Send your nostalgic picture or video to onceuponawin@gmail.com All our submissions come from you. You can vote on other people's submissions on the Voting page.
« Previous ’80s Music Video Thursday Are My Reality | Epic Win: Ice Cream Cone Shooters Next »
Submitted by K Kovach,
I remember most school supplies — namely folders — featured pencils and books and other school supplies on them. The Lisa Frank brand wanted to showcase a more accurate depiction of school: Tripping on hallucinogens. That rainbow-colored unicorn got me through the 6th grade, man!
 | Q on Epic Win: Polly Pocket Co… |
| Q on Epic Win: Mavis Beacon Teaches… |
| Q on Epic Win: Maurice Sendak |
| Q on Epic Win: Red Hots |
| Q on Epic Win: Sony PlayStatio… |
 | sergseg on Epic Win: 80s Lucky Charms… |
 | Chass on Epic Win: Bigfoot Power W… |
 | Emma on Epic Win: Old Square Scooters … |
 | LinzyLou on Epic Win: Planters Cheez … |
| LinzyLou on Epic Win: Shari Lewis and… |
| Anonymous on Epic Win: Duracell Batteries S… |
| LinzyLou on Friday Fail: Furby |
| LinzyLou on Epic Win: M*A*S*H |
| LinzyLou on Epic Win: Gravel Playgrou… |
 | Patrick on Epic Win: Gummi Bears Car… |
THIS. a thousand and fourteen times, THIS.
Amen. Every girl my age wasn’t ‘cool’ unless she had this stuff on EVERYTHING.
I hereby nominate Lisa Frank as patron saint of the Sovereign Territories of Gay. <3
true dat!! lol
I used to have Lisa Frank EVERYTHING! Actually, considering my mother never throws anything out ever, all my Lisa Frank stuff is probably still in my room at my mom’s house LOL
There was a time when I had to have Lisa Frank stuff as well. Even on into middle school I wanted to have at least one Lisa Frank folder in my collection of school supplies each year. In first grade I wanted to meet her sooooooo bad! lol
I even named the horse in my Young Author’s book in 3rd grade “Rainbowchaser”.
Man, I miss this stuff like whoa. I was never a girly girl but I always thought this stuff was soooo pretty. <3
Anyone else suddenly miss back-to-school shopping with brand new pencils and folders and stuff? I want to go back to 4th grade now.
I still have to shop for school supplies. Just for my kid now. =)
Ah I feel the same way; they were simply beautiful… I always wanted to color something like it, and never succeeded…
Believe it or not, we used to use one of Lisa Frank’s folders at my office a number of years ago.
When we wrote checks and passed them down the line to TPTB to sign them, the folder of checks inevitably got lost, and we’d spend hours trying to track them down
Once we started using a Lisa Frank folder (a) they were easy to spot on a desk; and (b) no higher-up wanted to have the dang thing on his desk for any length of time!
How funny, and smart! I should try this method…
No kidding! And I was just pondering a way to get people to stop stealing my pens…
I had a Lisa Frank rainbow Unicorn trapper-keeper thingy. I loved it. The colours were so vivid, they made me hungry for shiny candy.
EEEE!!! me too! I alwayes wanted to chew on something… actualy, that’s probably when I started chewing my pen caps. o.0
Shouldn’t that polar bear be eating those puffins?
Not in a Lisa Frank world!
Ugly then, and ugly now.
they still make this stuff…
The only place I can ever find lisa frank things are in dollar stores.
Wow.
Lisa Frank was to little girls as Patrick Nagel was to adult women back in the 1980’s.
I prefered MC Escher myself.
^^^preferred. Sorry.
i never had any lisa frank stuff……
Aaahh! One of the few times in my life growing up that my mom let me have a themed birthday party, I picked Lisa Frank. I think it was my 9th birthday- right smack in the mid 90’s. My best friend still talks about it to this day
I loved this stuff…although we really couldn’t afford a lot of these things for school I begged for what I could. 
For Christmas one year, I got the big box-with-drawers thing of stickers and stencils and I don’t know what else. Win win win win win.
I so feel you. My family couldn’t afford this stuff either and I remember finally feeling like I had “made it” when I got my first Lisa Frank Pencil Case with two pencils and a penguin eraser!
=O she used to get her nails done at the spa where my mom works! It was the best thing ever
did she have her nails airbrushed with unicorns and rainbows??? plz tell me that this happened!
I wish =( she was pretty eccentric, but no unicorns. It was a disappointment.
I had one of these in fourth grade… And I’m a guy.
right on
We actually had Lisa’s products in Saudi Arabia too, and man oh man how I loved buying them. Did some of this stuff have those scratchy scented things?
*sigh* good ol’ days
I had a Lisa Frank Trapper-Keeper with a tripped out Black Widow spider on the front.
