one more 'krafty' Home Sweet Home creation.......

Hello dear crafters,

Just showing you one more 'krafty'( don't know if that's proper English) card made with the sweet HSH sheet from Chocolate Baroque. I had much fun with these stamps. This time I stamped with brown and coloured the image with my Derwent coloursoft's. On the background I used the swirl from Butterfly Flourishes.

Well hope you enjoy those stamps as much as I did! greetz,

New shop opening this weekend in Yeovil

I'm delighted to tell you about a brand new Chocolate Baroque stockist who is opening her shop with a fantastic open day this Saturday 6th August, with the fun starting at 10.00am.

The shop is called Stamp 'N' Craft, run by Beth Pearse and you can find it at Unit 2, Merlin Road, Lynx Trading Estate, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 3HZ.  Regular opening hours are 10am to 5:30pm Mon - Sat.

Beth has ordered a mountain of Chocolate Baroque stamps for the launch day and I threw in some freebies for her too, so you never know what she'll be getting up to with those.

Beth has started her shop because she felt there was a lack of classes and retailers in the area and she aims to provide a place where people can book time with her or her staff to get taster sessions and mini tutorials as well as full workshops. Crafters can pop in for a chat, and share ideas along with a beverage.

So if you are free this Saturday and in the area, why not go along and support Beth - I wish her every success in her new business venture and if you do pop in, say hello from me!

Krafty cottage (posted by Elaine)

Here is another card from me using the gorgeous Home Sweet Home stamps.

I stamped the main cottage image on kraft card in black archival ink and coloured the image using Coloursoft pencils, blended with Sansador. I inked the edges with my favourite Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I cut the image into an oval with nesties and mounted on a brown complementing scalloped oval and mounted it onto a kraft card panel. I added die cut flowers from a book page (Tim Holtz Tattered Florals) inked with Fired Brick DI and brown Crealies leaves.  Finally I added the sentiment on a nestie ribbon tag and mounted it on cream and black ribbon, before matting and layering a couple of times. I made this as a New Home card, but it could be mounted in a frame as well.

I hope you are enjoying the different ideas from the team this week.

Elaine

Sunray by ikki

Hi, I have another card to show you featuring the lovely Home Sweet Home stamps

Materials used:

Black 6 x 6 Card

Cardstock: Bronze Mirri, Bronze Pearl

Acetate

Nestabilities: Grand Squares (sizes 1 and 3)

Stamps – Home Sweet Home

Inkpads: Black Stazon

Eazi-Scoreboard and Stylus

To make this card:

Cut 3 squares with the Nesties Grand Square #3  :  bronze mirri, bronze pearl, acetate -emboss the edge of the bronze mirri with a stylus pen or in your die cutting machine. 

Place the Grand Square #1 in the centre of the bronze mirri, tape in place and cut to make a frame.

On the pearl square, starting in the bottom left corner, make your first line to the opposite corner to start the sunray effect.   Using the double lines to keep the pattern equal - make further lines, always starting from the same bottom corner.

Stamp the acetate with the grass stamp - You need to take care where you stamp  so that the sun is in the centre of your ray. Cut a circle from the bronze mirri and place behind the sun.

Assemble all your layers and add to the base card. 

This set of stamps were a delight to work with and so useful for any occasion.

Until next time, enjoy your crafting and don't forget to leave a comment here and on my blog and on all the other DT's blogs for a chance to win these stamps.  Glenda will be doing a random draw so the more visits you make - the more chances you have of winning.  Some lucky crafter will be a very happy crafter!

ikki

Home Sweet Home.......

Hello there,

Today a card using the new sheet 'Home Sweet Home'. I have used the smallest image on the sheet and added some lines for this tiny landscape. I have used the sponging technique and put this circle on a Cheery Lynn doily. Also embossed the grasses and sentiment with white EP on the card.

Hope to have inspired you, greetz

Home Sweet Home - Winter on Acetate by Lesley (Craftymamma)

Hi Everyone,

This is one of the projects I made recently using the fab Home Sweet Home set of stamps.  It's such a versatile set and I love the grasses with the sun/moon.  For this particular card I decided to make it wintery little scene and added to the effect using a spikey branch punch to create a snowflake effect.

Don't forget to keep an eye out on my DT friends' blogs and leave a little comment.  You never know the winner of the stamp set could be Yoooohooooooo!

Have a lovely weekend all.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

New Home Sweet Home stamps

We have just launched a brand new set of stamps over on the Chocolate Baroque website called Home Sweet Home.

