January Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Happy New Year!  Welcome to the Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!  If you've arrived here from  {Fancy Melissa's Blog}, you're in the right place!

Here'a a picture of the January Stamp of the Month - Happy Valentine's (S1301).  This beautiful stamp set is available only during the month of January.  

You can simply buy the Stamp of the Month for $17.95 or you can get it for just $5 with your $50 order.  AND you will qualify for the WHOOO'S YOUR VALENTINE kit for just $10, too!  (What is Whooo's Your Valentine?  It's a great January Special!  It only takes a $35 order to qualify for the Whooo's Your Valentine Kit.  (So if you placed a $40 regular order and added the Whooo's Your Valentine for $10, you could get the Stamp of the Month for $5!  Woooooo!  That's $97.95 in goodies for just $55!! plus tax and shipping of course...)  

You can click here to go through that totally separate Whooo's Your Valentine Blog Hop.)  But don't forget to come back to this January Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

My first thought was to use Close To My Heart's new alcohol markers on the flower.  I used black embossing powder and a Versamark pad to emboss the flower outline.  Then I colored the flowers and leaves with Cotton Candy (both light and dark) and Sweet Leaf (both light and dark) markers.  I like how the embossing powder keeps "me" between the lines while coloring.

I also tried using different color combinations...Blush, Autumn Terracotta, Cotton Candy...  I liked the all Cotton Candy version best, though.

Then I wanted to make a background of some sort using the smaller stamps.  I took the smaller flower and stamped it in Slate.  Both 1st generation (the darker flowers) and 2nd generation (inked, stamped on scratch paper and then stamped again on my project.)  I like how it turned out.

I wanted to add a little bit of color, so I took Cotton Candy with a different flower and stamped that (2nd generation) on the grey ones, filling in any empty spaces.  I liked that, too.  I think I'll use it as my card background.

I was looking at the black embossed flower and thought it might be too dark, so I tried CTMH's silver embossing powder.  For some reason CTMH's silver is the one I like best out of all of our embossing powders.  It melts nice and smooth, it's a nice fine grind; it's not lumpy.

Too bad silver doesn't show as well in the picture, but I like it better than the black.  Not as intense.  

When you're coloring with the alcohol markers, this is what the back of the paper will look like - so if you're going to color on something, don't do it on your card base - it won't look very nice on the inside.

So now I have the card base and the flower:

My problem is that now I can't see any of the pretty background!  So I tried this:

It's ok, but kind of boring.  Then I tried it with my black embossed flower.  I like it, but I still can't see the background "paper" that I made.

I thought this would look better than it did.  The words are completely lost.

I cut a Cricut oval and added the Pink Designer Ribbon (Z1384, retired) and Licorice Opaque Gems.  I like it, even though it's kind of plain.  I edged around the oval with Black ink.

I hope you like what I came up with.  

Supplies Used:
Happy Valentine's (S1301, $17.95 or $5 with your $50 purchase)
Card Stock:  Black, White Daisy, Hollyhock
Inks:  Slate, Cotton Candy, Black
Markers:  Cotton Candy, Sweet Leaf, Desert Sand
Embossing Powder:  Black or Silver
Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge
Licorice Opaque Gems
Pink Designer Ribbon (Z1384, retired)
Glue Dots

If you're interested in getting any of these great supplies - click here to shop now.

Thanks so much for hopping by - now it's time to head on over to {Adeline Brill's Blog}.  She has some wonderful art for you to look at.  Thanks for stopping!

Happy New Year!