For the first month of school, the other boys who saw it both:
A. Wanted one.
and
B. Were as surprised as I was the Lisa Frank did anything at all for guys.
Keep in mind, this was the very early 90s where the Girl Power thing hadn’t hit yet so bugs were still a guy thing, even if this particular bug was a girl that ate the male after mating–something else ten-year-olds were clueless about back then.
Who remembers when “Rainbow Chaser” the plain ol’ brown horse came out?
Of course, I had Lisa Frank stuff waaaaaay before then. But this was a new character and everyone was stoked about it!
Rainbow Chaser was my FAVORITE!
WIN!!
I loved Lisa Frank stuff especialy the school stuff because it made borring school work at least a little cool
Ahh, I remember those! Every week when my sisters and I got our allowance we would beg our mom to take us to the store to get more Lisa Frank stuff!!! I’m pretty sure we owned the entire collection!
Is it just me or does that polar bear look like someones’ furry porn?
Nope. Not just you. I was just too embarrassed to say it first.
Oh, man, serious win! I still have my old sticker album, box of un-album-stuck stickers, and rubber stamps (complete with neon pink, orange, and purple tri-color ink pad).
OMG, I had a sticker book full of copies of my stickers. I was convinced that stickers that were peeled wouldn’t be worth anything later… lol
I loved puffy stickers. sigh again…
So THAT’s why I want a tricolored ink pad…and why I settled for a purple one…thanks for the trip through my subconscious…
I loved these, they were sooo pretty
Is it just me or is the new Lisa Frank stuff not as BRIGHT as the older things? I was looking at the back-to-school things this year and they seemed… duller somehow.
When we were little my sister asked for Lisa Frank stuff for Christmas, my poor grandmother was looking all over for a doll named Lisa Frank. I guess she figured it was like Barbie.
I LOVED the horses not so much the unicorns… those were kinda trippy looking, but the horses were juuust close enough to normal that I loved them. ^^
I agree.. I’m not sure the 4th-grade-Me would be as interested in current Lisa Frank stuff. I really don’t like the girls she’s introduced (they look a lot like those Bratz dolls, except with more clothes). Kittens and unicorns were sooo much better!
i LOVED these. My favorites were the carousel horses, Rainbow Chaser, and the unicorn. Markie? Sure. They were great. I loved the little stories that were printed inside the folders.
i loved this stuff! you were always covered with glitter after writing in a notebook.
in the dollar spot at Target they had lisa frank stuff, so i got me some, and i’m 31! 
In “The Adventures of Dr. McNinja” (issue 15, link above), the good doctor comes into possession of a motorcycle which has rainbows on either side of it. The doctor’s ward/assistant asks him if he’s going to do anything about it. Dr. McNinja says, “The rainbow? No, I think I kind of like it! It shows confidence…” To which his ward/assistant replies, “Confidence that it belongs to Lisa Frank.”
Best reference evar. Also, a good webcomic if you’re interested
Neon cats and dogs, it doesn’t get any better than that!
And an entire generation of Furries was born.
The visual design equivalent of vomit.
I think this was the cause of my love of school shopping. I always loved Rainbow Chaser! I found some Lisa Frank stuff at Target, and bought some for my sister-in-law, to pass on the awesome!
haha, lisa frank is the best! I remember when I was little I have pratically every school supply lisa frank and every summer I would bring a lisa frank coloring book to the beach.
And some months ago me and my mom were shopping and came across a section of coloring books. We ended up getting 4 lisa frank coloring books and two packs of erasable colored pencils. I still take time to color the pages lol
When I was younger, the Lisa Frank Kittens coloring book was the BEST. THING. EVER. I used to take it and my box of crayons everywhere with me… And when I ran out of pages to color, I bought another empty book. And another, and another… About a week back at WalMart, I saw the Lisa Frank Kittens coloring book on clearance. Out of nostalgia, I bought one. ^^
omg, I actually have this exact folder at home. My sisters and I named the bears and the puffins, but I don’t remember what we did about the fact that the front and back of the folder are mirror images of each other.
I also love the cute little rhyme they had on the pockets about the animals. Yay, Lisa Frank.
Who knew Lisa Frak was a real person? I just thought it was a name dreamed up by some Chinese company that wanted to take over the world by bankrupting all pre-teen girls….
three things that made any girl happy; bright rainbow colors, adorable animals, shiny sparklies….it’s so hard to walk by this in stores and not give into temptation…
Oh man, I had a Lisa Frank kitty binder, a horse trapper keeper, scads of notebooks and folders, and the sticker sets. I’m pretty sure they’re still around my parents’ house somewhere…I’m feeling an urge to hunt them out now!
crap, I still have the friggin pegasus binder somewhere, and rory the bear…markie the unicorn, rainbow chaser the horse…a stationary box with the friggin dolphins and the bubble kitties…those kitties were the best. but that was the 90’s. now its just migraine inducing. and why is most of thel lisa frank stuff sold in retail stores now-a-days like creepy stalker tattoo stuff?