This is a lovely little set (it's A5 size) which would work beautifully with many other landscape themed stamps.  I can see it working well with other sets such as Eastern Grasses, Tall Trees and Wild Meadow to name just a few.

I made this card for my father-in-law who is in hospital at the moment.  He loves the fact that all the hospital staff have been admiring it and he proudly tells them that I made it especially for him.  Hand made cards really do spread a little happiness.  The card was stamped with Versafine and coloured with Coloursoft pencils.


I also made a couple of videos showing how to make the card below using masking and coloured pencils.  If the embedded videos below don't work for you, you can find the videos (Sunburst 1 and Sunburst 2) on my YouTube channel.

I have a set of these new stamps to give away to a lucky winner and I will be picking one of our DT blogs at random, then picking one lucky winner from their comments at random.  That includes my own blog and this blog, so get your commenting hat on and who knows, it could be you.

Watch out for more artwork from the rest of the Design Team coming soon.

Another Christmas Decoration(s)....with the Herringbone technique

Today a 2nd card I have created with the Christmas Decorations sheet. This time I have used the 'Herringbone' technique. Again a technique with different strips of the papers I have used in my previous post. I embossed the ornament with white EP and cut it out. The 'ivy' image is stamped with two colours brilliance on a nestie. A nice detail is the ribbon which was white......I coloured it with my copics.

Hope to have inspired you with these techniques, creative greetz

Christmas decorations with the Bargello technique

Hello there,

This is one of my creations with the Christmas decorations sheet. In a way I was fascinated this week with patterns and designs of Zentangle, Bargello and Herringbone. I must say it was very nice to play with.

I still had some large paint strips from the DIY shop and some leftovers of distressed paper. I stamped the ornament with two colours of Brilliance and added some glitters and pearls. A lovely two toned ribbon add the finishing touch.

If you like this Bargello technique, here is the link.

Have a creative day, greetz

Christmas diamonds by ikki

I called this card Christmas diamonds - well it would be nice wouldn't it! 

The diamond stamps are from the Christmas Decorations theme plate and the embossing powder was preordained to be silver, as was the embossed edging, wire and beads.   You can created this irregular edging with a glue stick and embossing powder.  The decorative paper is from the Spirit of Christmas range and makes a great foil for the diamonds.  

Card materials list:

Card : White 8” X 4” + extra white card for embellishments

Purple card 7.¾” x 3.¾”

Stamps – Christmas Decorations UDLSP0304

Decorative Paper: Spirit of Christmas

Inkpads: Versamark Clear

Embossing Powder: Silver

Glue Stick

Wire, Beads

On my Chrissie list:  why diamonds of course!  

ikki

Diamonds for Christmas Anyone? (posted by Craftymamma)

Hello everyone, I made this card as a Design Team submission a few weeks ago after revisiting a few of the lovely Chocolate Baroque 'back issue' Christmas stamp sets. As usual, I have mixed my stamps from 3 different sets - Christmas Reflections, Christmas Decorations and Frosty Trees for the sentiment, which is one of my favourites.

My card started with a lovely piece of acetate I had coloured with alcohol inks an absolute age ago, found when I was looking for something else and I wondered how I could use it. I decided to use it as a layer for backing the diamond images and then chose the colours of my card to co-ordinate with the lovely golds and coppers of the alcohol inks. I stamped the diamond images and heat embossed using copper embossing powder and I then coloured the baubles with Twinkling H2os in shades which are not quite the norm for Christmas. I then stamped the pretty holly border usuing Coffee Archival Ink directly onto my base card, positioned the diamonds and attached them with 3D foam and finally stamped the sentiment. The only measuring I did for positioning was to mark the centre of each edge of the base card, everything else was done by eye.

Hope you like my Christmas in July offering and that it whets your appetite for looking back at previous years' Chocolate Baroque Christmas stamps where there are so many beautiful images. Hugs Lesley (E) Xx

Inner Reflections Card (posted by Judith)

I have made a card using the Mistletoe Joy and Christmas Reflections stamp plates. I created an A5 card, and covered the front with dark green card, followed by a layer of lime green card. I then used a printed paper from the Spirit of Christmas paper pack. I stamped the Mistletoe ball onto white card, and coloured this with pencils, and blended them before cutting the image out, and matting it onto a white oval. I then matted the oval onto a larger dark green oval, and placed this onto my card.

I lined the inside of my card with the same red printed paper that I had used on the outside of my card. I then took a piece of A4 white card, and scored and  folded it in half. I drew an oval shape in the middle, and cut it out. I then folded each outer edge inwards towards the middle, and created another fold line.

