Keeping it Simple

Hello, I am here to share some more of my samples from the February show on Hochanda.

These were all relatively quick to make with some stamping and embossing and a little bit of colouring.

My first piece uses an MDF board which I have covered with Chocolate Baroque Black and White Paper (Series 2) using a gel medium. I'm not sure if these are still available, but Series 3 are!  I have then added some watercolour inks, starting with purple, then blue and green. When it was completely dry I stamped the Carnation from Fresh Florals and a sentiment from Artistic Affirmations and embossed in white.

For my next card I used alcohol inks in shades of purples and blues at the top and greens at the bottom on some yupo paper. I then stamped a dragonfly and a few butterflies from Butterfly Blush using Alcohol Lift ink. I did the same with some of the foliage stamps that were also on the show and added a sentiment from Sow the Seeds.

My next card uses the Daisy stamp from Fresh Florals. I stamped with Archival and used watercolour pencils for the flowers and Distress Ink for the edges. I have added a sentiment from Fly Away with Me.

This card uses two of the foliage stamps from Eastern Grasses. I used my stamping platform and stamped the larger of the stamps first, rotating my card each time. I then used the smaller stamp to fill in the gaps. I coloured the open seed heads with a red glaze pen and added the sentiment to the centre. Very quick, but effective.

My last piece features an accordion style card from a die. I stamped the butterflies and dragonflies from Just Butterflies onto some white card and die cut the panels out and glued onto the card base.

 I love how the stamp sets mix so well with each other.

See you soon

Sandra x

Freesias and Memories... (by Gerrina)

Today my second post this month as a Guest Designer, so you can see my card here and on my blog as well. I used stamps from the beautiful Freesia Blueprint stamp set and got totally in a 'Zen-mood' by colouring the beautiful flowers and some of the blueprint stamps. The only thing I miss right now, is the lovely soft, a bit fresh and intoxicating smell from the freesias; that is one of the nicest fragrances that I know...It reminds me of one of my grandmas who not only liked the flowers, but also thought the smell of them was super...

The moment this set were released I knew I wanted to stamp with it, so I did not waste much time to do that when the post brought them...

Used materials:

Stamps: Freesia Blueprint

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black

Other: Kraft paper, and black cardstock 

See you again next week!

Creatieve groetjes,

Gerrina

 

 

 

Bold and Beautiful Butterflies (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I am sharing more butterfly cards with you, following on from my last post. Butterflies are such a universally popular image, and I hope that you will enjoy what I have to share with you today.

I created my first card using the Just Butterflies and Butterfly Blush stamp sets. I coloured a piece of drawing cartridge using Distress Oxides and then stamped some of the butterflies from Butterfly Blush using Versafine Clair. I added some white dots using charcoal through a stencil, however, you could achieve a very similar look by using white paint and one of the dotty stamps from Make Your Mark.

I added some texture paste to a piece of MDF, and once it was dry added some paint and gilding wax. I stamped and embossed the butterflies, cut them out and layered them up onto the panel. The sentiment from Butterfly Mind was stamped onto a spare piece of background.

The following two cards are older projects, but once again, I hope that you do not mind me sharing them with you. I masked off  the edges of the cards, and added Distress Ink in the centre of the cards. I was aiming for aurora borealis effect, and hopefully achieved that feeling in these cards. I added water splatters, and then stamped the foliage from Briar Rose Butterfly along the bottom using black ink. The butterflies were stamped onto sparkly acetate using Archival Ink and I added coloured vellum to the back, but you could just stamp them onto card, colour them as normal and use a sparkly pen over the top to achieve a similar look. The sentiments come from the Birthday Words stamp set.
 

By changing the colours and foliage, you can create a completely different look, these are really pretty and would make a nice set to give as a gift as well.

 

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and take care,

Judith xx

Fluttering by part 2 - by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies and welcome to my second post of the month, featuring the gorgeous stamps from Lesley’s Hochanda show last month.

Butterflies and Flowers, you can’t go wrong.

I used a heart Die and Linen texture cardstock, I love how the texture looks when it’s inked.

Just very simple but I think a pretty card.

My little wall hanging was coloured using Distress inks and sprinkled with water to create some texture, simple stamping for the background, I then used Acetate which I coloured with Alcohol inks, I stamped the butterfly using Stazon, cutie out and Decoupaged it on, finished off with gold gilding wax around the edges.

My Envelope is just simple heat embossing in white EP, I coloured the flowers with pencil, added a sprinkle of chunky EP to create some interest, and some light inking around a mask for the aperture.

Thank you so much for spending your time visiting today, I hope you like my creations.

Have a wonderful day xx Zoe xx

Flowers and foliage by Rachel

 Hello there! Rachel with you today with a second installment of my samples from the February shows. For my first sample today I have painted a ceramic piece with glaze using the Thistle Butterfly and Honeysuckle butterfly stamp sets. Once dry this was overglazed and then fired in the kiln.

