Ringing in the New Year with the January 2013 Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

HaPpY 2013!!!!  Of course I'm ringing in the new year with my craft on!  Close To My Heart has created a beautiful stamp of the month for January called Happy Valentine's, and you can see all kinds of gorgeous projects with this set on this first blog hop of 2013.  (You can view all the projects by clicking from one blog to the next.  If you're already hopping, then you probably arrived from "Stamp til Dawn."  After your visit here, click to view another inky gal, Georgia.)

Since Valentine's Day isn't the highlight of my year (and my Mr. Wonderful isn't oh-so-romantic), I decided to create a progression of cards.  These will be going to some of my Delta Kappa Gamma sisters, since our symbol is a red rose.  (DKG is an international teacher organization.  If you're an educator not familiar with it and would like to learn more, feel free to contact me!  I am our chapter's vice president for this biennium.)

For the first card, I started with a White Daisy cardstock base.  I arranged my flower stamps where I wanted them on the card, then picked them up with a large block because I knew that I was going to make several (almost) identical cards.  Then I inked up the flower stamps in Cranberry and stamped them at teh bottom of my card.  I stamped the sentiment (from the Card Chatter- Sympathy stamp set) in black.

For the second card, I actually stamped my card design on a White Daisy panel that I then adhered onto the Cranberry cardstock mat and then adhered that to the card front.

This 3rd card gets a little fancier with the addition of black sparkles and a Just Blooms butterfly.

My final card in the series gets even more elaborate with the addition of black cardstock mats, silver shimmer tape, and a silver metallic marker.

Which is your favorite?  I'd love to hear from you in the comment section!  I think this card style would be lovely in some other color combos too.  I want to try Blush & Slate (or maybe Chocolate) next.

Thanks for hopping by!  Happy 2013!  Now go see what Georgia has made with this beautiful set.