I stamped the holly down each outer edge with Forest Green StazOn, then using Crimson Red Versafine, I stamped the two Peace images at the bottom. I stamped and coloured the Christingle ball, before cutting this out, and used some cotton to hang this from the central crease of the inner card, fixing a small amount of tape behind the card.

I then taped the two outer panels only, where the holly is stamped to the inside of the main card, taping all around the panel for stability. The final touch was to add some red Stickles glue to the berries on the Holly stamp, and leave them to dry.

Keep checking back to see what the other Design Team members have created with the Christmas stamps, thanks for popping by today, Judith xx

A Green Christmas! (posted by Elaine)

This card uses the gorgeous Christmas Reflections A4 stamp sheet.

I randomly stamped and heat embossed the background panel with the small holly stamp in Ranger Queens Gold embossing powder on hammered dark green card. This embossing powder, recommended to me a while back by Glenda and her staff, is my favourite gold, a bright shiny finish, that gives a pleasing effect every time.

The pomander and sentiment are embossed in the same way and then I used dark green H2O paint to highlight the ribbon on the pomander. I used a favourite nestie die from the labels 4 set. I matted all the panels onto gold card and added a dark green velvet trim before matting onto the final medium green 8 x 8 panel using foam tape to give depth.

The finishing touch for this card is poinsettias die cut and embossed from green pearl vellum using a Marianne die, with leaves cut from gold paper with a Crealie die, all held together with large green pearl brads.

I hope this inspires you to get going on your Christmas cards with these lovely stamps.

Elaine

Forest of Christmas trees by Debbie

I usually start my Christmas cards in August so that I'm not last minute churning them out. I've been working (playing) since the beginning of June. I like to have an idea of which I can make in multiples.

The base card is an A4 cut in half, scored along one edge so that it can be opened. Two holes were punched and ribbon tied in a bow to join the two pieces. I coloured the tree stamp from the Christmas Decorations set with different shades of purple. Stamp onto the background three times then stamp another three that are cut out and fixed using foam pads. By varying where you put the inks on the stamps helps make them look different and Waterfall Stickles adds a little bling.

The forest of trees was mounted on purple card and stuck onto paper from Spirit of Christmas papers which will be available in the Printable Downloads section of the website soon.

The Design Team will be posting some more lovely cards this week so keep popping in for ideas.

Debbie

Christmas in July

Well I know some of you will run screaming from the 'C' word, but we are launching new Christmas stamps next month, so have been thinking about Christmas for a few weeks now.

In fact, I set the Design Team a bit of a challenge to create some artwork using some of our older Christmas sets and all this week we will be sharing the results of that challenge.

First up is a card I made using a set called Christmas Reflections.

I made use of torn paper masks to create my little winter scene, flipping them over to make the reflected version.  The starry tree comes from the Frosty Trees set and because it is virtually symmetrical, you can turn it upside down to make the reflections. 

One of the other things I love doing with these big words is stamping them onto acetate.  Because you can use the mirror image version of the text, you can put the foil or glitter onto the stamped side of the acetate, which means that when you flip it over, your text appears the right way round, but can't rub off or get smudged.

Christmas Reflections is currently on offer when purchased as a bundle with Mistletoe Joy - we have a small quantity in old packaging - click on the image below for details or visit the Christmas Specials department to see all our Christmas offers (wholesale offers available too).

Stay tuned for more Christmas cards this week - the girls have done us proud.

 

some creations with the doodle butterflies........

Hello there,

Just want to show you some creations with the doodle butterflies sheet. I like those stamps very much because they are so great to stamp with white ink and colour over with pencils. One of my favourite techniques. Most of the time I stamp with white colorbox ink but recently I heard that the Adirondack white is great to use. So I will certainly try that.... Well off to the cards now...

Maybe I have inspired you to get your pencils out........ and have some fun!, creative greetz, Miranda

Blue Fantastic Florals card (posted by Elaine)

This launch of stamps contains some real beauties and you can imagine my delight at the nature themes as this really is my first love for stamping and crafting generally. This card is another blue one.

This one is an A5 size card. I stamped the square panel on white in Versamark and heat embossed in teal metallic EP. I cut out the panel, leaving the flowers protruding beyond the square panel. I sponged some Chipped Sapphire Distress ink around the edge. I used different shades of blue colouring pencil and a white Inkessentials pen to highlight the flower heads and butterflies. I mounted the panel onto the gorgeous fleur de lys nestie squares.

