Creativity Can Help

A Word About The Recent Elementary School Shooting in Connecticut

I have been wondering how best to address the recent shooting at the Elementary School in Connecticut. It is such a great tragedy and at first glance seems so out of place to talk about on this blog and yet I don't think it is our of place, because it deals with children and with sorrow.  My heart goes out to all the innocent children and teachers who lost their life's that day, as well as to all the surviving children and teachers who are still with us. What do we do in times like these? How do we cope with all the emotions and thoughts we have? I am a strong believer that art and creative projects can play a big role in helping us make it through hard patches in life and help us recover from traumatic experiences.

With so much tragedy in the world I have made Draw Me A Lion my mission to focus on the positive things in life. And even though many problems are permanent and can't be solved Creativity can be of help in overcoming the harder obstacles in life. Even sorrow.


•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Crayon & Watercolour Repel Technique

Here is a drawing I made between ages 6-8. Me and my mom did lots of crafts together. This was one of my favs. The crayon & Watercolour repel technique. For a nice wintery scene like this one, draw with a white crayon a winter wonderland. Then go over everything with with blue watercolour. The crayon will repel your watercolour and your picture will look great! After the watercolour dries you can add some extra touches like these houses here with coloured pencil.

Two Holiday Markets Left & A Stolen Bike Trailer

I've been loving all the fantastic fairs we're part of this year. They have been a real pleasure, even last weekend when I noticed 1 hour before I had to be at our venue that our bike trailer got stolen right from my porch (locked up two times) it turned out to be a fun day in the end. After an initial freak out of how to get all of our wares to the fair a fantastic friend drove me there on short notice and armed with our business credit card went and bought us a new one so that by the time the fair was over a new trailer was already at my house awaiting to be used the next day. It's so great to have good friends! Now if the credit card could just magically pay itself off everything would be perfect of course. Nevertheless we did really well at all fairs so far and I'm having a really great time meeting so many new people who are all so enthusiastic about the Draw Me A Lion line. You guys are the best!

If you haven't come to visit us as a market this season make it be this weekend because these are our last two fairs before the Holidays! Come and get one of our market priced deals to put in your stockings this year! BLIM Market on Saturday & The Great Canadian Craft Fair on Sunday. Ho ho ho!

Print Mix Up!

OUR MISTAKE! :( 
WE MIXED UP SOME PRINTS & WE'RE SORRY! 

Did you buy either of these two long format prints this Friday and Saturday at TOQUE or this Saturday at GOT CRAFT? 
If so, please check to make sure that you received the right one! 

••••••••••••••••••••••••
A few accidentally got put in the wrong tubes in the hustle and bustle and we big time apologize for that. If you have received the wrong print please get in touch via phone or email. 

We'll be sure to mail you the correct print immediately and of course you get to keep the one you already have.

••••••••••••••••••••••••

Thanks so much for understanding! 
So sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. 
All my best,

Lisa

We Made A Video!

Thanks to the amazing talents of filmmaker Anna Mac Donald I am happy to present to you this brand new video about my little shop. I think it turned out so great. And just when it couldn't get any cooler my good friends Jared Schinosky and Choo Kien made the nicest song for it. I am so lucky to have so many talented people as friends and have no idea what I'd do without all of your help! So I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to making this video and also everyone who will take the time to watch it and help pass it along. 

I feel like Anna portrayed what my shop is all about really well and in a fun way. 

I hope you will like it! 

Here is the link to it on Vimeo again. 

Craft Fair Time!

Catch us at a Craft Fair! 

Visit our booth at one of these fine Fairs. 

Pay online prices, no tax, and of course no shipping costs! 

Strathcona Winter Craft Fair, Saturday November 24th, 10-5pm.
Toque, Friday December 7th from 6-10pm, and Saturday December 8th from 11-4pm. 
Got Craft?, Saturday December 8th from 10-5pm, and Saturday December 9th from 10-5pm. 
Blim Market, Saturday December 15th from 12-6pm
Great Canadian Craft Fair, Sunday December 16th from 10-6pm

Get ready for the Holidays!

Lately every year the holidays do this thing where they manage to sneak up on me even though I definitely know they're coming! I think it's because shops start to decorate for Christmas earlier and earlier now and and so for a month or two we are in this constant state of Christmas, almost forgetting that there is an actual date attached to the whole thing. By the time I realize that it's often too late and my cards end up getting there a week after everything is long over. This year, I have decided to be better about it. I will try to write all of my cards in these next couple of weeks so that later, all I will need to do is to throw them in the mail. If you want to be clever like me might I suggest one of our festive card sets to get you in the writing mood?

Pass on the Christmas spirit with santa and a little Christmas sprite.

A more general holiday card set that is a wee bit on the funny side of things. 

And last but not least these single cards of three cute kids with animals singing songs of Peace On Earth. Wouldn't it be nice if we all just got along? 

So whatever holiday you're celebrating this season, let's make it as awesome as possible.

Colouring Mask Book Launch Photos!

I had so much fun at our Colouring Mask Book Launch at Collage Collage last month! And now that the photos from it are ready I am having a good time all over again looking at them. A huge thanks to Lauren Joan Photography for taking these great pics! What a talented lady you are:)

It was so great for me to see both, kids and adults colour in the masks so many different fun ways and really make them theirs. Very cool! 

