June Release Hop Day 1

Hello there and welcome to day one of our June Release Hop!!!

We have some truly fun and playful, yet on trend products which we're delighted to share with you over these next three days!

Before we get to the items in the release I want to take this opportunity to say goodbye and thank you to designer Suzanne Dahlberg. Suzanne is one heck of a designer, an even better friend and constant supporter of all things LID! One thing I'm sure the team has learned about me over these years is that I am absolutely terrible with goodbyes. So, I'm just going to say that Suzanne is a total Rock Star and I will miss not having her as part of our team! Thank you so much, Suzanne! 

Here are a couple of my favorite projects made by Suzanne during her time here at LID - amazing!

Flipping the switch for a minute.......we have THREE brand new designers who have JUST joined our little fam and who will be showcasing their very first projects as LID Design Team Members starting today!! Welcome......

My Little Creative Escape

"I'm Lisa Henke. I grew up in Michigan and followed my hubby (then boyfriend) back to his hometown of Cincinnati, OH 15 years ago.  I've been married to Tim for 13 years now and we have three beautiful, smart, crazy, athletic, wild boys. Yep, I'm a boy mom! It's rarely quiet around here and if there isn't a ball being kicked, thrown, or bounced then I better be worried.  lol!  I've been blessed to be able to stay home with my guys while they were babes and this year is the first time I have all three in full day school together (1st, 4th, and 6th grades). I have recently started working part time  as a Pre-school aid, so I get out two mornings a week to earn a little "fun" money and hang with little people. When I'm not working, driving to a practice or game, cooking, or cleaning, you'll find me down in my craft room re-charging my sanity and getting my girly fix.  I  stamping!  I've been stamping for what seems like forever now.....11+ years. It was love at first stamp!  I have had the privilege to work with some pretty fantastic companies and I'm super excited to begin working with the awesome talents of the Lil' Inker Designs team."

Lea's Cupcakes and Sunshine

"My name is Lea Lawson & I just relocated with my husband to the 4th coldest city in the entire United States- Fargo, ND. And although we left my very favorite place on this earth (Missoula, MT), I am excited about the adventure we have ahead of us, & look forward to going back to visit my hometown every single year….at least once. Probably more than that…;)  Josh (my husband) & I have been married for 12 years and we have two of the cutest dogs in the world; a yorkie named Bailey & a cocker spaniel named Sadie. I graduated from photography school in 2009, & have been building my business ever since! My main focus is on engagements & weddings, which is a perfect fit for me. It combines my love of beautiful things, serving people, capturing details & emotion, and watching love grow. I am most myself from behind the lens at a wedding. The other side of my life is crafting…both paper & digital. I use paper & traditional scrapbooking product to create cards, gift wrap, mini albums, & other items aside from creating layouts. I now create all of my layouts digitally, and am starting to dabble in digital Project Life.  I live a very creative life that I just really love…and I am so thankful for every single day. I am currently the creative team coordinator/project designer for Glitz Design, a project designer for My Mind’s Eye & the Scraptastic Kit Club, and a digital designer for Deena Rutter. You can find me blogging athttp://leascupcakesandsunshine.blogspot.com/ or on Instagram (username: ltllea23)." 

My Pink Mexico

"As a stay-at-home-mom to 2 elementary school aged children, I am lucky enough to have some free time most school days to get creative. That hasn't always been the case. When I started card making, back in early 2008, it appealed to me mostly because I could create a project from start to finish (usually) within the confines of nap time. My crafting time is no longer a race, but I still enjoy being able to finish a project in one sitting. It's both satisfying and rewarding. I enjoy exploring many different styles in my cardmaking/crafting; everything from distressed and vintage to clean and simple gets my creative juices flowing. When I'm not creating or blogging about it, I'm hanging with my family."

WELCOME LADIES!!!!!!!! I am so excited to welcome you to our little family!

Would you like to see some of the products? Let's get right to more FUN!

This is such a cute little stamp set! We wanted to bring you something with a puzzle theme with coordinating sentiments and this could NOT have come together better! We just love the fonts used for the sentiments and the sweet and funny little faces we've included in this set which add character to both the stamps and coordinating dies (seen below). How funny is the "Wanna Piece of Me?" sentiment with the little mad face stamp! HA!!

Here we have a set of four puzzle pieces; a companion set of dies to the above set. Each piece is about 1" wide and these pieces will fit together. They are the perfect size and look even more adorable stamped with the faces in our Piece of Me Stamp Set.