I stamped and embossed the stylised flower heads on white card and used blue pencils again to shade the flower centres. Again I edged the panel by sponging with the dark blue ink and added the square panel.  I stamped, embossed and coloured a couple of extra butterflies and cut these out and mounted them on the card using silcone glue to give a 3D effect.  I added the sentiment which I matted and layered several times on dark blue and silver card to add height. I finally matted the larger panel onto dark blue card before attaching to the card blank, and added white gems to complete the card.

Elaine

Carousel Horses by Debbie

This card is from the new stamps set Carousel Horses.

When I recieve new stamps for samples I usually stamp them with black ink and have them sitting on the work top in my craft room. I make notes and jot down any ideas I have. I couldn't wait and started applying colour immediately. This horse is stamped with black ink and embossed with clear powder. I coloured with Copic pens. Starting with light shades and adding colour for shading.

The backing was made by stamping and embossing with silver powder so not to take away the focus from the main image. I distressed with Tumbled Glass and Spun Sugar. A couple of ribbon strands attatched with a brad to finish it off.

When I stamped the horses I fell in love with them. They reminded me of a past holiday in Euro Disney with the family.

This is one of five horses and there is a length of fabulous bunting on the stamp plate.  Click on the image for a close up.

Debbie

On the fringe!

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying the artwork from my fellow DT members.

I've not actually posted on here since Chocolate Baroque started - lots of computer complications which I am not going to bother you with. Anyway with the launch of a new series of wonderful stamps I really wanted to create something which I could share with you all.

I have to say that swirls and twirls are always a favourite of mine, they are so useful aren't they? And I always love butterfly images - as I've said countless times, I think the butterfly is the most inoffensive image around and can be used for a myriad of occasions both happy and sad. So I just couldn't resist the large focal stamp from Butterfly Flourish Swirls.

The background was brayered onto glossy card using a Soothing Sunset Big 'n' Juicy inkpad, then I stamped the butterfly image using Lilac Posies Memento and the ivy corners, stamped with Tangelo Memento, are from the Wedding Belle stamp set. This was mounted onto a piece of cranberry card stock and then I added some highlights with Stickles and left it to dry.

I then wanted to add a little more interest to the card and decided on a toning background paper which was from the original guild paper pack. I added a strip of this paper to either side and then proceeded to cut into each strip to form a fringe. Took a little while (and a bit of patience!), but I was pleased with the result. Finally I mounted it onto an A5 card folded from the same cranberry cardstock. Voila!

Hope you like our take on these new stamps - remember to keep popping back to see what other delights the Design Team have to offer.

Lesley (W)
The Paper Engineer

May Each Day by ikki

My card today shows how useful stamps can be when you want to send a card saying you are thinking of someone at a difficult time in their life, and one of the most difficult to make!

I love decorative papers, but sometimes you need a little more.....on this paper from the Simple Elegance designs, the newly launched stamps Nature's Swirls are ideal.

The large flourish stamp is super - you can use different parts of the stamp and it looks like you have used multiple stamps!  Stamped in clear Versamark and heat embossed with White embossing powder it takes the lovely patterned paper to a new level!    When you add a sentiment from the Words of Comfort .....

you have a card for that difficult occasion! 

Materials used:

6" x 6" white card

Peach and white cardstock

Decorative paper: Simple Elegance

Stamps: Nature's Swirls and Words of Comfort

Nestabilities: Grand Square, Mega Rectangle

Inkpads:Adirondack: Salmon, Mountain Rose, Veramark

Embossing Powder : White

Flower, foam pads

My DT mates will be showing you more of their artwork over the next few days, so please come back soon for more inspiration and tips.

Happy Stamping, ikki

Blue swirly tree by Elaine

Well I have been lucky enough to play with these beautiful stamps and I seemed to be in a blue mood this month. Here is one of my cards using the Nature's Flourish set.

I worked on my favourite 8 x 8 sized card. I randomly inked a panel of white card with Stormy Sky Distress ink and Lavender Organza Paris Trunk dye ink. I overstamped with Cobalt blue archival ink using one of the large flourishes from the Nature's Flourish stamp set. I edged the panel with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink and matted the panel onto mauve card. I stamped the tree in Versamark and heat embossed using metallic blue EP and then cut the panel with a nestie oval, matted onto a dark blue scalloped oval. I finished off with a mauve ribbon, a sentiment from the Words of Inspiration plate and mounted onto a fancy label nestie die cut and some mauve dew drops. This was one of those colour combinations that is a real pleasure to work on, very soothing tones.

I love anything with a nature theme and these flourishes have oodles of potential for gorgeous designs. I'd say they are an absolute "must have"!

Elaine

We have a lucky winner!

