First Stamps -- (by Magda)

Hello,
Which are your first stamps you bought from Chocolate Baroque ?
I am fond of mine  "Serenity and " Gothic Fragments" both bought in 2011 and that I use every time with a particular sense of respect.

I propose you today a card and a page of my Journaling Book, in oder to arrive soon at the last page of it and I can start a new one.


Serenity , Gothic Fragments, Archival Jet Black,  Distress Ink Pad,  stencil

Gothic Fragments,   Words to Dazzle and Sparkle, Archival Jet Black,  Distress Ink Pad, stencil

Thank you for passing by, and see you next month again.

Magda. 

Serenity and Tranquility by Miranda

Hello there,

Today I have made something using two gorgeous sheets; Serenity and Tranquility.

In time when these sheets were launched I was so happy.....finally some beautiful female Buddha stamps! Still find them so beautiful.......

I've made an inky background using Distress inks and stamped (using same colors) fragments of the background stamp; Studded Lattice.

And then some plain black stamping for the focal image......and some cherry blossom branches....

I did colour her using color pencils.

I made a separate border stamping the beautiful Indian designs from the Indian Elephant sheet which matches perfect with the Buddha designs. I am sure you all understand that I have a lot of favorites at CB!

I have blended with Distress inks and colored on the pattern using gorgeous sparkle pens....you can see the effect on the close-ups......isn't it gorgeous? 

I also gave some sparkles to the Buddha........using a transparant sparkle pen.

and the stunning effect of the Signo Ball glitter pens.........

Well, for now this is my last blogpost but I hope to see you again here on the DT blog......

Thanks for all your kind comments and stay creative, 

let's make the world more beautiful with our ART!

Tranquil Wall Hanging (by Deborah)

Hello everyone, today sees the first of three posts this month from a new Guest Design Team member Deborah Wainwright. I am sure that you will all join me in welcoming Deborah to the Team, and that you will be inspired by her fabulous artwork. Deborah has kindly written a few words about herself to help you get to know her a little better:

I am a self taught Mixed Media Artist, Illustrator and Designer. I am fascinated by colour and texture and use both intuitively when I paint, draw, stamp or make stuff. I love to use different mediums, such as acrylic paint, ink, watercolour paints and encaustic, in fact I use whatever I am drawn to in the moment, including recycling.

I taught art journal classes where I lived in Essesx, and recently taught a very successful class at Tullie House Museum and Gallery and have more dates for more classes later in the year. My art has been published in a book, 'Learn to Paint Made Easy', and I am regularly published in craft magazines.

I am inspired by the world around me, and express myself through my art. I love to paint expressive portraits, and often have 'girls' nagging away to be given life on my canvas. Another love is flowers both those around me as well as those that live in my head.

Debs xx

Deborah has created a delighful mixed media piece for her first project, here is what she has to say:

Hello everyone, Debs here, and I'm thrilled to be joining Chocolate Baroque as a Guest Designer. For my first creation I started with a wallboard which I had given a crackle background. On top of this I created my first layer of flowers, which I then coloured with pens.
On a separate piece piece of plain white card using Black Archival Ink, I stamped the focal points and heat set them. Using my favourite watercolour paints I painted the images, before fussy cutting them out. I then attached them to the board. To finish, I added some gold paint around the edges of the board.

Stamps I used were elements from both the Tranquility and Serenity stamp sets.

 Hope you enjoyed this little board, see you all soon,

hugs,

Debs xx

Deborah will be back next week with another post. You can find Deborah's blog here.

April Cards (by Magda)

Hello everyone
this morning I have some quick projects for you made with stamps that Chocolate Baroque demonstrated during the TV shows at the beginning of April

Card with envelope:
For this one I used Dina Wakley White Gesso and Tim Holtz Distress Crayons-Set 1 for the background and Archival Jet Black for stamping the flower of "Wisteria Lane"  on the card and on the envelope. You can find the sentiment "On your Birthday" in Words to Dazzle & Sparkle.

