Greetings!

Over the last few days, I have been busily sending out my new greeting card catalogue. This is a small sideline that I do as a hobby, but thanks to some encouragement from a helpful friend of mine, I have finally got my act together and produced a proper range! Here are a few samples of the current collection, it has an obvious vintage inspiration of course.
Within the collection there are a few small ranges/themes, there is a soft watercolor collection featuring subtle hues and overlapping semi abstract shapes, subject matters such as bathing boxes, cupcakes, balloons and my favourite: cocktails.

There is also my signature or couture collection that features fashion illustration. Usually these images are created with a combination of watercolor paint and ink. 99% of the time I work freehand, but sometimes will finish off the image in photoshop by adding a block of color of pattern, as is done in the images below.

Another medium that I love to work in is collage (Although it is very messy- I usually end up with tiny bits of torn paper everywhere) Sometimes a piece is constructed purely by using collage, other times I will combine illustration with collage. The first image below is created with torn paper and then detail has been added with prismacolor (coloured pencil).

The image above was originally created for a friends wedding. This is created by a variety of wrapping papers, photographic images and coloured paper. I will be posting more, but in the meantime, you can download the entire catalogue at my 'lizzie lamb' website (just look under the 'greeting card' heading)

Christmas Cards & Wrap

It's that time of year again! Time to prepare for Christmas. For the past few weeks we have been busily unpacking Christmas decorations at Fanantique and preparing for the busy weeks ahead. I always love the Festive Season and enjoy coming up with a different theme each Christmas.
Before I opened the store, I would always illustrate a new collection of Christmas cards each year, which would then tie in to the style and color of my gift wrapping and decorating. Sometimes I would even make my own hand painted wrapping paper!
As we are already into November, I am not so sure that this will happen this year!
I do have some gorgeous, vintage style cards and wraps from Zetta Florence as well as a collection of reprints from some of my previous collections.

Above: Vintage style Christmas postcards and wrap from Zetta Florence, available at Fanantique.
Below: Some illustrated cards from my collection. "Christmas Shopping" and "Holly Martini"  themes are both watercolor and ink. The black and gold images are created with collage. (Wrapping paper, photographs, colored paper and glitter).

Christmas Cocktail

To get into the Christmas spirit why not celebrate with this Nutty Martini?

Martini Glass

Ice Cubes

Amaretto to wash

60ml Vodka

20ml walnut liqueur

10ml frangelico liqueur

walnut half to garnish

Wash ice cubes with amaretto. Stir remaining ingredients in with ice then strain into Martini glass. Garnish with walnut half. Yum!

Craft Corner at Fanantique

Cut and Paste

With Bastille Day coming up next week, I have been planning a little French event at the boutique. I have been brainstorming about what to serve at the event (Champagne is of course a given) but I thought it would be fun to have some sweets and cakes with little French flags on top.
I was lucky enough to pick up some traditional red, white and blue flags at the party shop down the road, but I got to thinking that surely I could be more creative.
We have in the store at the moment a gorgeous set of Parisian style rubber stamps from Zetta Florence that I have been dying to play with so I thought this could be the perfect excuse. We also have some fantastic decorative wrapping paper (also from Zetta Florence) that had me inspired. I decided to try making my own 'cup cake flags'. I picked up some toothpicks and craft glue and got to work with my trusty cutting board and scalpel.

 

Zetta Florence Decorative Wrap

 Above: Zetta Florence Parisian Style Stamps

I set myself up in front of the TV one night as Gabor watched the World Cup (and I pretended to) and got to work. Apart from a few interruptions from Gomez, who thought it was great fun to jump on top of what I was doing (cat paws and ink pads are not a good combination) and a headache from those silly South African horn thingies at the soccer the whole thing was quite successful if I do say so myself.

Parisian Style Cup Cake Flags

My success with this project and the fun of using the stamps inspired me to create more.

Parisian Style gift tags

Small gift cards

Greeting Cards