Quick Cards (by Christine)

Hello everyone, today sees the final blog post this month from our Guest Design Team member, Christine. She has made some speedy cards for your inspiration.

Christine writes:

Hello everyone.

My final blog post for March!

The first project comprises four examples of quick cards to have available in your stash! I used four mini gelli plates of different shapes, Distress Inks and stamps from Rustic Fragments set to give detail. I then chose some beautiful floral stamps, colouring in two of them with sparkle pens, but leaving two of them simply stamped, (I thought the colour from the gelli plates was enough). Floral stamps used are:

Rose Set
Rose and Thistle set
Medici Flower
Rose Stem Script

The second card was also quite a fast one to achieve. I had a circles stencil on my desk so chose blue, pink and yellow Distress Oxides and mixed them across the stencil. I cut the resulting image into different widths of strips and glued them across a piece of white card on the diagonal. Once complete, I cut out a 5" square then stamped one of the Geometric Trading Hearts with Versafine Clair Onyx Black in the centre. On a remaining piece of the striped background card, I stamped one of the sentiments from the same set.
Mounting on black card was the final step before adding to the card blank.

My final card showcases the stunning stamp sheet called The Folk Art Garden.
The first step was to create the background using the Open Weave stamp and Distress Ink. I then stamped the image with Versafine Clair Onyx Black ink and coloured it with pencils. When I was finished I added Glossy Accents to the butterfly and then glitter around some of the elements. The sentiments are from The Folk Art Garden stamp set.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog posts and look forward to catching up with you later.
Happy crafting!

Christine
xx

Introducing Debbie Frost a New Design team Member

Hello everyone, we are pleased to introduce the first of two new Design Team members to our Design Team today, Debbie Frost. We asked Debbie to tell us a little bit about herself, and this is what she had to say:

Hi I'm Debbie Frost and I live in sunny Exmouth, Devon. I've been a card maker and paper crafter for many years. I regularly run my own workshops in Exmouth which are very popular. I would describe myself as a paper crafter as I love all aspects of card making especially. My favourite thing is stamping but love mixed media too, canvases especially. My first Chocolate Baroque stamp was Mosaic Flower.... followed by many, many more. I just love the detail and vintage look of Chocolate Baroque designs and am thrilled and honoured to have been asked to join their Design Team.

Debbie has created some beutiful projects for her first blog post with us, and here is what she wrote:

Hi everyone, I'm Debbie and this is my first blog post as a Chocolate Baroque team member, so I'm just a bit excited!
I was recently asked what was the first Chocolate Baroque stamp that I bought? What better way to introduce myself to you all!

So let's start off with Medici Flower stamped onto a Brusho background with a black inkpad and simply coloured with water based pens. The image was then mounted onto black card and I've added thin strips of black card to the background to add interest. The background has been created with Studded Lattice which I have embossed with white powder and sponged with Distress Inks Worn Lipstick and Spun Sugar. The sentiment comes from Amazing Mackintosh Words. I've mounted the design onto an A5 white card blank.

 
For my second design I've used French Heart which has also been stamped onto a Brusho background and water coloured using Brusho powders. I have used Chocolate Baroque White Silk Board which is a great quality card especially for this technique.
I have used a 7" x 7" ivory card blank and this has been stamped with Open Weave using a brown inkpad and I've also sponged lightly around the edges of the card blank.
The sentiment also comes from Amazing Mackintosh Words and both stamped pieces have been mounted onto orange and then brown card before attaching to the card blank.

For my third and last design I've used one of my favourites Lords and Ladies. I've embossed in white onto a circle of Kraft card a coloured with watercolour pencils which have not been activated with water. I find that you get a stronger colour when using kraft card than with ordinary pencils.
I've used a 7" x 7" white card blank which I've stamped with Square Bubbles using Distress Ink Seedless Preserves. I've also softly sponged around the edges using the same inkpad. As before the sentiments which I've randomly stamped around the edges of the card blank come from the very versatile Amazing Mackintosh Words. To finish I've addeed some faux stitching around the edge of the circle using a white gel pen before attaching to the card blank.

I hope you've enjoyed my designs. See you again next time, Debbie.

In the secret garden by Brenda

Hello everyone, Brenda here with some more floral inspiration using the lovely new stamps which featured on Hochanda recently, all of which are now available on the Chocolate Baroque website as well.

The top card was inspired by our own Secret Garden within our grounds, we created it many years ago and although it has seen changes over the years still hosts an abundance of Cottage Garden flowers and shrubs and recently moved into the twenty first century with the addition of a hot tub. The beautiful flowers on the new Blossom and Grow stamp set are to my mind Hollyhocks which I stamped onto a soft Distress Ink background after first stamping a window from Echoes of Italy Using a stencil I added some brickwork with texture paste which I coloured with acylic paint to soften the whiteness and added a sentiment from the same stamp set.

For this one I used black gloss cardstock for the base panels and stamped the images from Captivating Cacti and Scrumptious Succulents using Versamark and brushing over with gold mic powders, leaving to settle for a few moments before brushing off, the assembling the panels along with a bow.

