It's a bright, new day (by Lesley)

Well good morning everyone, here we are on day one of my new journey.  And for those of you who don't yet know I now own and run Chocolate Baroque (quick pause for a happy dance!). So please excuse the indulgence of using this blog to say a few important things.

I have bought the business from Glenda and Adrian who are now starting a new journey of their own.  There was a public announcement yesterday on the Shop Blog and a special email sent to all our followers and supporters. And I have to say the response was overwhelming, so I hope you don't mind if a give a big shout out to all of you for your messages of congratulations and good luck wishes. To know that I have your support is a great start to this new adventure. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I also want you to know that there there will be more exciting stamp designs from our wonderful designer Sue, that the quality of our stamps will remain in the expert hands of Val and that we intend to give you the same customer service you have come to expect from Chocolate Baroque.

I am also blessed with a brilliant Design Team who continue to blow my mind away with their talent. Thank you Sue, Val and all the DT girls for your care and support during this transition.  

Most of all I want to give the biggest cheer to Glenda and Adrian! It is not without sadness that we are now going our separate ways, career wise, but I know that we're all destined for different things and I wish them all the success in the world with their new venture at Portpatrick Studios; you deserve the best guys. We are still the bestest of buddies and there are all sorts of things the four of us are going to share together in the future. Can't wait!

So back to now, and the reason you looked in on this Design Team Blog. I have a rather simple piece today. It is just a die cut heart, coloured and stencilled with Dylusions paints, stamped with white gesso using one of the new Seasonal Fragments and finished with words from the Positive Beauty clear set.

It may be just a heart but it is my way of letting you all to know that I shall put my heart and soul into running Chocolate Baroque and into bringing you fabulous stamps, exciting products and a whole heap of inspiration. Thanks to your generous comments I think we can all hold hands and travel this new journey together - full of heart.

A Positive start to your day (by Lesley)

I haven't made any ATCs for quite a long time and I really love these miniature works of art. Being a small canvas you can make them fairly quickly and you feel a fabulous sense of achievement when you have a pile of colourful pieces in front of you.

All the backgrounds on these ATCs were made with a Gelli plate then over stamped with images from both of the sets in the latest in our fragments series; Rustic Fragments and Seasonal Fragments.

I then decided to add words from the Positive Beauty and Awesome Diva to start a set of Affirmation Cards.  I love the idea of picking one of these cards at random first thing in the morning and then carrying it around with me as my 'theme' for the day.

How about you? Why not create your own affirmation cards or design a 'pack' of them to give to someone special, maybe someone who needs a little positivity in their life right now.

Thanks for dropping in today and keep watching for more imaginative creations from the rest of the Design Team.

New Fragment Stamps launched today

Well here we are almost the end of another month and it's time to launch some fabulous new stamps.  We are continually being told by you that you love our range of Fragment related stamps so this month we're adding to the series with two more stunning examples.

First there is Rustic Fragments

closely followed by Seasonal Fragments.

Both these A4 sets are available individually or as one of our ever popular multi-buys.

There are loads of brilliant images on these stamps ranging from fabric to basket weave and snowflakes to leaves. All of these stamps can be used with many other crafty products; I stamped through a stencil for the card featured here today but you can use them with paints, inks, clay, UTEE, there are so many possibilities.

Also available today are a selection of clear word stamps. These are being released in two sizes, first we have

Awesome Diva

and Positive Beauty

Each of these sets will arrive packed in one of our A5 storage wallets and are excellent for card making etc 

However, for those of you who love journalling and mixed media projects we have decided to also offer these in a larger format, which will really make a statement on your artwork. Once again they are packaged in an A5 wallet for easy storage.

So we have the same words, only much larger, and they are released in the following four sets:

Awesome Today

Rockstar Diva

Positive Pants

and finally See Beauty

Now you can have your own sets of journalling words to complement your creativity. Just please bear in mind that we only have a limited stock of all the clear word set so you may have to wait a little while for more stocks to arrive, but they are definitely worth the wait. If you are concerned on which size may be suitable for your projects the description on the website of each stamp set contains the measurements of both the smallest and largest stamps.

I am really excited about all our new releases as I can see so many ways in which they can be used and I know you are going to just love them.

As usual the Design Team girls have been creating magic with the new Fragment sets so there will be lots of inspirational artwork for you to see over the next month. Hope you can join us and have a thoroughy wonderful stamping time.