New Year Wishes (by Judith)

Hello everyone, as we say goodbye to 2016, and head into 2017, it is a good time to look back over the past twelve months and reflect on the events that have unfolded in our lives. Will you be glad to see the back of the past year, or have you had an amazing time? Like me, you may have had a mixture of both, but a new year always offers new possibilities and opportunities.

Here at Chocoloate Baroque, things have not always run smoothly throughout the year, but we are looking forward to a bright start in 2017; the new TV shows with Hochanda are airing on 4th January at 11.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m., so do be sure to try and watch those. The Design Team girls have been busy creating some beautiful samples, and Lesley will no doubt weave her creative magic on the shows themselves.

We are looking forward to bringing you lots of new stamps and continuing on with some of our favourite features too; our Fifteen Minute Blog posts are proving to be very helpful we know, when you are looking for inspiration for a quick card to make. Our Challenge Blog is another source of invaluable inspiration, as there is a host of Design Team artwork offered on the blog each month, all revolving around colour-based swatches. We hope that you will continue to keep coming back to see us on the blogs, as we love to share our ideas with you all.

I have made a simple card to share with you for today's post, using some of my favourite bits and pieces. I stamped a flower image from the Floral Notes stamp set onto some pretty paper, using brown ink and clear embossing powder. I cut the flowers out, and edged them with a tiny bit of Distress Ink.

I created a Brusho background on a piece of smooth watercolour paper, using lemon, violet, rose red, white and sea green. Once the background was completely dry, I stamped a swirl from the Nature Swirls stamp set twice onto the background. I stuck the flowers to the background, added a sentiment, and then edged the background with some Distress Ink. I added a layer of pink card to mat the background, before adhering to a card blank.

I would just like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, and may you have health, happiness and lots of creativity in the year ahead.

Calendar 2017 (by Magda) - Floral Notes

Just few days before the New Year, do you have already the Calendar for 2017?
Here is my step by step for making a personalized one.

1. Print with Versafine Onyx Black the stamp of Floral Notes set and mask it with Masking Tissue
2. Colour the background of a Manila Tag with Distress Inkpad using green, yellow and blue shades
3. Put Crackle Paste around the stamp and let dry
4. Scribble with the brush a light coat of a mixture prepared with Soft Form Relief Paste-Pearl, Distress Stain blue, Stickles-Diamond over the Crackle Paste and let dry
5. Colour the Floral Stamp with markers
6. Create your washi tape in the right size using your Excel program, as well as your Calendar if you
    don't find them ready matching for your Tag.
7.  Glue the washi tape with Inessentials Gue n Seal matte on the Tag and sew the calendar below.
8.  Don't forget the red hook

See you in the Next Year and Happy 2017 to everybody!
Magda

Fifteen Minute Cards

Hello everyone, today sees our final fifteen minute card blog post of 2016. We hope that you have been enjoying our inspiration throughout the year, and trying some of the projects out for yourselves. Hopefully some of the Christmas cards ideas  have helped you finish your own cards in less time than usual, and you have been able to take inspiration from lots of our other ideas as well.

The Design Team girls have come up with some beautiful ideas to share with you for today's post, so we hope that you will enjoy their projects, and give some of them a go. You can click on the individual person's names to reach their own blogs, where you will be able to obtain further information on each project.

Julie has created two pretty cards incorporating butterflies and flourishes for us. Her simple blue and gold colour scheme is very elegant:

Dominike has been using up some of her gelli print papers to create her selection of cards. These lovely projects would be suitable for lots of different occasions and are so versatile:

Brenda has made two lovely cards for us this time. For her first card, she stamped the tree from the Spinney Design a Tree stamp set onto a a piece of card previously coloured using the shaving foam technique. She then repeat stamped the flowers from the same stamp set using Distress Inks.

For her second card, she used another snippet of card previously coloured using the shaving foam technique, and stamped a border from the Springtime Edges stamp set using Black Archival Ink. The flowers are coloured with sparkle pens, and the sentiment is die cut.

Magda has created two pretty tags for us using the new floral stamps. The first tag is a pretty blue creation with a little bit of shimmer added to the image itself:

The second, she has coloured the flowers and added repeat stamping to the background.

Magda also created a simple decorated envelope, which could be used to match her card from this month's earlier post. The design could be adapted to use lots of other stamps:

Zoe's card combines the use of stencilling and added stamping to accentuate one of our fabulous sentiments.

