Challenge 28, Week Two- Announcing Our Winners

Hello everyone, welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. This week, we are announcing the winners of Challenge Twenty-Seven. The winner of the £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Shelagh, who project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Shelagh, we hope that you enjoy your prize.

Please email Lesley on lesley@chocolatebaroque.com so that she can organise your voucher. You can also display our winner's badge on your blog, details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page.

The Top Three this month have been chosen by the Design Team, who have had a tough time as always, choosing from such a fabulous selection of projects. The Top Three in no particular order are:

Felicie:

Doreen:

Carole:

Congratulations ladies, you can display the Top Three badge on your blogs. Details of how to obtain the badge can be found on the FAQ tab at the top of the page. Well done to everyone who entered, and we hope that you will join in with our current challenge. You will find the details here.

We have some more Design Team inspiration for you this week:

Vronnie has created two beautiful projects for us this week. The first incorporates the lovely Rose Crackle stamp, in soft colours and a delicate background:

The second has a vibrant Brusho background with white embossing, for real drama.

Anne's card, combines fabulous die-cutting, gorgeous backgrounds and those lovely butterflies, a great recipe for a beautiful project:

Magda's clever card, using a peacock tail to create a bouquet, is so creative and may give you lots of other ideas using parts of various Chocolate Baroque stamps!

We have a beautiful sketch book page from Zoe next, using a lovely tree scene:

Julie has used the same image to create her fabulous card, adding extra stamping for the background. We often find on the Design Team that we have these coincidences, but it just goes to show how using the same stamp can still create very different projects:

We hope that these projects will inspire you to create something yourselves for the challenge using the terrific colour swatch that we are currently using. We will be back next week with another blog post and more projects from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing some of your entries. If you have any questions and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge Twenty-Eight

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your visits and lovely comments over the past month, we really appreciate your support here on the blog, and love reading what you have to say. We will be announcing the winners of Challenge Twenty-Seven next week, so if you entered the challenge, be sure to check out the blog post, to see if you are the winner of our prize.

As a reminder to those of you who have visited our blog before, and for anyone who is new to the blog, our challenges are monthly, based on an inspirational photo and a colour swatch. A new challenge is launched on the third Wednesday of every month. You can use any medium to create your project; inks, paints, pens, pencils, etc., as long as you stick to the colours from the colour swatch in your project. We are offering a monthly prize of £15 to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps to one lucky winner, who will be selected by Random.org from all of the entrants who have used Chocolate Baroque stamps currently available from the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps and images, but they will not be eligible for the prize. All entries will have the chance to be selected as one of our Top Three, and can then display our 'I made the Top Three at Chocolate Baroque' badge on their blogs.

We have a zingy new colour swatch for you to create your projects with this month, and some wonderful inspiration from the Design Team, which we will be sharing with you over the coming weeks. Here is the colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 15th November 2016 and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 23rd November 2016. Here are some projects from the Design Team:

I have made a project using a shaving foam background, and added a large flower image as a focal point:

 Claire's pretty card uses elements from one of our bird-themed stamp plates. She has used Brushos to create a washed background, and added a squiggly border for a touch of individuality:

Zoe's gelli plate background adds to the retro feel of this card. She has used some modern geometric flowers to complete the design:

Anne has created a stunning panelled card using the Baroque Orchid stamp and some super die cuts:

Magda's romantic ATC is full of layers and texture. Great use of a small space:

Thank you so much girls for your projects using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something for the challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message. Details are at the end of this post below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy the new challenge, and look forward to seeing your projects, Judith xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge 27, Week Four

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Challenge Twenty-Seven on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you so much for your visits and comments throughout the month. We hope that you have been enjoying the challenge, although perhaps this month, the monochrome colour scheme has proved a bit more challenging, as we have had less entries than we do normally. There is still plenty of time to get creative using your stash and Chocolate Baroque stamps, and be in with a chance of winning a fabulous £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque. You can add your entry to the link in this post.

We are taking a look at some of the entries that we have received for the challenge so far, and providing a bit of last minute inspiration to help you whip up something yourselves for the challenge.