Thank you card:

This time I coloured the flower from the stamp set "Eastern Grasses"with different colours of Distress Inkpad and spritzed it with water before stamping, in order to have a watercolour effect.  The sentiment from the same rubber plate, is stamped with Versafine Onyx Black. 

Napkin rings:

This simple table decoration could be perfect for a summer dinner.  Stamp with Versafine Onyx Black the waterlily of "Serenity" .  Colour the stamp with Aquarelle watercolour pencils and cut out the images.  Use a piece of heavy white cardstock  for creating a napkin ring and colour it with a similar pond colour.  Glue the waterlily on your ring.

I hope you liked the post today and thank you for passing by.

Magda

waterlily (by Veronica)

 

 Today I have a couple of projects to show you using the waterlilies from the serenity set of stamps   and sentiments from artistic affirmations.

The first is a very simple card - I stamped the waterlily three times across a spare piece of white card using black versafine ink, and coloured the centre image with pencils. Added a mat of dark pink card, mounted onto a square white card blank, stamped the sentiment in black at the bottom corner - very quick!

 The cheap wooden box from a local discount store was covered with white gesso and then a rough coat of distress paint, leaving a mottled effect which I hoped would look watery. I stamped the waterlily images direct onto the box using memento ink.- if I could have crossed my fingers while stamping, I would have done!The leaves were coloured with alcohol pens, and the petals with white acrylic paint

My final sample is a cheap mirror, from a well-known flat-pack store, thanks to a friend who was going to pick up some furniture and was happy to add to her list.
I used leftover peces of card coloured with brushos, cut into squares to fit round the central mirror. Two squares were embossed and rubbed with gilding wax, and two stamped. The butterflies from Steampunk butterfly were stamped in black versafine onto more spare pieces, cut out and glued in the corners.
Definitely something that would wake you up in the morning!

Eastern Sunrise - by Penny

Morning lovely peeps, it's my turn and my pleasure to bring you today's blog post.  It's a mixed media card that I created for last months 'Eastern' shows, and I've used stamps from the Serenity, Eastern Grasses, Landscape Edges and Artistic Affirmations sets, Distress Inks, black Versafine ink, clear EP, stencils from my stash.

On a piece of white card I stamped and embossed the lady and two lamp images in black, then masked them.  I created the background with Distress Inks, and using a stencil I made a sunrise for the sky then I stamped some trees on the horizon.  The lady is meditating at the edge of a stream or lake so the bottom of the panel is blue and I added some clear paste through a stencil to add texture and movement in the water.

When the paste was dry I removed the masks and coloured the images with pens.  I then added glitter glue to the paste to give a shimmer to the water.




I stamped some floral images and a sentiment onto white card in black ink and embossed them.  I coloured them all in with DIs and cut them out. After matting the background panel onto black card and attaching it to the card I added the florals and the sentiment in 3D. 

This mixed media card is such fun to create, I hope I've inspired you to have a go yourselves.  Just look at your own crafty stash and see what mixed media artwork you can create! 
Thanks for dropping in today, I hope everyone has a great weekend.  You can see more details and pictures on my blog  https://ladypenelopesfabcraftyblogspot.blogspot.com

See you soon,

                                                        Penny

Creativity takes courage by Brenda

Morning Peeps, Brenda here with some more Easter inspired creations.

To create the background on the top card I used a combination of Distress Inks and Pan Pastels along with Silhouette Palaces Mask. The focal image and lamps are from Serenity stamped with Versafine black, coloured and cut out before placing over the background. I stamped some Wisteria from Wisteria Lane across the top and crackle using Large Crackle Background around the edges and liquid pearls to finish.

This one has has a background of metallic acrylic ink which I brayered on to give a random finish and also used the rougher side of watercolour card as it adds nice textures to the finished piece. Using Versafine black I stamped two of the quotes from Artistic Affirmations, wisteria from Wisteria Lane and two little Doves from Serenity and finally some liquid pearls and gold glitter to finish.

This one is probably one of my favourites from those I created for the shows, albeit it the colours of Buddha from Serenity are not authentic as my ethics lecturer daughter reminded me several times. The background is made up of acrylic paints and crackle glaze with some stenciling using black DI, then the image stamped in Versafine black and coloured in with pencils and a fine line gold pen. The three words are from Artistic Affirmations.

