Candy Bash (chosen by my son) is #34, Erika M.!! Erika gave me every spelling/option available so her answer definitely qualifies! :) Erika, contact us for your blog candy!

Last but not least we now have a Stamped By stamp single, the perfect way to customize your card. I like to stamp it on the back of my card in a darker shade than my cardstock (Versamark can be used too) and then write my name in with a black fine-tip marker.


Meridith is showing our new Giddyup Girl set on her blog!

And for more even samples today featuring our new stamps, visit these Design Team blogs: Joslyn, Kendra, Taylor, Rose Ann, Bethany, Katie, Cambria, Sherry, and Lauren.


See you tomorrow for Sneak Peek Day #2....

candy and a countdown...

Today is the end of our Blog Candy Bash and tomorrow is the first day of our Summer Release Sneak Peek...yippeee I can't wait!

For my Blog Candy question I have something special planned...it's a clue regarding one of the stamp singles we're revealing tomorrow!

Here is my clue/question. Our Many Merries stamp single will feature the word Merry Christmas in seven different languages. Leave a comment and tell me how you say "Merry Christmas" in the following languages:

Spanish
Hawaiian
French
German
Italian
Swedish
English (that's an easy one eh?)

Good luck and join me tomorrow for a sneak peek of this stamp plus our new Garden Isle set! I'll also reveal the blog candy winner...I'll be entering all correct answers into a drawing for a surprise gift. Now, it's true you could look at the comments and copy another answer, but for the fun of the game try and answer the question yourself! Google "Christmas in different languages" and see what comes up (wink).

Lauren Meader is also giving away Lizzie Anne blog candy today so make sure to visit her blog!

And another reminder that July 17th is the last day to upload entries to our Birthday Sketch Challenge Contest...we're giving away our BIGGEST prize ever, our entire summer stamp release! We've just made it easier to upload your entries. Usually we need to approve uploads before they can be published to the Sketchbook, but we've changed that option for this contest so that now your cards will show up as soon as you upload them. It's so fun to see your designs!

**Updated to note it looks as if we still need to "publish" your uploads to the Sketchbook before they can be seen. But we will be checking several times a day for new entries!**

See you tomorrow!

fun fun fun

We have been having so much fun celebrating our Anniversary...we love it! The blog candy bash has been such a blast for our design team (and you...gotta love free stamps!) and we are so excited to start showing you our summer stamp release...only THREE more days!!!

Speaking of fun...here are a few picts from my trip to Zion. The kids in the photos are my son and Meridith's daughter. I dragged my (very heavy) SLR camera around on the hikes we took and it was so worth it because look at some of these shots...so beautiful!

sketch challenge card

Hi everyone! I'm back from my trip to Utah! We had a good time. It was a might hot in St. George (110 degrees) but I guess that's what I get for complaining that it hasn't been hot enough here in Seattle eh? (Speaking of I was thrilled to come back to absolutely perfect weather at home.) I have some great picts of us in Zions National Park I'll be posting later. We also did lots of cardmaking --so much fun-- and this is the card I came up with for Joslyn's Sketch Challenge this week! I used our Au Naturale set.

Later Gator...

fun stuff!

Hi everyone, a few announcements...

*Our Blog Candy Bash is underway and today you can win some goodies on Jeni and Taylor's blogs! Check the schedule to see who's next!

*Joslyn has posted a really fun sketch challenge in our forum for this week. Rather than a sketch, she's posted a picture of a wall space in her home to inspire your card. I love that idea! AND she's going to be choosing a random entry for this challenge and mailing out some goodies to the winner! Jos has a very choice card making supply stash...you can bet that whatever she's mailing out is going to be yummy. Here is the picture...make sure to see her card/interpretation of this picture on her blog. I'll be posting my card later this week!



*We are really enjoying the entries we're seeing for our Birthday Sketch Challenge Contest! One thing to mention...when you upload your cards to the Sketchbook they will not appear immediately. We need to "approve" them before they are published to the website. So give them a bit to show up. We will be checking for new entries every day!

*I'm off to Zion National Park with Meridith today...I'm bringing the "big" camera (my SLR) so good picts are sure to follow. Enjoy the day!

summer fun

I wanted hot weather and I got it. We are in Utah right now visiting Grandma and Grandpa and this is a photo of my son enjoying his new Backyardigans splash mat in the backyard. After getting drenched in the sprinklers we sipped lemonade under the tree. Isn't that the perfect summer day?

Our Blog Candy Bash starts today with Meridith and Cambria. Make sure to go check out their blogs for a chance to win some Lizzie Anne goodies! And then check the schedule the rest of week!

Meridith and I are heading to St. George, Utah tomorrow to go to Zion National Park (in the 107 degree heat. Yes we are crazy. But we'll get a good tan!) We're dragging all Meridiths cardmaking supplies with us too so we can do cardmaking in the evenings...we get to play with our new Summer Release stamps. Jealous? Ha ha ha! Sorry, I couldn't resist! You'll see our samples soon enough, the sneak peek starts July 15th!

old glory

Wishing you all a fun Fourth of July! We are going to the ski resort in Park City, Utah for a parade and to see fireworks tonight. I'm wondering what my 14 month old is going to think of the fireworks...hmmmm. We'll find out! ;)

Stamps used: Celebration Frames (border around star embellishment)
Out of This World (stars)
Shapes and Stitches (celebrate stitch)
Everything else is a mish-mash of stuff I found while organizing my stamp room!

On July 6th our Blog Candy Bash starts...our Design Team will be doing Lizzie Anne blog candy from July 6th - July 14th in honor of our Anniversary Celebration...the blog candy schedule is here. It's a surprise gift from us to you!

Also our Birthday Sketch Challenge Contest is underway and we're already seeing some entries. We're giving our entire Summer Release to the grand prize winner! You have until July 17th to enter!

Speaking of our Summer Release, did you see the names of our new stamps? Curious yet? I'm just as anxious to show them to you as you are to see them, believe me!

Enjoy those fireworks!

let's have a birthday blast (lizzie anne style!)

July is Lizzie Anne's birthday and the second anniversary of when she became a business...I still remember that first catalog. And today is our LAD Design Team Gallery Stroll, a fun way to kick off our Anniversary Celebration! If you browse our Design Team's blogs you will see a favorite LAD card featured today. We're calling it the Gallery Stroll because seeing what our DT girls come up with is a little like seeing a fine work of art, eh? :) I've been reserving this card I've made for some time now, I was excited about how it turned out. I drew the "solar system" rings by tracing the outside of my oval Nestabilities dies with a black zig and glitter pen. And then I added some planets made from both stamped images and also dew drops and brads! So much fun!

Stamps: Out of this World
Ink: SU Cool Caribbean, Certainly Celery, Marigold Morning, Black, and Tsukineko Versamark
Cardstock: Bazzill
Other: Spellbinders Nestabilities Circle and Oval Dies, Sakura clear glitter pen, big brads by Queen & Co., Copic Markers, Robins Nest Dew Drops in “Water” colors, Scor-Pal, black Zig Writer

Make sure to check out the Anniversary Celebration page on our website to see when our Customer Gallery stroll is...next time it's your turn to show your stuff!

Enjoy!