Our new Peek-a-Boo Die is such a neat little way to die cut a folding flap on a card front or any focal panel which can be lifted to reveal stamps underneath. We love this little guy and we know you will too! We think this has loads of design possibilities which I'm sure we'll be exploring throughout our hop this week. We've designed this next stamp set to work magic with our new Peek-a-Boo Die.

This is one unique stamp set and one that showcases such an interesting take on presenting a recipient with a traditional greeting. It reaches it's true potential when used together with our new Peek-a-Boo Die! We love these little word scrambles and answers and supporting stamps! You will love designing with this fun and interactive stamp set and coordinating die!

Up next is our brand new Scattered Sequins Die! Sequins are so very trendy in paper crafting. We couldn't resist bringing you a die which can be used to cut paper sequins in any color under the rainbow. If you look closely at this die's design you'll see that there is a negative stitching around each of the sequins. This stitching will allow you to cut these scattered dots across your card front with this added, beautiful detail! You know us! We love providing you with dies that do a double-duty! This die is similar in design to our Floating Hearts Die or Starry Sky Die and it's also designed so that it can be used horizontally or vertically on an A2 card front. We think this die is going to be the STAR of our release!

Also releasing today is a fantastic and playful new stamp set we're calling Thumbs Up!

It's so funny how this set came together. My silly little man had kept saying things like, "Who has two thumbs and has the coolest daddy ever?" and pointing at himself with his two thumbs and saying "This guy!" and then he would laugh like a fool.  Not too long after he'd been saying this Alicia Thelin emailed me with this same stamp set concept! So, I took my son's inspiration and Alicia's thoughts and brought this concept to our newest illustrator, Katie Vaz. I asked her to draw two pointing thumbs and all the different coordinating sentiments and thus our Two Thumbs Stamp Set was born!! Each piece in this set has been hand drawn and then computerized for stamp art. I love the fun and playful theme of this stamp set and I see it easily being used for both masculine and feminine cards. Love love love!!!!!!

Last but certainly NOT least are our brand new and delightfully trendy brush font word dies!

Each of these dies is bold and perfectly oversized for focal images on card fronts and all sorts of paper crafting projects. I can't stop reaching for them with each project I make!!!! You are going to LOVE THESE!!!

Would you like to see a couple of projects?

I decided to first showcase our new Thumbs Up Stamp Set along with our new Scattered Sequins Die.

For the card front, I pulled out my Copic Markers and used the chisel tip to draw wavy colored lines across my white cardstock panel. Then I went back in with my colorless blender for a more watery feel to these lines. I stamped the main stamp from this set in Soft Graphite Ink from Hero Arts (which is my favorite grey ink by the way) and centered it on its own white panel which I raised up on foam tape. I wanted to add some translucent sequins to my card front so I used my Scattered Sequins Die and white vellum paper. I love the soft effect these added to my card front.

In order to see the full effect of the sentiment it's necessary to show you the inside of my card which is where I stamped my thumbs in Blushing Bride Ink from SU and my sentiment "This Gal" in Pool Party Ink and interestingly enough, my inks and Copics matched almost perfectly!! Love when that happens!

I loved that I was able to show you that a soft, feminine card can just as easily carry the humor of this stamp set! I hope you love it!

Up next is a little ditty I made with our new Piece of Me Stamp Set and Puzzle Pieces Die Set.

I started with a charcoal card base which I stamped with our puzzle pieces stamps. I then created an angled focal panel from which I die cut our puzzle pieces. I propped up this layer with foam tape and underneath it I added cute, decorative paper from SU. I stamped the You Complete Me sentiment and a happy face from the set and finished the whole thing off with a heart from our Stitched Hearts Die Set. What do you think? Isn't this stamp set combo adorable?

Now before I let you hop on and visit our awesome team and new team members we are giving away some prizes of course! We have three $15 store credits to give away to three lucky winners! All you have to do is leave comments along your journey today for our designers. The more the merrier because we'll be picking all three winners from ONE designer's blog - a blog that we'll pick at random as our secret prize blog! Be sure and leave some extra love for our new designers and give them a big ol' welcome! :)

Here is a list of all of the designers participating in today's hop:

Laura/Shop Blog <---you are here

Amy Kolling

Erin Lee Schreiner

Heather Campbell

Jen Carter

Karen Baker

Kristen Foreman

Lea Lawson

Lisa Henke

Mary Dawn Quirindongo

Maureen Merritt

Sarah Jay

Sooooo, what do you think? Are you loving the goodies in this release?? 

We'll be back tomorrow with more awesome projects from our team to show you all of our brand new goodies in action! Which ones are your faves??