The other part of this celebration was the one year anniversary of Draw Me A Lion. I have to say that I am really proud of everything that I have accomplished in this first year with my little shop. It's hard to believe that it's only been one year really. It just flew by and I have learned so much in what seems relatively so little time. I wanted to say a big thanks again to everyone who helped me get there! I am looking forward to the holidays and what the next year will bring for my little line of things. 

Happy Halloween!

The launch of the new Mask Colouring Book went really well and I had a super fun time! There will be pictures from it soon that I will be sure to post. In the meantime, my favorite non-holiday has arrived! Happy Halloween everyone!

What a great idea to take a day out of the year to dress up as someone or something you would like to turn into for a day. Here is a picture of me when I was 9. A little leopard. Not surprising really, leopards  are related to lions after all.

The Mask Colouring Book has arrived!

I am soooooooo excited to share the new Mask Colouring Book with you!
Just in time for Halloweeeen! Hip Hip Hooooray!

Here are a few pics for you to peek inside this new addition to our shop. This is what the pages all initially look like. Then of course it's up to you guys to colour them and make them all fun like the ones below here for example. 

Who will YOU turn into? A cat? A lion? A train conductor, a princess or maybe even the sun? Choose from ten double-sided masks to colour and put on! And ...it even comes with elastics. So all you need to do it colour the masks, cut them out and you're all ready to play! 

Also worth mentioning is that the that the masks eye and nose holes are measured specifically to fit kids. Hurray! But don't worry adult mask fans, you can play too. You just might have to cut the holes a bit bigger. 

Please Come & Celebrate!

We Turn 1 &
Colouring-Mask-Book-Launch!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

When: October 28th, from 3pm-5pm 

Where: Collage Collage, 621 Kingsway (at 15th & Fraser) 

Why: Draw Me A Lion turns 1 & our new Colouring Mask Book launches! 

I am so excited about the newest item that will be launching at the end of this month! It's a Mask Colouring Book and it just so happens that it will be ready just in time for Halloweeeeeen! Yayyyy!

Coincidentally that also happens to be around the time that I launched Draw Me A Lion last year, so it's not only a Colouring Book launch, but also the first anniversary of my little shop. I'd love for you to come, colour some masks with me and help me celebrate!        

Happy Birthday Roald Dahl

The other day was once again the birthday of the fantastic Roald Dahl. Had he not died in 1990 he would have been 96 this year. I have always loved all of his fabulous stories and can still remember my mom reading his book The Witches to me and me loving it. I remember how

deliciously scary some of the parts were and I remember enjoying myself tremendously. Here I found two photos of this great, great children's author in two opposite stages of his life in age but not in personality and heart it seems. (the first image is of Dahl at age 6).

If you haven't yet, you should take a peek at his official website and if nothing else, listen to the short interview clips of his that are posted there. They will give you quite a good insight into his work process and life. Also, and this applies specifically to the clip of him reading an excerpt from the BFG-(that's clip #11) Roald Dahl himself has the most amazing storyteller voice ever. Tell me you can listen to him reading that part of the BFG while looking at this photo of him here and not fall in love. Impossible. 

Matisse and Flowers

I finally got the chance to really look at the Matisse exhibit that is in it's final weeks here at the Vancouver Art Gallery and I'm so glad I did. I went on the busiest day of course but I think that I actually prefer being in galleries when it's very crowed rather than when it's slow. It lets you be able to get lost in the crowds and really look at what's there. 

It's always great to be able to see some of your favorite artists work up and close and see how they really worked. You can never get that from a text book or looking at images online. I always bring my sketchbook with me when going to see shows by some of art history's finest and did so this time as well, hoping to be able to make a few sketches. Unfortunately security very politely let me know that I could only sketch with a pencil and not with my pen, which was a bit of a bummer since I love using my brush-pen. So I put the sketching on hold and just stuck to looking mostly. Until I discovered some of the small 19th Cent. floral patterned hangings from Uzbekistan that were also in the Cone sisters collection that was on show, of which I noted a few flower designs I loved in my sketchbook. 

© Hélène Adant

The thing about flowers is that there are so many different kinds and so many different ways to draw them. 

Of course that goes for most other things as well but I happen to be infatuated with them, and I think so was Matisse. 

A lot of Matisse's work is so perfect for young kids to look at and to have fun with. While there were a few paintings and drawings of his in this particular show that I think kids would have liked, I think most of the work was probably more enjoyable for an adult audience. Another thing I thought about, was how unfortunate it is that all the work is hung at adult hight and that there isn't a movable trolley type thing around for kids to stand on to be able to really look at the artwork head on instead of constantly having to glance up at it. I think something so simple would make it so much more  fun for kids to look at and experience art. 

All images © Succession H. Matisse, Paris

Doing Business with People I LOVE!

Fun at The Framers' Workshop

It's so much fun to run my own little online shop and I love it when I get orders from new retailers that I adore. It makes me so happy to know that the things I made will be part of a beautiful and welcoming environment and that the people selling them will be people I genuinely like and admire. 

The Super Serious & Super Helpful Staff 

I have been so lucky with all of my amazing retailers that I have so far, but I'm pretty sure that this one takes the cake for me personally because my cards are now available at the fantastic Framers' Workshop in Boston MA, that has just been bought up by some very good friends of mine. 

The Cutest Framer Ever

Justin has been working at the framing shop for the last 9 years and him and his wife ... and super cute kiddo have now taken it over to run it themselves. 

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS Justin & Sarah, this is so fantastic and I'm so happy for you guys! Here's to doing business with people I love!

The New Face Of The Framers' Workshop