My final share today has a focal panel created with Pan Pastels through a mask cut from a die, then with the mask still in place I used a stencil to add some background interest before stamping the Agapanthus from Wisteria Lane using Versafine black. After removing the mask I stamped a quote from Artistic Affirmations.

As always, my thanks for popping in today.

serenity (by Veronica)

 Good morning everyone - hopefully the better weather we are promised is on the way! A much nicer day here at least, even if it is still a bit grey and dull at least there is no rain or fog.
My card today uses the main image from the serenity stamp sheet for the focal point.
I stamped it in dark brown ink, and coloured with alcohol pens. I used Pebeo drawing gum to mask the image before stamping the trees from the same set behind the shrine in green distress ink, and sponging more green to create a background.
I added the wisteria stamp from wisteria lane along the top using a darker green. Once I was sure everything was dry, I rubbed off the drawing gum, trimmed the image, amounted it onto a sqaure white card blank with a narrow black mat.

Thanks for looking, there are some lovely samples coming up from the team over the next few days, don't miss them!

Eastern Dreams by Penny

Goodly morning everyone!  Penny here again with a couple of projects from the 'Eastern' shows last month.  I hope you are all warm and well despite the weather, and that you'll join me for a few minutes of crafty inspiration.  

Tag of the Orient

My first project is a simple, pretty tag using the Eastern Grasses,   Artistic Affirmations, and Serenity stamp sets; Distress Inks, black Versafine ink, acetate, clear embossing powder and a few embellishments and dies from my stash.  

I began by blending the Distress Inks onto a piece of white card and die cutting it in a large tag shape.  I then stamped the grasses in black ink along the bottom  and top edges of the tag and added gold pen around the edges.  I stamped the word 'Dream' near the top of the tag and a little bird beside it.  I then added gold pearldrops around the stamped images.  

I took a piece of acetate and stamped the grasses in a frame image with black ink and embossed it with clear powder.  I cut the acetate into a strip a little bigger than the stamped image and wider than the tag.  I scored the ends of the acetate about a quarter of an inch from the edge of the strip.  I used red double sided tape along the edges of the strip and attached it to the back of the tag.  The acetate forms a dome over the stamped grasses on the tag.  I then matted the tag onto black card and cut around it leaving a border.  I punched a hole in the top centre of the tag and added a Chinese coin and some fibres from my stash.  I also added a clay butterfly that I painted gold, and attached it to the acetate with glitter glue. 

To finish this tag off I added a little black glitter glue to the flowers for extra sparkle and texture.  This tag makes a lovely piece of home decor or a present.


   

Oriental Garden

For my second project I have a mixed media card featuring stamps from the Serenity and  Artistic Affirmations sets; Distress Inks, Versamark ink, gold embossing powder, alcohol pens, gold pen and liquid pearls and a stencil from my stash.


I began with a piece of white card and blended Distress Inks on it.  I then took my stencil which happened to be Oriental themed and added one of the inks through it, giving a subtle layer on top of the background.  I added gold pen around the edges of the card. 

The next stage was to make the focal elements.  I stamped the serene lady and some foliage onto white card and embossed them in gold.  I used the same inks to colour the images as on the background panel, except for the lady's skin which I coloured with pens.  I then carefully cut all the images out, including the background of the lady.  

 

I took a white base card and used one of the inks to stamp some foliage and little swirls along both sides of the front of the card.  I finished it off by blending the same ink around the edges. 

I stamped a word  in one of the top corners of the background panel using black Versafine, then added gold pearl drops around it.  I then matted the panel onto black card and attached it to the base card.  I took the embossed focal images and attached them in 3D onto the card, and added some more pearl drops.

I wanted to create a calm, soothing scene for this card, with the serene lady in the cool calm garden.  I absolutely LOVED creating with these stamps, I hope you do too! 

Thanks for popping in today, another of my teamies will be here with more lovely artwork tomorrow.