Well, I gathered up ALL the comments left on this blog and on my own (some people have had problems with Blogger and couldn't comment here) and did the random number thing to pick a winner.  There is one lucky lady who I think is going to be very happy ...

And that lady is .....


JEAN STRAW!

Congratulations Jean, I'll be in touch with you about your prize.  Jean has a blog called My Crafty Corner - why don't you pop over and visit, I'm sure she'd be delighted to have you visit her.

Big thank you to everyone who left a comment, it is much appreciated by all of us and please keep checking back as we have more wonderful DT artwork coming up.  You never know when the random prize pixie will strike ...

I'll leave you with a card I made with the Fantastic Florals, chalk inks and Derwent Pastel Pencils ...

Woodland Tunnel Card (posted by Judith)

My card sample uses the Nature Swirls stamp plate. When Glenda sent us these lovely stamps, I loved the two little owls on the branch, and I wanted to make them the focal point of my card. One of our Guild members, Karen, had made a lovely tunnel card and I decided to use this idea as a base for my project.

I printed out a backing paper from the Essence of Nature CD, and stamped and embossed the swirly owl stamp onto the design. I then cut three layers from coordinating Bazzil card and another design from the CD, using Nestabilities in different sizes to create frames in each layer. I stamped and embossed the swirly tree onto watercolour paper, that I had coloured with Distress Inks, then spritzed with water. I also cut out two die cut leaves, using a Marianne die from purple card.

To assemble the tunnel part of my card, I created a concertina of card, by measuring, and scoring one centimetre intervals across two pieces of Kraft card. I stuck my layers to these concertinas at the top and bottom, so that they were seperated from each other, like pieces of toast in a toast rack.

To finish, I stuck the whole thing to a side opening A5 card, and added a little owl charm and a flower made from leftover water colour paper that I had used to stamped my trees onto. I cut the flower out using a Crealie die.

Keep an eye out for lots more samples coming your way from the other Design Team members this week.

Judith xx

Watercolour Spritz

Inkpads aren't the only thing you can use to transfer an image from a stamp - lots of water based products are great for applying straight to stamps.  Whether that's markers, inks or acrylic paints, you can usually get a pleasing result somewhere along the line.  However it does depend what stamp you use.  For images of people, faces or animals, line drawings that you want to colour in and very detailed designs, I would stick to inkpads.  But with slightly more decorative designs, you can experiment and come up with some really nice effects.

The card above was made with a stamp from Nature Swirls coloured with Aqua markers which are watercolour based markers. You could get this effect by painting watercolour onto the stamp, or try water based markers (Copics and ProMarkers won't work).  I spritzed the stamp lightly with water before stamping and stamped onto watercolour paper.  

Without applying any more colour, I spritzed the stamp again and stamped onto a piece of watercolour paper which I had misted with quite a lot of water. The result was this much softer impression.

They both make beautiful images, don't you think?  The second one uses a phrase from Words of Comfort and Cheer - a stamp set which goes beyond the traditional get well greeting and works for a range of situations where you want to convey a heartfelt, genuine sentiment to someone you care about.

I didn't think I would actually need to use the words quite so soon after I produced it, but the card above was one that I sent recently to the wonderful Sue who designs most of our stamps.  She is such a talent, but very shy of any limelight, and I generally respect her wishes and don't mention her much.  However, she recently had to have surgery and although she is now recovering well, I know she's been through a bit of a rough time with it and at the risk of embarrassing her, I am taking this opportunity to say a public thank you for all her amazing artwork that allows us to create such beautiful stamps.

More great cards to follow - watch this space!

Twirly Swirly Goodness

We have new stamps launching this weekend, they start shipping on Monday.

It's been a while since we did any kind of giveaway here on the blog, so I am going to brighten up someone's weekend as I'm giving away a full set of these stamps to one lucky winner.

Here they all are ...

 

I'll be back tomorrow with more details and some photos of cards made with this lot.  Til then, let your imagination dream up some ideas and you might just get lucky if you leave a comment.

It's Only Words ................

Hi Everyone,

A few weeks ago my lovely fellow DT member Debbie suggested a friendly challenge to make a card using only Chocolate Baroque words stamps.  The CB catalogue has some beautiful script stamps on several of the plates as well as some lovely quotes and sentiments.  I have used several different stamps from the various sets to make the card below and if you would like more details just follow the link from the sidebar to my blog.

I love script stamps even if I can't read them so this card was a pleasure to make.

Debbie also made a card for our little challenge which you can see on her blog by following the link.

Have a lovely evening all.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx