Messing About in the Water (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all keeping well in these uncertain times. Our thoughts go out to any of you who are unwell at this time, and we wish you a full and speedy recovery.

I have a couple of projects to share with you today. These projects feature stamps that we showcased during the December Tv shows on Hochanda. Unfortunately, I was unable to make any new samples for the shows, and found some older samples that I had made to send to Lesley for the shows. I have since had a chance to make a couple of projects to share with you, but will also show you a few of my older cards as well this month.  

My first project is a card which mixes stamps from both Chocolate Baroque and those designed by Kim Moody. They work together so well. I coloured some drawing cartridge with some tea and let it dry thoroughly. I then stamped the larger piece with some images from A Dip in the Sea and Baroque Ephemera 1. I stamped the large postcard from Baroque Ephemera 2 onto a spare piece of background, and also the beach huts over the top. I stamped the beach huts once again onto spare card. I coloured the beach huts with Distress Ink, and decoupaged them onto the postcard. I added a couple of tickets behind the postcard, and coloured all of the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

My second project is a journal page. I enjoy using my journal to work out ideas for potential cards, or simply to play around with stamps and colour. I used two of Kim's larger stamps from Harbour Master and Jolly Roger, and stamped them on the same page. I linked them together with a fineliner pen, and added a few dots and dashes to finish the scenery. I coloured the image with watercolour pencils.

Here are a couple of my older cards using Kim's stamps:

I will be back later in the month to share more projects with you. Thanks for stopping by, take care,

Judith xx

Home from home by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies and Happy New Year. 

I hope you all managed to keep well over Christmas and were able to make the most of it. We were in tier 4 here in Kent and so it was just hubby and myself, first time in many years, just being the two of us, and I really enjoyed it.

So here are the samples I made for last months Hochanda shows featuring these fabulous stamps drawn by The very talented Kim Moody.

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

Have a wonderful day xx Zoe xx 

All at Sea by Rachel

 Hello there! Rachel here today with some makes from the December shows - but I am finding myself all at sea! 

This first make is a porcelain bowl that I painted using the images from Kim Moody's Jolly roger stamp set. I stamped and panted the image (in glaze) three times before firing in the kiln.

This second piece is a double sided uprighter that I used two more Kim Moody stamps on. First I painted the MDF uprighter in black Gesso before cutting the panels to fit and creating backgrounds using brushos. Next I stamped the images and painted in the scenes, adding in some decoupaging to give them some depth too. 

I hope I have given you a little inspiration in ways to use these stamps. 

Have a great day!

Hugs

Rachel x

Travel, Dream, Explore by Brenda

 

Hello Peeps, my first post sharing work from last months Hochanda TV shows and this five fold card features a selection of the quirky houses designed by Kim Moody which you will find in a bundle here. Two are also from the from the seaside range, Harbour Master and Looking out to See!

The five base pieces of card were given a light coating of Oxides by used a piece of acetate to which I applied the ink with a spritz of water and dabbed onto the card. I wanted a subtle int of colour which is this case is crackling campfire and cracked pistachio. I find this technique allows more control over the volume of ink applied rather than the intensity of colour obtained when the card is dapped onto the inks. I then used a selection of stencils and worker stamps from Edge Edges and Make your Mark to build up the background before stamping the focal images.

Have a good Wednesday everyone and thanks for popping in.

sunny days

 Good morning everyone, I hope that this may cheer you up if your weather is the same as mine!

This uses the quirky dip in the sea set by Kim Moody, which was featured on one of last months shows on Hochanda , really fun stamps to play with.

The background card was coloured with distress oxide inks, and randomly stmaped with the small images from the set to create a background. The actual stamp was stamped onto a piece of white card coloured with brusho powders, using versafine ink and clear embosing powder. The colour on the huts was taken out with bleach then the doors, roofs and window frames coloured with marker pens.Two thin dark brown mats to finish.

A quick heads up, Lesley will be back on Hochanda tomorrow  (Monday) at 1800 and 2000 with some gorgeous new stamps for the one day special , and back on Tuesday at 0800, 1200 and 1600 if there are any left........there will also be some special offers to tempt you further!

December Blog Comment Winner

 

Hello and welcome to the Chocolate Baroque Design Team Blog.

We wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year

 

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 December was assigned a number and we used Random Org to draw a winner.

