August Release Hop Day 1

Hellooooooooooo!!!!!!

How is everyone? Can you believe it's almost September? I am in shock at how quickly this Summer has passed and I'm very much looking forward to school starting next week. It's time now. HA!!

Welcome to Day 1 of our August Release Blog Hop! I can't wait to show you everything new in store today and the projects our designers made with them!

We've got some awesome new goodies! This release is all about sending pretty mail and spooky sweet goodies for Halloween! Check it out....

First up is an adorable set of dies containing two perfectly sized mini envelope dies each with a stitched flap. They are the perfect size for focal images on card fronts or scrap layouts. The flaps actually can fold open too if you like! Also in this set are two word dies; "Sending" and "you" which coordinate with a new Sending You Stamp Set which we'll get to in a minute. There are also three little shapes dies in this set; a heart, a star an a smiley. Each can be cut and adhered to the envelopes or die cut directly on them. These envies are so much fun that I've already die cut a whole stack of them so I can have them on hand and ready to rock for some super fast and fun cards!

This is our new Sending You Stamp Set. This is the set that was exclusively designed as a companion to the Mini Envies & Accessories Die Set show above. This set can be used on its own to create some sweet greetings or you can use a combo of stamps and the die cut words as well. I like all the different options we've given you. Our mini envies dies are the perfect focal image for these sentiments. SUCH a fun set and I am OBSESSED with the fonts we've used here! LOVE!

Lots of things in this release were created so that we could put more attention on sending pretty mail and this die is no exception. It creates a perfect, stitched envelope liner. Once you have this in your hands you will not stop creating coordinating envelopes for all your cards. It's just too much fun to put down. There is something about a lined envelope. When you send a card to a friend or loved one and it has a lined, coordinating envelope it just screams of a professional presentation - you are one serious card maker! This die is for A2 sized envelopes with a squared flap.

To make your life a little easier we've decided to stock some perfectly coordinated envelopes for you. I sampled over a half dozen envelopes before deciding on these. They are ultra-smooth, bright white and excellent quality. You can purchase them in our store to work with your Stitched Envelope Liner Die in packs of 12. You'll love them! I was VERY picky about making sure these would be just the right kind of quality for my customer-peeps :) - nothing but the best for you!

Keeping with our theme so far is a stamp set that I am absolutely in love with and it's appropriately titled Send Pretty Mail! This was designed specifically with your envelopes and the backs of your cards and projects in mind. There are a couple of stamps to call attention to your addressee such as "Sending Pretty Mail to" and "Snail Mail for". We also included a from stamp to cuten-up (new word, lol) your address. Also for the front of your envelope some much needed stamps like "do not bend" and "hand cancel" which are perfect when sending photos or cards that are thicker due to embellishment. Lots of other little images and sayings for the front of your envelopes. Basically if you send cards in the mail you NEED this stamp set!!! HA!!! For the backs of your cards we've included such greetings as "one of a kind creation by" and "made by me just for you". But my FAVE sentiment is "keeping the mailman employed since" stamp! My husband is a mailman - I'm not sure if I've ever shared that with you or no but we always joke together how card makers like us are keeping the mailmen employed, so thank you for that! HA!! Just add the year you've been stamping since and your sentiment is complete. My year is 2003. How about you? I also love the "definitely do not recycle" sentiment. In other words, I made this and you can't throw it away! Sorry - but I seriously love this set and I know you will too. How about those fonts? Adorbs, right? 

Ok, let's have a look at the goodies we've created for Halloween! I LOVE MAKING HALLOWEEN CARDS!!!!! 

Ok, so these are AWESOME dies. It's a set of three stitched ghosts and the sizes are absolutely perfect for focal images and card making! We've included our Dual Stitching Design so that you can use the stitched ghosts or their stitched negative cuts to create fun projects with. If you look closely you'll see that we reversed the direction of the medium ghost so these can all be used together and they'll look like they're floating on your card front! Love that! Super fun die set and I love their little ghost hands! HA!