In this next sample I used the Eastern Grasses stamp set. I started by creating the background of the card using a light green ink on my stamp. Next I stamped the topper on  a piece of card coloured with inks and layered this onto some black card. Finally I added the stamping on the right hand side using a darker green ink.

My final card was made using the fresh florals stamp set. Firstly I stamped the poppy image onto the left hand side of my card and coloured it using watercolour brush pens. Next I stamped the same image onto black card and painted it using mica powders. Its so shiny! I decided to layer it up using some red felt so its quite a tactile piece. 

Hope you enjoy your day!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Rose spotlight by Brenda

Morning everyone, hope you are all OK , I have a few shares from my samples from last month Hochanda TV shows.

As is the norm for me the first two follow an inky route, above Oxides added from acetate and dabbed away to give a soft finish followed by some stencilling using the squares from Strip Stencils and circles using the coffee stain from Make your Mark. Focally Briar Rose Butterfly coloured in and the Butterflies stamped again and decoupaged and a metal spotlight placed over the bud.  Onto some offcuts I stamped the numbers from Edgy Edges, tore the edges and fixed into place. Finally some washi tape. 

For this one I sprayed Oxide Sprays across the top of a pice of card, spritzed with water and held at an angle to persuade the colour to run down the page. I used worker stamps from Make your Mark and Gerbera and Friends to build up the background, quote from Words of Inspiration heat embossed in details gold EP, three Butterflies from Just Butterflies and metal embellishments for their Thorax.

A fairly simple one for my final share, papers from the 8x8 Designer Papers, stamped around the edges with Butterflies from Just Butterflies using Versafine Clair, Honeysuckle Butterfly stamped focally and coloured in with pencils.

Have a good weekend and many thanks for popping by today.

Old and New Together (by Gerrina)

Hello everyone, our Guest Design Team member Gerrina is here today with the first of three posts this month. She has created a collage style card with several of our stamp sets.

Gerrina writes: 

Hello again! I am so glad that I can show you what I made for my first Guest Design Team post of this month! Not only were the stamps from Chocolate Baroque some of the first flower stamps that I bought, but they keep releasing such beautiful new stamps... I had a lot of fun mixing older and newer stamps making the three Guest Designer posts for Chocolate Baroque this month.

This is the first of them. I stamped the flowers (Poppy Meadow) and the butterfly (Thistle Butterfly), masked them off and mixed the background stamps from the Rustic Fragments set on the same half of my page. I coloured the flowers, the butterfly and the pieces of the background stamps with coloured pencils.

I love mixing the many stamps of the beautiful background stamps sets that Chocolate Baroque has released over the years with other stamps, which you can see regularly on my blog.

Used Materials:

Stamps: Poppy Meadow, Thistle Butterfly and Rustic Fragments

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black

Other: Stamp paper, masking paper, coloured pencils

 

See you again next week,

Creatieve  groetjes,

Gerrina

 

Flutter with me (by Magda)

 Hello girls,

I like to see the first butterflies flutter in the mild spring air and this feeling of joy inspired                       me to create these three cards with Chocolate Baroque stamps. 

Happy Dance 

On a blue Brusho colored white cardstock I stamped Butterfly Dress and colored it with                          Pan Pastel. The little butterflies and the decoupage butterfly are in Just Butterflies, while                        you can find the sentiment in the Butterfly Perfumery plate. I used Distress Ink pad   for                    coloring the butterfly, blending through the stencil and stamping the sentiment Happy Dance. 

Hello

Here I just played with Distress Ink pad   for the background wash, stenciling several                       layering with matching and contrast colors and for coloring the butterfly. You can find                                the butterfly in the big selection of Just Butterflies and the sentiment in                                                Butterfly Flourish Swirls

Spring

For this card I prepared several stamped script paper pieces, I cut them randomly and glued                     on the cardstock.   

I blended with different green and red shades of Distress Ink pad  and colored the decoupage            butterfly of Just Butterflies with watercolor pencils. 

"Spring" of March Fairy was for me perfect to be used for the label 

I hope you liked my butterflies card of today, I wish you all a very nice spring, hugs

Magda

monochrome grasses (by Veronica)

My first post this month shows two cards using the eastern grasses set of stamps, both in monochrome and both 6" square cards.

The base card was stamped with the tall foliage stamp in grey in one corner to make a frame, and edged with black soot distress ink and then the edges  dragged across a black versafine ink pad. The main image was stamped in versamark onto a piece of black card, then embossed in white.

The second card uses the foliage stamp again, this time as the main image. 

The background card was randomly stamped using stamps from make your mark, the small foliage stamp from eastern grasses and the script from ace card and then sponged with black soot distress ink. Once it was dry, the foliage stmap was stamped on one edge using black verafine ink and clear embossed. 