We have a collection of beautiful cards from Lesley, she has created a range of cards for us, all so different. The first, combining stamping and stencilling:

The second card uses old book pages as a design feature, always look through your stash for things to add to your cards, you can use lots of small pieces of leftovers to create beautiful backgrounds.

Finally, she has used a tree stamp to stamp onto a piece of paper from Crafty Individuals, adding some stamping to the background using a co-ordinating stamp to create a border.

Sadly, this will be last time that Lesley will be providing us with her beautiful cards, as she has decided to hang up her GDT wings. We have loved seeing her creations on the blog, and will miss her elegant designs. We wish her well in all of her crafty endeavours.

Anne's pretty set of cards has been created by stamping the images with Versamark adding sticky embossing powder. She then added mixed colours of gilding flakes to the surface of each image. Daisy Centre Flowerhead, Mesh Centre Flowerhead and Palm Fan Silhouette.

Finally, we have two cards from Penny for you. She created the first card by embossing a piece of kraft card, dry brushing it with gesso, and then edging it with Distress Ink. She stamped an image from the Fancy Florals stamp set and coloured it with watercolour pencils. She added some hessian, cord and a sentiment to finish.

For her second card, she used Distress Inks to blend a background and stamped the diamond hearts. The main heart was stamped and embossed, then coloured with Distress Inks. All stamps were from the Punky Hearts stamp set.

We hope that you have enjoyed what we have shared with you today. We will be back in the New Year with another selection of time-saving ideas. Until then, please do keep visiting the Design Team blog for a daily dose of inspiration from the regular Design Team posts.

Thanks for stopping by,

Winter Solstice (by Rachel)

Well we have reached the third and final week of Rachel's guest posts and today she has the most beautiful project for you using the individual stamp, Winter Dawn. 

• For my last project I have taken a paper mache frame which I painted with black acrylic paint. When dry I added a cover of crackle medium and then the cobalt blue paint as the final coat. TIP - when using crackle medium by varying the thickness as you apply it you will get a variety of small and large cracks.
• I stamped the image on white stamping card using blue archival ink and then coloured her in with pencils. 
• Next I created the background with distress inks, sprinkling with water in some areas to create the droplet effect, and then attached the picture to the back of the frame.

I have really enjoyed my guest month, I hope you have too and I look forward to joining you again next year.  Have a fabulous New Year.

Rachel

We have certainly enjoyed the last three weeks Rachel and thank you for giving us such varied projects. 

Don't forget to pop back in tomorrow for another inspirational post from one of our regular Design Team girls.

floral notes (by Veronica)

 For my last post this year I have made two cards that could be used as thank you cards

Both cards have brusho backgrounds, and use the same stamp from the floral notes set. For both cards I stamped the image first using versafine and clear EP, then masked it using masking fluid.  I sprinkled the brusho powders over and spritzed with water, then rubbed off the masking once the card was thoroughly dry.

For the first card I coloured the image with promarkers, then diecut it and added a diecut matt.




The second card I left the image white, and used silver mirri and black matts, and added the sentiment from Mackintosh sentiments clear stamp set.

I wish you all a  very happy, healthy and crafty New Year.

Veronica

Snowy Cottage (posted by Claire)

Good morning and Happy Boxing Day everyone! I hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas break and now the big day is done hopefully we'll all have time to relax and enjoy some crafting time.

For my project today I've made a Christmas card using one of my favourite stamps, this one is 'Snowy Cottage'. I stamped the image onto glossy card using Black Memento Ink, the glossy card gives a lovely crisp image and is perfect for brayering. I masked the moon and brayered the sky using a dark blue dye ink. Next I added some shadows by misting the blue ink on my  brayer with water and applying the diluted ink with a paint brush. I added a little dark green to the trees and bushes and then lots of glitter. I used a white pen to add some falling snow. I die cut an aperture in a linen card blank and outlined it with a black pen and to finish off I stamped the sentiment.

Thanks for visiting, keep checking back as my teamies have lots of inspiration for you 

Claire xx

It's Christmas Day!

Well it is some time since I posted on here but I did want to take today of all todays to say a whopping great thank you for all the support, contributions, custom and comments you have given to all of us at Chocolate Baroque during the past year.