Well, I couldn't let you have faceless ghosts, right??? RIGHT!!!! And I couldn't JUST create a stamp set of faces so I decided on five different faces or expressions and have given them to you in two sizes; the large is perfect for the largest stitched ghost and the smaller faces are perfect for the medium ghost. I love the sentiments we've given you here. We did a perfectly large Boo! sentiment done in one of my favorite fonts of all time as well as a snarky, "Hey, ghoulfriend!" - love that one! We did a cute trick or treat stamp as well as open if you dare which is actually great for card fronts OR envelopes!

This is one super unique die. This die cuts a spooky ghost border panel which floats right across an A2 card front horizontally OR vertically! Then, use either of the three faces or expressions dies to add character to your die cut. This is SUCH A FUN die and it creates ultra fast cards for Halloween but still with maximum cuteness!!! LOVING THIS SO MUCH!!!! You will toooooo!!!!

Our new Spooky Word Die is cute, fun and unique! It's a great addition to your word dies collection and even better that it's for Halloween. You can use this alone as a sentiment or paired with some of our other new Halloween goodies. Either way, the spooky eyes we've used in place of the "o's" in spooky make this really cool!

Last but certainly not least is our new Classic Halloween Stamp Set! Here we've done some traditional Halloween greetings but with a total vintage inspired flair. I like that there is a Halloween party stamp included here too. The largest stamp in this set is just AWESOME and perfectly oversized. It's great for heat embossing or could be neat if you colored the stamp directly with different colored markers. I love it and if this sentiment was the only one in this set I'd STILL buy it!!

How about some projects???? 

First up, I used our new Mini Envies & Accessories Die Set and our Sending You Stamps to create this card. It came together super fast and easy. Here I used stamps from our Stay Beautiful Stamp Set and Quick Notes Stamp Set to embellish my envelopes and here you can see how nicely these envies work together on a card font. I even used our sending you word dies. I love that this made such a fun and fast card!

Featured below is a note card set I made with our new Mini Envies & Accessories Die Set and our Sending You Stamps and I used our Send Pretty Mail Stamps and Stitched Envelope Liner Die to dress up the coordinating envelopes. These were fun and fast to create. I love how the Sending you stamp fits right across the largest envelope die!

My envelope is all ready and dressed up for when I need to send it out. How cute are these snail mail stamps?

I love this little card set! I hope you do too!!!  That's it from me today! Before I let you go though I have one last surprise :)

This month Lil' Inker Designs is celebrating our 4th birthday!!!!!  To celebrate we have one more goodie we're releasing today as a bonus item! It's something you've been asking us for and what better way to celebrate our fourth year of fun than with a goodie especially for you our lovely, amazing and supportive customers and friends! My friends I give you Stitched Mats: Rounded Rectangles! This is a follow up release to our wildly popular Stitched Mats: Rectangles. You'll receive a set of 6 individual nested dies on a magnetic sheet for easy storage and each die in this set cuts a rounded rectangle (which is a bit different from our original set). If you love our original set or have been waiting for a rounded set, now's the time!! These dies are not wired together as pictured below. 

Thank you for four amazing and fun years! This one has been a big one so far with the release our our rebranding and brand new website. I've been one busy lady and we've been one busy team!!! And we have such an amazing team of designers. Thank you to all of you for making our goodies shine!!

Before I let you go here is a list of everyone participating in our hop today:

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


As always, comment on our designers blog posts. You'll be in the running to win one of three $15 store credits and this being a somewhat special release we're giving away a set of our brand new Stitched Mats: Rounded Rectangles to one lucky winner!! You have through Monday, September 1st at 11:30 PM EST to comment to be eligible to win one of these prizes!

Thank you so much for joining us today! I'll be back tomorrow with more projects to share!

Don't forget to shop our web site at www.lilinkerdesigns.com! Thanks!