We have a little “About Us” section on our website, but I thought that it might be fun to share the whole story of how we got started...
Meridith and I have known each other since middle school but we became really good friends in our AP Art class in highschool. We had an amazing art teacher—Marjorie McClure—and I loved her class. In fact, I’d wait to skip school until 4th period because AP Art was 2nd and 3rd period. Ha ha. Anyways, toward the end of our senior year in AP Art Meridith told me about her sister who was in the Graphic Design program at the University of Utah (go Utes!) and how we should be graphic designers too cause look at all the cool stuff we get to do, etc. I believe my reply was something like, “what the frick is a Graphic Designer? I’m going to be an Archelologist.” Ha! Seriously though, I didn’t know what a Graphic Designer was and it had never occurred to me to turn my hobby (art) into my actual career. However with some encouragement from my fabulous art teacher and Meridith this is indeed what I did. Meridith and I both applied to the Graphic Design program at the U and were accepted, and thus started my graphic design journey. It’s a good thing too because I don’t know what I’d be doing today if I hadn’t made that decision…digging up bones somewhere with a Baby Bjorn strapped to my chest I guess? I definitely made the right decision ;)
While we were in the design program at the U, we would often talk about what we wanted to do in the design field once we graduated. Meridith and I talked about a card company often. We were always making our own cards. Back then I think that cute stamps were hard to come by, I’m not even sure Stampin’ Up was around yet (the horror!) and so we were always photo-copying designs out of our graphic design books and coloring them in with our Pantone color markers to use on cards. At one point we even interviewed with some recruiters from Hallmark who came to talk with our class, and that sounded really fun until we found out we’d have to move to Kansas. (No offense to the Kansas folk…it’s just that we had men on the West Coast ;)
So, we’ve always loved cardmaking, and being from Utah we had both been scrapbooking for years as well…though scrapbooking in Utah used to be a little cardstock, some Mrs. Grossmans stickers, and some decorative-edged scissors. How far that hobby has come (thank goodness!) Alas, when we graduated, Meridith already had a very good job as a graphic designer at the University of Utah, and I decided I wanted to try something new and moved to Seattle to look for work. I ended up learning web design and worked for Microsoft and then ESPN.com for many years.
We always kept in touch though, and when we both had kids we started looking for work that wouldn’t keep us away from home as much. It just so happened that my sister moved up to Seattle shortly after my son was born, and being an avid scrapbooker herself, we decided to open up our own scrapbooking and stamp store in the little town of Duvall where I lived! That was quite an adventure in itself and deserves it’s own blog post, so I will write about that later. It was while I owned the store that I started to learn much more about the papercrafting industry and got up the gumption to start looking into designing my own line of rubber stamps. I called up Meridith at one point and asked if she was ready to take the plunge, and she was!
It’s a very intimidating thing to design your own product to sell. I’m sure this is why we didn’t do this long ago…we didn’t know how! If I hadn’t owned that store I wouldn’t have known where to start. We both had a million ideas for our stamp designs but we really didn’t know how to get them made. After a lot of research we finally figured it out…and decided to make our product cling stamps. We were going back and forth on the benefits of traditional wood-mounted, cling, or clear stamps for a long time. We both agreed we loved traditional rubber stamps but we also loved how easy it was to store the clear stamps…which is why cling stamps were the perfect choice. We started working on our designs…and I remember the day those first sets showed up from our manufacturer…it was SO exciting!!! I couldn’t wait to use them.
We exhibited at Winter CHA this year and were so excited by the response our stamps were receiving…it really launched our company. We learned so much at that show and of course met all kinds of fabulous papercrafting people. The people in this industry are SO awesome.
So that’s our story! This has been such a fun year and I look forward to many more fun Lizzie Anne years ahead!
My Dad is one of those Dads that has everything and needs nothing (other than a hug.) So trying to come up with thoughtful Father's Day gifts is tough. I'm kind of excited about this idea though. One thing my Dad can never get enough of is Coke. And that would be Classic Coca Cola...(no diet or cherry, etc.) Every time he comes to visit me in Seattle the first thing he asks me when he walks in the door is "Where is the Coke?" I'm not kidding. And I usually don't have it. So, he is coming to visit a week after Father's Day and I will have his present waiting for him in the fridge this time...a whole 2-liter of Classic Coke just for him. I thought this would make a really cute father's day present with the "For my Pop!" theme! I used the Lizzie Anne Shapes and Stitches and Pupcat alphabet sets for this idea. Shapes and Stitches is one of our newer sets, and I can't believe how many ideas I've already had for that set...it's a good one.