 

Congratulations to Sandma 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 another £15 gift voucher to another lucky winner drawn from January’s 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 Guest Designer Anne

Happy New Year!

 Hello everyone.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas despite the restrictions.

Today I am showing some of my cards made the the lovely Kim Moody range of stamps.

First is The Posh House 

and Gran's House. I love the quirky drawings and crumbling exteriors.

Next is A Dip in the Sea with the fun beach houses. All the stamp sets come with "extras" like the deck chair, and bucket and spade.

And lastly Looking Out to Sea which I have done one in colour and the other in sepia to show how versatile these stamps are.

I have stamped with Versafine inks and coloured with water colour pencils. 

Hope you enjoy these fun stamp sets!

Sandra xx

A New Year's Eve Wish (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I hope that you have had a good Christmas, and enjoyed some time celebrating the festive season, even if it has been very different to your usual celebrations. Many of you will not have been able to have spent the time together with your loved ones, or to have seen as many of your family as you would have done under normal circumstances. 

This year has been such a strange and turbulent year for many reasons, we have been thrown into a life that is so different from what we are used to, and many people have lost their jobs, their businesses, faced floods, illness, or the loss of loved ones. Lockdown has been very hard for everyone, the isolation and separation from friends and family has been really difficult. Social media, and contact through technology has really been a big help. Zoom, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, video calling, have all come into their own as a means to interact with other people to be able to 'see' each other and chat face to face. 

Chocolate Baroque has tried to do its part with the Butterfly Tree get togethers, allowing members of the Choolate Baroque Facebook Group to join in with the meetings and feel part of the community. The sense of belonging that is part of Chocolate Baroque, the community of crafters, learning together, and having fun getting messy and inky, has always helped to make us feel less isolated. Many friendships have been forged through the Chocolate Baroque community, I have several amazing friends that I have made personally, so I can vouch for magic of this wonderful group.

As we turn to thoughts of the approaching New Year, one thing that has continually come to my mind is that we can be grateful for what we have. We have lost so much this year, but we still have friendship, we still have family, we still have a shared love of crafting. My New Year's Eve wish for you all is that 2021 will be a better year. It may not turn out exactly as we would all like, but may you all find peaceful, contented, healthy times ahead. I hope that you will enjoy what we at Chocolate Baroque continue to share with you over the coming year, and that you will keep crafting along with us. Most of all, look after yourselves and be happy. 

I am sharing a project with you today, part of a play session that I had using a few favourite stamps.

Stay safe, and thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx

My favourite makes of 2020 part 3 by Zoe

Good morning Lovelies, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, stayed safe and well.

So back again with my last post of the year. 

I’m just featuring some favourites of the year as I was unable to contribute to last months Hochanda show.

I’d like to take the opportunity and wish you all a very Happy and Healthy 2021 and let’s hope it’ll be a better one than this year.

Thank you so much for the support.

Have a wonderful day xx Zoe xx

Quirky and Cute! By Rachel

 Hello there - Rachel here with todays inspiration - using the  fabulous and fun Acorn and Heath Robinson house stamps.

Firstly the Acorn house. I stamped the image directly to the card and then added distress ink around the outside before flicking with water, Next I used watercolour pencils to colour the image.

For the Heath Robinson House my process was identical - love the details in this stamp - there are plenty of friends I know I can make a card for using this stamp!

I trust you have had a good Festive season and I look forward to catching up with you in the New Year!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Fabulooous darling by Brenda

It's more Roses from me this morning, this time shades of yellow using Floral Perfumery onto a piece of linen which I brayered with Distress Inks and added some stencilling around the edges. The leaves are from the same stamp set and a die cut sentiment.

A linen background again created much the same as above but with some stamping using a grid stamp from Small Graph. The buildings are Acorn House stamped twice, to me they have a rather Russian influence to them and the towers are coloured with watered down gold acrylic. A die cut frame with the Butterflies from Butterfly Perfumery stamped and the tops cut out before die cutting so they create the base of the frame.

mixup

 Good morning everyone, I hope that you had as good a Christmas as possible this year, and that you haven't suffered from the heavy rains and strong winds - the weather definitely doesn't know this is supposed to be the season of goodwill!

edited - apologies, we had electrical problems thoday, and I forgot tto check this had loaded , hopefully all now fixed  Veronica

I am sharing something different first today, a small wooden bowl I decorated using the special set of stamps for the craftalong on Hochanda that eventually ws broadcast in August. I loved the seedheads, and stamped them using black versafine ink and clear embossing powder. The heads were coloured with alcohol marker pens.