Lula has created a beautiful canvas using die cuts, paper, bits of yarn and lace, added beads, and painted it all in shades of blue:

Doreen's card has been created using some of our Oriental Grasses stamps and has a very serene feel:

Kate has created a shimmery sea-themed canvas, adding lots of texture. Her use of fabric trim for seaweed, is very clever:

Carole has created a lovely coaster for her coffee cup, a great gift idea, or perhaps to keep for yourself. However, a perfect project to make as we are heading into the Christmas season.:

This month we are getting to know Claire, one of our long-standing Design Team members a little better.

Claire writes:

I've been on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team for just over five years and I still can't believe how lucky I am to be part of such a wonderful talented team, and of course to be able to play with such gorgeous stamps. I've been paper crafting for about ten years now and before that I was a cross stitcher. After dabbling with a few card making kits, I bought my first stamps and that was the start of my addiction.
I've always been in awe of those crafters who have a real signature style, the ones you can just name by seeing one of their projects, but I'm not that sort of crafter. I guess you'd call my style eclectic, as some days I love to get out my markers and colour, others I love to get out my stamps and inks. Sometimes I enjoy dabbling with altered art or even jewelery making. I don't have a particular favourite style or colour, but I do like to dabble and try lots of different techniques and colour palettes. I'm often inspired by the world around me, perhaps the colour of the sky when I'm on my way to work, or even once, the weeds growing in the alley at the back of our offices. I think if you look hard enough, you can find something beautiful in most environments.


By day, I manage a mental health charity, which can be very rewarding, but is also very stressful, as there is never enough funding, and always more people needing help and support. Crafting provides a wonderful escape from the stresses of life, and I think it's really good for your mental health. I'm more of a lark than an owl, and every morning, I try to have an hour in my craft room before I go to work. When I'm not in my craft room or at work, I'm often out walking my two dogs, (a labrador and a bordercollie/lurcher cross), who are both real livewires and love to take me for long walks.


Thanks Claire, it was great to get to know you a bit better.

As a final bit of inspiration for you this week, I have created a quick card, combining several stamp sets, and some scraps of pretty paper. You can read all about it on my blog. This month's colour scheme was perfect for this rainy card.

We will be back next week with a brand new challenge, but we hope to see more entries from you in the meantime. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge 27, Week Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We hope that you are enjoying the current challenge and the inspiration provided by the Design Team. For those of you visiting the blog for the first time, do check out the information on the blog, especially the tabs at the top of the page, where you should be able to find the answers to all of your questions. Here is the colour swatch for this month's challenge:

You can find a link to the current challenge here, where you can add your entries at the end of the post. This week, we have some more inspiration from the Design Team. Julie has created a soft panelled background, whch she has then cut into smaller strips to create a much larger card. The floral design matches her main flower so well:

Dominike's cool cat card uses a fabulous Halloween image set against a lovely trellis style background:

Magda has created a stylish card using a modern floral image, and harlequin background stamp:

Anne's sea themed project combines a delightful sea horse image as the focal point, and a super ammonite stencil for her background:

Anne has very kindly written a tutorial for her card so that you can have a go at creating this card for yourself.

Anne writes:
Good morning, I am loving the sea-themed colours this month, and am looking forward to seeing all your Challenge entries. I hope that you like my Fragile Seahorse x

Materials:
Stamp sets: Underwater, Mail Art Minis
12cm x 21cm white card blank, 11cm x 20 cm watercolour card
Ink spritzers: pale blue, mid blue with mica, opaque white
Versamark inkpad
Blueberry embossing powder
Sea themed or textured stencil (I used a large fossil)
Alcohol marker: dark blue
Fine-tipped marker: opaque white
Glitter pen: mid blue

Instructions:

The card was spritzed with water and the blue inks. The stencil was immediately laid on top and the card left to dry naturally. The inks get 'pulled' under the surface of the stencil by capillary action, (so you get a negative image).
The card was then spritzed with white ink, the seahorse and sentient stamped and embossed with blue powder, coloured with glitter and white pens.
The panel and card were then edged with the blue marker to frame the image.

Thanks so much Anne for your tutorial.

We hope that the projects we have shown you this week will inspire you to join in with the challenge yourselves. We will be back next week with another post, and some more projects for you. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send us a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.