The foliage stamp was stamped onto a piece of black card using white pigment ink then twice more using second generation stamping. Stamped again using versamark ink and white embossed. Edges torn using the new draw and  tear rulers 
 

Beautiful Florals

Hello, I am here today to share some of my cards made for the February show on Hochanda.

These cards feature the main image from Harebell Butterfly, Thistle Butterfly, Honeysuckle Butterfly and Briar Rose Butterfly

My first card I've kept quite simple. I've stamped with Black Archival ink and used watercolour pencils in shades of blue. I've added a sentiment from Patchwork Butterfly and some black and white layers

My next cards use watercolour pencils and markers. I've used stencils in the background and blended around the edges with Distress Inks. I have finished with a sentiments from Artistic Expressions and Artistic Affirmations

Thanks for looking, I'll be back with some more soon.

Sandra x

All about the Butterflies (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I have some projects to share with you today created with some beautiful butterfly images that we brought to Hochanda last month. My first card was created fairly quickly using a piece of drawing cartridge, onto which I drew a circle with a pencil. I chose several colours of Versafine Clair in shades of blue and green and stamped an image from the Thistle Butterfly stamp set around the circle. I stamped each colour five times, to ensure an even coverage, varying the direction that I stamped to make the foliage appear more natural. Although these colours are not necessarily true to nature, I love how they turned out.

Once I had finished the wreath shape, I added some splotches with an image from Just Useful, using some of the same colours that I had used in the wreath. I added a touch of shading around the edge of the background with Distress Ink. I added a sentiment in the centre of the wreath from Birthday Words.

I stamped and embossed three butterflies from across the four sets, I just chose whichever butterflies appealed to me most, to be honest. I used some of Lesley's A5 Doubled Sided Designer Papers, they are so useful for this sort of thing, and will last for ages. I used white embossing powder for a delicate touch.

I am sharing two older projects with you today using the Honeysuckle Butterfly stamp set. These two projects were really fun to create, so I hope that you don't mind seeing them again. The first was a canvas that I made using a sheet of old music paper. I painted over the top using a zingy green colour, and decoupaged the image which I had coloured using pencils. I stamped around the edge using Archival Ink. I added lettering to create a collage effect, you could use book paper, die cuts, whatever you have in your stash to create this effect.

 

This next project is more subtle, but again, I loved creating this one too. I used a Brusho background, and added stamping using an image from the Elegant Edges stamp set around the edge of the background. The butterflies are decoupaged, leaving one wing free for real dimension. This card is just waiting for a sentiment for the right occasion. It would make a lovely Mother's Day card, don't you think?

 

Thanks for stopping by, take care and stay safe,

Judith xx

Fluttering by - by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies and welcome to my first post this month.

Spring is in the air and it’s so lovely seeing some sunshine and of course with it brings flowers and Butterflies, although it’s actually still a little cold for the Butterflies but these stamps will certainly cheer your day.

So here are a couple of my samples from last months show.

Just 2 of my Envelopes this post as I was unable to make as many samples as I would usually make.

First one is “Kiss Stamping” actually Lesley did an amazing demo on this technique on the show.

Thank you for visiting today I hope you have enjoyed seeing my Envelopes.

Have a wonderful day xx Zoe xx 

Blog Comment Winner for February

 

Hello and welcome to the Chocolate Baroque Design Team Blog.

 

We truly appreciate the time you take to let us know your thoughts about our designs, so each and every comment is very important to us.

 

Each comment in February was assigned a number and we used Random Org to draw a winner.

 

Congratulations to Cuilliesocks you have won this month's £15.00 voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps.

To claim your prize, please email here to confirm your email address and Lesley will send your gift certificate.

 

Lesley will be giving a £15 gift voucher to another lucky winner drawn from the March comments.

 

The more comments you leave, the better your chances of being the winner.

 

Thank you so much for all the kind comments you leave.

 

Good luck from all on the Design Team

 

Here is another chance to see the beautiful creation by Brenda

 

Butterflies and Pattern building by Rachel

 Hello there,

Rachel here today with three cards from the February shows - two of these feature the flower-butterfly stamps whilst the final card is a pattern builder using one on the worker stamps from one of the other flower-butterfly stamp sets.

In this first one I have used the Briar Rose Butterfly set as the main focus but I have also used stamps from the make your mark set too plus one from the Harlequin Fragments set and one from the Ephemera 2 stamp set. These stamps were used to build up a clean and simple collage design.

In this second card, I used the Thistle Butterfly stamp set to build up a scene on a piece of card I had already layed down a basic landscape using inks and stencil brushes with a masked sun that was inked in later. The stamped image was coloured using a combintion of mica powders and watercolour brush pens.

This final card was built up using a single stamp from the Honeysuckle butterfly stamp set which was stamped onto a pale coloured stencilled background.

I hope you have a great day - I'll be at work but with any luck it will be a good day too!

Big hugs

Rachel xx