My next all feature brusho powders, so my apologies if you can't stand them.... this uses a different seedhead, from glorious rubber and a gelli plate background. Green dye ink brayered onto the gelli plate, and diluted brusho in red, blue and yellow splashed on randomly using a fan brush before pulling the image.  Tjhe seedheads were stamped in black versafine and clear embossed, then coloured with marker pens - the background was pale enough that the marker pens covered up any creeping colour. It's a fascinating technique for backgrounds, but totally uncontrollable and great messy fun!

This one is vey simple, just grey powder and a fair amount of water to give a misty effect, and the dreamcatcher stmaped in black and clear embossed.

Another simple one, this time with black powder, then stamped in black and clear embossed - the lily was coloured with watercolour paints, and the leaf painted with green brusho 

My last is of a hanging using the lovely magnolia stamp from happy flowers day and whiteboard heart shapes. I used both black and grey brushos here and the spray starch and cling fim technique -black brusho on the hearts and grey on a piece of white card. The magnolia was stamped on the grey piece in black and clear embossed, then fussy cut out and glued onto the hearts. The two smaller hearts came out looking rather more blue than the large one

T

A look in the Mirror by Lesley

It's Christmas Day, the 25th of December 2020, but for most of us it is not the Christmas we are either used to or were planning on. Normally I turn up today with a blog post about how great the year has been and our plans for the next one etc, etc. But this has not been a normal year and we are not living in normal circumstances.

It has been tough for everyone, and really very tough for those of us who have not been able to see families, for businesses, for our mental health and for our general wellbeing. Getting through each day, never mind each week or month, has been a constant battle. There have been many life lines thrown out there from individuals and groups who have tried to support others. Social media has paid a big part in keeping us connected and I suspect a lot of us have learned new techie skills we didn't think we could. We have cried and laughed, baked, crafted, learned new skills, made new virtual friends but most of all we have dug deep to keep going.

And we have done it together, with the help of so many people including many of my crafty colleagues and friends - Di Oliver, Jean Hardy, Pete Simpson, Natalie Ballard, Louise Withers, Jo Rice, John Lockwood to name but a very few. These people have given their time, energy and inspiration to hold us up, they have breathed light into some very dark days to try to stop the loneliness from stealing in - even if only for a few hours.  And we have been supported by you - you have kept us going, you have shown your kindness and care to us too and for that we will be forever grateful. 

So on this not so normal day whilst we salute our NHS, all our key workers and all the volunteers up an down the country, please take a look in the mirror and be grateful to yourself. You have been amazing and you will continue to be so because as individuals we can achieve much, but as a united group we can achieve anything!

From Chocolate Baroque may we wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas xx

Hello and Happy Christmas Eve. 

I hope you are all keeping well in these strange times. 

I am sharing a couple more of my cards. 

First I took a piece of card and blended Distress Ink over a Holly stencil. I then stamped the plain bauble from the Shaded Baubles stamp set and embossed in gold. I added a sentiment from Christmas Cheer. I then added some die cut leaves and a silk foam flower, and mat and layered in gold and green.

My second card uses the shaded baubles too. This time I stamped the Snowflake Bauble onto some pattern paper and embossed  it. I then masked it and stamped it again, just below the first. With both baubles stamped, embossed and masked I did the third Bauble, this time the plain one as a contrast. I added a sentiment from Christmas Garden stamp set. 

Thank you for looking.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas 

Sandra xx

More Stamping Delights (by Anne)

 

Good morning. This is the last of my guest posts for Chocolate Baroque this month. I had planned a completely different set of projects but just had designer block! Horrible when that happens, especially when working to a deadline. This happens to us all at times, particularly this year with all the added stresses.

After several days of wasted effort I just stopped working on my original plan, went away from my desk and tried to clear my head. I then went back and decided to just ‘go for it’ – no plan, no nothing. I just picked up stamps and got started. Finally ideas started to flow – phew. I find that this usually works for me, although it is not always easy to do – ha ha.

I hope that you enjoy my offerings. Everyone take care and enjoy Christmas as best you can. Spring will soon be here and I am hopeful for far better times to come soon. Big hugs Anne xxx.