It has been a year of highs and lows for many of us but we couldn't travel this road without you and despite the bends, sharp turns and downright unexpected bumps we have made it! We are still here and hopefully we will bounce back bigger and better in 2017.

And on Christmas day I would like to raise a glass to you and say you are amazing and please don't change; we love you all just the way you are.

From the Design Team Ladies, Sue, the Chief Elf (David!) and myself have a wonderful Christmas, you deserve the best.

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Thistle by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies and a very Happy Christmas to you all, guess what? I've not made anything Christmassy for this post lol!

I'm actually in Canada spending Christmas with my beautiful daughter and her boyfriend, we are here until 1st january we got here 9th December so a wonderful 3 weeks.

So onto my post, I've used the wonderful new stamp set Floral Notes I started with a Grey board panel from the website and sprayed it using Yellow and Pink spray inks letting them merge and run together, once dry I flicked with white ink for some texture then stamped using Mini Script stamp with grey Versafine Inkpad, I stamped the image using Onyx Black Versafine Inkpad and heat embossed using a Black fine detail embossing powder to give an extra sharp image, it also caught some of the grey script but I liked it, I then highlighted areas using a gold glitter pen, gold gilding wax around the edge and Voila!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas surrounded by those you love, I know I will :) all the best for 2017, is that going a bit too far? lol Zoe xx

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sketchy Doodle Canvas (by Julie)

Hello, hope your Christmas plans are all going well. I thought today would be too late for any Christmas type projects so I went with something completely different...a mini 5" x 7" canvas.

I covered the entire canvas with blue and silver Aztec paint and when dry, applied molding paste through a harlequin diamond stencil, this was then left to dry.

The smaller flower and leaves were stamped and embossed in black, painted with silver and blue Aztec paint and set aside to dry. The larger flower was stamped onto Mulberry paper using a dark pink dye ink.

I inked up the sentiment with Onyx Black Versafine and stamped onto Mulberry Paper. Tear around the outside and apply to the canvas with Glue N Seal .

Next I took a palette knife and applied silver, Soft Form Relief Paste, making sure that I created an uneven surface.

Once everything is dry apply some Distress Crayons over the raised surfaces and blend with your finger. I also ran a black Distress Crayon around the entire outside edge.

Thread some beads onto Head Pins and assemble with the flower and leaves. Glue into place with 3d glue gel.

Thanks for popping in.

 I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year

Julie xx  

An armful of flowers for you (by Dominike)

Hello
I think you are preparing a wonderful Christmas. I would like to make a gift for all of you. But it is difficult. So here is my present : these beautiful flowers.

J'imagine que vous préparez tous un magnifique Noël. J'aurais aimé vous faire un cadeau mais ce ne sera pas facile alors je vous envoie cette brassée de fleurs.

1. Stamp on a white paper with Versamark and use different colors of powders. 
2. Tear on the right side and cut around the flowers.
3. Glue on a page of an old book
4. Glue on piece of white paper
5. Glue on the card.

You know that I like to use the same stamp for another technic and remember my post on 29th February. It was this one, with the same stamp.

Vous savez maintenant que j'aime utiliser le même tampon avec plusieurs techniques. J'avais déjà utilisé celui-ci pour cette carte le 29 février.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will be back on 6th January.

Kind regards.

Je vous souhaite à tous un Joyeux Noël et une Bonne Année. Je serai de retour le 6 janvier.
Bonnes Fêtes.

The Elephants went in two by two (by Rachel)

This is Rachel's second week as our Guest designer and today she has chosen our fabulous Indian Elephant stamp set as her focus.  Here's another one for you to enjoy.

• I stamped the elephants first onto a piece of white stamping card and then masked them to created the background. The background was coloured with yellow distress ink and then overstamped in various archival inks using other stamps from the set to create the arc. 
• Next the masks were removed and I coloured the elephants in co-ordinating colours to the background.
• The sentiment comes from the See Beauty clear stamp set which I stamped with Jet Black Archival ink.
• Finally the finished piece was mounted onto black card.

I really enjoyed creating something a little less festive this week but with the big day only four days away now may I wish you a very Merry Christmas and thank you for joining me.

Rachel

Another great design, thank you Rachel and we look forward to seeing your next project. 

Meanwhile our design team girls are still working hard to bring you some brilliant artwork so please come back again tomorrow to see a new and inspiring project.