I had everything Lisa Frank as a girl, I just love, love, LOVED rainbows and all things colorful. I still have a Lisa Frank binder in my basement it came with a scrapbook set, I never got into scrapbooking though…
Can I just say that my jaw dropped when I saw this? I clicked the thumbs up immediately! My little girl-hood was all about Lisa Frank, even though I couldn’t read her name in cursive at first and insisted that her name was actually Lee Favor…in 3rd grade we finally learned cursive and I was sooo embarassed!
My lord, I remember this stuff. I never had any that I asked for, but the first time I went away to YMCA camp, my dad bought me a stationary set from Lisa Frank to keep in touch. Hell, I might still have it somewhere… it had a horse in the lower left corner galloping, and some butterflies or something. It was cool enough that I didn’t want to use the paper up.
Speaking of which, now that I think about it, I have a kickass set of stationary paper from Rosen Queen I got as a prize for buying from their booth at AX two years ago… shame I never write letters.
That’s what Twilight reminded me of! Vampires by Lisa Frank!
I love you.
I suggested this a loooooong time ago. Lisa Frank is a definite epic win.
On another note, I notice that everyone is saying, “I used to love this stuff.” or “This was awesome when we were younger.” Granted, the newer Lisa Frank art doesn’t appeal to me much, but I found some gems at Target about a month ago and snatched them up.
When I was a kid, we didn’t have much money, but my mom always got me a Lisa Frank folder or two. These days I am a raver, wear brightly colored jeans, and my favourite hoodie is neon pink spandex. Coincidence? I think not.
I was obsessed with these in school. Everyone was. I still don’t know why. Looking back on it they’re kinda … gay. But then, so I am I. I still remember a friend telling me that “you know she coats them with an addictive glue so you keep wanting more and more of them.”
Love! I have my four ‘Lisa Frank Sticker Totes’ next to me now, I’m a teacher and sometimes hand out the stickers to my students. (copyright 1990 on these, so older than some of my students!)
I used to have to have everything Lisa Frank, I picked up a purse/satchel at the dollar store a while ago and get stopped whenever I wear it by women my age (early 30s) asking where I got it, hehe. What’s great is that one edge is clear vinyl, so easy for security checkpoints (just unvelcro the flap and they can see right through!)
I gots a lisa frank dragon binder :3
dangit, 4chan, because of fridays on /b/, I can’t see this without thinking of… something else…
Win for nostalgia, to be sure. I have personally never liked her designs, though. Too… much… purple… my eyes! LoL. But hey, that’s just my taste.
Some of her stuff was a bit too much for me, but there were some things that I just loved! I still have a Lisa Frank ‘Cleopatra Cat’ notebook that I wrote in during High School. I kept it because it was so unique!
OMG. i loved lisa frank things when i was younger! not so much the school supplies, but i swear that i had every beanie baby. from candy and casey (the dogs), to hunter (the leopard), markie (the unicorn), and panda painter (and panda bear). plus, the countless ones whose names i can’t remember (like the ballarina bunnies, the bumblebee, etc).
ahh… good times =]
Well, here’s my problem with these. I remember they started out being really gorgeous with a kind of simple elegance. But then at one point they made their designs a whole lot more complex and intricate and then they just became really tacky and hurt your eyes.
amusingly enough i had a lisa frank lunch box when i was in 1rst grade it had a leopard on it i eventually had to get rid of it because of all the teasing i would get for it even if the girls thought i was the coolest. It’s still sitting in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets i saw it a few days ago. I also had this exact folder no wait i think it was the same design on notebook though i had a bunch of stickers, notebooks, pencils, a pencil case, pens, folders, binders, and even a back pack of lisa frank at some point i thought they were pretty all the girls flocked to me i was to naive to relieze what those guys were saying when they called me gay lol. I guess this is what happens when you grow up with just your mom and your older sister as role models at least i never wore a dress.
I always used to confuse Lisa Frank with Ann Frank.
I was the only girl in 3rd grade asking her mom for an Ann Frank notebook.
Suck on that Ed Hardy! Bow to the Queen!
i still scope out lisa frank items to this day. i haven’t really anything to use them for anymore, but i enjoy it none the less. and who says there was no promotion of hallucinogens to the younger generations?
I so do remember my dad threatening to take away my “Lisa Franklin” box when I was, like, five. Goood times…..
lol Lisa Frank was the best. I always had SOME form of LS school supplies back in elementary school. I can’t believe they’re still making them, maybe I’ll grab a notebook next time I go school supply shopping.
Interesting(or strangely) enough, I still have a trapperkeeper that uses velcro to stay shut..and it has this EXACT design on it. what’s more sad? the face that I still have it? Or that I’m almost 20 years old and still have it..
oh and i forgot to mention, theres also three lisa frank folders inside of it..
Wow, I remember my Mom would give me a packet of these whenever I was good. I think my favorite had been the pandas with paint. ^-^
Talk about trippy….I made out with one of my old middle school crushes a little while back, totally stoned, and I kept seeing flashes of Lisa Frank art. Its so weird what sneaks up on you when you’re high…