Blue and White Mandala

This one is a quick and easy make using the lovely mandala style stamp.

Materials Used:

• 15cm square white card blank, decorative die cut circle in blue card and scrap white stamping card
• Palm Fan Silhouette stamp (Chocolate Baroque)
• Versamark Inkpad
• Dark blue embossing powder (WOW Earthtone Blueberry)
• White pen

How it was done

1. Faux stitching was added around the die cut circle to frame it. It was glued to the card front with 3D foam for added depth.
2. The Mandala was stamped and embossed with blue powder, cut out and glued to the card front with 3D foam.

Dazzling Butterfly

Chocolate Baroque have so many wonderful butterfly stamps – love this one.

Materials used

• 15cm square scalloped card blank, decorative die cut circle (light blue), scrap of white stamping card
• Stamp sets: Gerbera and Friends, Words to Dazzle and Sparkle, Butterfly Poppy Collage (Chocolate Baroque)
• Inkpads: Versamark, Distress Inks (Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky) and Memento Dye Ink (Grape Jelly)
• Detail white embossing powder (WOW), and clear sparkle with extra fine glitter
• Alcohol ink pens (greens, turquoise, pink)
• Pink PVA pearls and Stickles glitter glue (Diamond)

How it was done

1. A mix of the Distress Inks were used to blend the outer edges of the card blank (this mix closely matched my blue die cut circle).
2. The blue card topper was stamped with Versamark and embossed with white powder.
3. The butterfly was stamped with Memento, coloured with alcohol pens. It was then heat embossed with a layer of clear sparkly powder and cut out.
4. Everything was stuck down and the card was finally finished with glitter glue and PVA pearls.

Hydrangea Card

When pushed for time I will often use some ready printed papers in the background. They can also help with inspiration at times too.

Materials used

• 15cm square white card blank, Crafty Individuals 6 X 6 inch background paper (Book 3 Springtime), white stamping card
• Stamp sets: Hydrangea Tag, Gerbera and Friends
• Inkpads: Versafine (Majestic Blue and Onyx Black)
• Brusho powders (Leaf Green and Purple)
• Alcohol marker and fine drawing pen (black)

How it was done

1. The background paper was trimmed and edged with black marker. The base texture was stamped with black Versafine.
2. The main image was stamped with blue Versafine, the card trimmed to approx. 9 X 13cm and edged with black marker. The floral section was stamped again with black Versafine. The stem was extended by drawing with black pen and the image cut out.
3. The topper was then spritzed with water and Brusho powder dropped onto the wet card. When dry the monochrome Hydrangea was glued on top, curling the edges up slightly for dimension.

Floral Thank You Card

This one was a super quick make. Ideal if you have a last minute card to do.

Materials used

• 10.5cm square watercolour card blank
• Stamps from Chocolate Baroque: Gerbera and Friends, Spring Bird Daffodil (sentiment)
• Inkpads: Versafine (Vintage Sepia), Distress Inks (Carved Pumpkin, Mustard Seed)
• Note: I used a stamping platform for this project. Not essential but it helps to realign when over stamping.

How it was done

1. The watercolour card was spritzed with water and stamped using a mix of the Distress Inks. These bled out giving a lovely watercolour effect.
2. When dry the image was overstamped with Versafine. Versafine was also used to stamp the border and sentiment.

Dreamy Elephant Card

I love the Indian themed stamps from Chocolate Baroque – definitely amongst my faves. To save a bit of time I again used a pre-printed background paper.

Materials used

• 15cm square white card blank, Crafty Individuals 6 X 6 inch background paper (Book 8 A Weekend in Seville), and scrap white stamping card
• Stamps: Artistic Affirmations, Indian Textiles, Indian Elephant, Gerbera and Friends
• Inkpads: Versamark and Versafine (Vintage Sepia)
• Versamark embossing pen
• Embossing powders: Metallic copper and detail gold
• Watercolour pencil (greys), sparkle pens (green, pink, purple, turquoise)

How it was done

1. The sentiment and base texture was stamped and embossed with copper powder.
2. The flowers were stamped with Versafine. The background was then edged and embossed using the embossing pen and copper powder.
3. The elephant was stamped onto white card with Versamark and embossed with gold powder. The image was then coloured with pencils and pens and cut out. The elephant was lightly shaped and glued down with 3D glue gel for dimension.