Crafty hugs,

                                                             Penny      

Fabric Stamping (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today incorporating fabric. I really like to add some texture into my projects whenever I can, as it adds a bit of interest and makes the project look and feel quite expensive, for very little cost. I demoed these three projects on last month's TV shows on Hochanda, and I hope that you managed to watch Lesley and I in action.

To create the first card, I cut some small pieces of cotton fabric, and put some Distress Ink onto a craft mat, which I spritzed with water. I patted the fabric into the ink, moving it around to blot up the ink. I added more ink and water if necessary to get a good coverage of the fabric, but was happy to leave some areas uncoloured. I left the pieces of fabric to dry by themselves.

I frayed the edges of each piece of fabric, and stamped a silhouette image from one of the stamp sets: Tranquility, Serenity, Wisteria Lane or Eastern Grasses, and added a sentiment as well. I chose words from Artistic Affirmations, Amazing Mackintosh Words, and Words to Dazzle and Sparkle. I used Archival black ink to stamp all of the images onto the fabric, leaving the stamp on the fabric slightly longer than I would on card or paper, to allow the ink to grab onto the fabric. You do not need to press any harder.

I attached the fabric pieces to a piece of black card before matting them onto a card blank. A little button with paper string tied through was a finishing touch to each card.

For my next card, I created a paint swatch effect by masking sections of a piece of cartridge paper, and inking three toning colours of Distress Ink. I stamped the silhouette image from the Eastern Grasses stamp set onto the piece of card.I matted the panel onto black card before adding the panel to a piece of linen card.

I coloured a piece of cream ribbon with Distress Ink and stamped it with Archival Ink as before, using a sentiment from the Amazing Mackintosh Words stamp set. I attached the ribbon to the background and then placed the background on a square card blank.

For my final project, I used a Crafty Individuals tag, and stamped the main image from the Tranquility stamp set across the bottom of the tag. I coloured the image with pencils. I added the wisteria image using water based markers across the top, using first and second generation stamping for a fuller effect. The ribbon was made in exactly the same way as before, picking up colour from the craft mat, and then once dry, stamping with Archival Ink. I used a word from the Serenity stamp plate. I like to colour ribbon myself to coordinate with a project, you can see another example here.

 

I hope that I have inspired you to to have a go at stamping on fabric, I will be back later in the month with more projects to share. Thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx

Serenity by Brenda

Good morning, Brenda here with some of my samples from Lesley's Hochanda shows featuring the lovely Serenity and other Eastern inspired stamps. 

My first card uses the beautiful Serenity which I stamped onto a background created with Distress Oxide inks, adding a sun and rays using gilding flakes which I did my using a mask and adding glue through the marks..............do make sure you wash quickly! The focal image is stamped with Versafine black second generation ink and coloured in with Distress Markers and a fine line gold pen. Some hanging wisteria from Wisteria Lane stamp set and a few flowers across the bottom also from Serenity which I used sparkle pend direct to stamp and a spritz of water to soften the look.

This one used the flowers from Serenity repeat stamped with versafine black and colored in with sparkle pens, a sentiment from Artistic Affirmations which really does have some most beautiful sentiment and inspirational quotes and a set we all need in our craft stash. Finally I flicked some watered down distess ink.

A bit of inky indulgence here using acrylic paint onto a 330gsm piece of card and mopping with a kitchen towel with releavls some of the pattern, random stamping using the Agapanthus stamps from  Wisteria Lane and sentiment from Artistic Affirmations using Versafine black. Some stencilling using texture paste and a stencil made using heart die cuts and when dry painted with rusty patina paints in brown and blue. A strip of hessian and a flower made with punches and inks and all mounted onto a piece of corrugated.

I used Serenity again here onto a background of Distress Inks over which I lightly stamped one of the images from Indian Textiles, using Distress Inks stamped two of the waterlilies from the same stamp set, several Wisteria from Wisteria Lane, cut them all out and decoupaged. Much to the distress of my eldest daughter who is a senior humanities lecturer (and told me only Orange is authentic) I coloured Serenity in purple with distress markers, she wasn't convinced in my argument of artistic licence.

I hope I have inspired you to get inky today and if you don't have any of these stamps you may want to indulge yourself.