And one from a few months ago that I found lurking unused in my folder. The stamped sets used are Medici Flower in the centre and to the sides Floral Delight and Wish Flower, all were stamped onto Distress Oxide backgrounds, the images bleached out and the glittered.......unfortunately this doesn't show up very well at all in the photo.

I always appreciate you visits and comment and thank you for taking the time to pop in.

Medici Flower (by Anne)

Good morning. This one was created with the lovely Medici Flower stamp.

 

1. The collage flower was stamped with Versafine and the image masked with Pebeo Drawing Gum to protect.
2. The background was painted with inks and texture added by dropping on water and blotting off with tissue. Highlights were enhanced with white pen.
3. The masking was removed and the flower coloured with watercolour pens.
4. The panel was mat and layered onto blue card to frame. Alcohol marker was added to the edges to further define the layers.

Materials:

• Medici Flower stamp 
• 6 X 6 inch white card blank, blue card (for layering) and watercolour card
• Versafine Inkpad (Onyx Black)
• Pebeo Drawing Gum (masking fluid)
• Water based inks (Spectrum Noir Aquatints - red and purple)
• Watercolour pens (Spectrum Aqua – blue, yellow, green)
• Fine tipped pen (opaque white)
• Alcohol marker (black)

Medici Flower (By Marga)

Hello everyone, today it's my turn again to show you something.

And this time two cards with the same stamp.

This card I stamped with Versafine Onyx Black on kraft cardstock and coloured it with my pencils.

This one I made the background with Distress Ink and stamped the stamp with a purple ink and colored the flowers with my pencils.

Stamp I used is Medici Flower.

Hugs Marga

medici flower by Veronica

More samples using the lovely flower stmaps from last month's Hochanda shows

 I loved this stamp with the script background, and it really does not need anything other than a bit of colouring in.
For the first one I thought I would go for opulent, so stamped it with versamark onto black card and gold embossed it before painting with pealescent paints.
Cut it down, added a gold and black matt and mounted onto a 7"square white card blank - job done!







The second card I stamped onto a piece of kraft card again with versamark and embossed in white. Painted the flowers again, but this time tore round the image and sponged the torn edges with vintage photo distress ink.
The white card blank was randomly stamped with the flowers using vintage photo again, using the stamp without the block so only part of the image stamped. edges sponged with more vintage photo

Book of Flowers (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today showcasing all of the beautiful stamps featured in the Anniversary shows in January on Hochanda. I hope you managed to catch the shows, they seemed to go in a flash, and Lesley and I were overwhelmed by your enthusiasm for all of the products that we brought to share with you!

My project is a concertina book, made with two pieces of whiteboard for the covers, which I have covered with some lovely patterned paper by Crafty Individuals. I stamped one of the images, minus the words onto the cover, and coloured it with the woodless pencils that we also featured on the show.

I created some pages for the book using smooth watercolour paper, but the cartridge paper that is available on the website would work equally as well. Each page measures 10.5 cms x 14 cms, and I allowed an extra panel to join the sections together each time. I decorated the back of the pages using Distress Ink, and stamped the words from several of the images on top, creating a tone on tone effect.

On each page front, I stamped a different flower image, and coloured these with Distress Inks, keeping to a common colour theme throughout.

As I assembled the book, I added some ribbon, which allowed the book to be tied shut with a bow. This was such a fun project to make, and would be a lovely keepsake for someone special.

Thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx

Friendship by Brenda

Good morning, today I would like to share a few of my samples from Lesley's Hochanda shows which celebrated Chocolate Baroque's first Birthday with the channel when viewers were treated to some wonderful new floral stamps and colouring pages.

This release was right up my street and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed making these samples and it was only time that prevented me making more.

So to my first card at the top uses the beautiful Medici Flower. On this occasion I only wanted to use the focal flower so I used sticky notes to cover the areas around the flower, inked it with Versafine Black, removed the masks and followed the same process three times. I then masked the  individual stamped flowers and stamped the Poppy heads from Poppy Meadow along with a inspirational quote from Pretty Poppies. Next I flicked some watery distress ink onto the white space and finally coloured the blooms with sparkle pens.

I really love this image, it's called Mosaic Flower but to me it yells out Chinese Lanterns. I stamped the image with Versamark and heat embossed with detail gold powder, coloured the flower hears with pencils and rubbed some gilding wax around the edges. Some twine and a button tied around before matting onto a pieced of corrugated and then the base card.

I painted this little box with acrylic and shimmer paints, then used a stencil and texture paste to add some flourishes. When dry I used a slightly darker pain to highlight the stenciled patterns and added gilding flakes here are there and along the opening edges. The flowers on the top were cut from one of the colouring pages, coloured in with pencils and fixed to the top along with some die cut leaves.

My final share today used the new Floral Delight stamp which I stamped once, masked and then stamped part of the stamp a second time and coloured in with pencils.  Using a mask I added some sun rays and stamped three of the words from Wish Flower, cut out and added individually to the finished piece.  

Thank you so much for popping in today.