Challenge 35, Week Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We hope that you are enjoying the current challenge, which is sadly our final challenge. We have had some fabulous entries for the challenge so far, and there is still lots of time left for you to enter. You can add your entries to the link in this post.

We have some wonderful inspiration from the Design Team for you this week, two of our DT members have kindly provided written instructions for their projects so that you can have a go at making their projects if you wish. Firstly, Anne has created a magical card, featured on the recent One Day Special TV shows on Hochanda. This vibrant card, with its striking design would make a wonderful Birthday card for girls of all ages.

Materials:

Spring Fairy Collection, Fantasy Castles, and Magical Landscapes
8 inch square card blank, white stamping card and purple iridescent paper
Scrap copy paper to create masks
Large decorative circle mat cut from purple card and circle die to cut out image
Versafine Onyx Black Inkpad, StazOn Jet Black inkpad
Water based inks (purples)
Watercolour pencils (black, purples and greens)
Clear sparkle pen
Fine tipped marker pen (black) and alcohol marker (purple)
Stickles glitter glue (Star Dust)

How to Make It:

Stamp the fairies with Versafine, cut out and colour with pencils and a damp brush.
Stamp the wings with StazOn onto the iridescent paper, cut out and decoupage over the stamped fairies.
Stamp the castles and buildings onto copy paper and cut out. Arrange the elements to plan the scene, i.e. it needs to fit into the circle topper which will fit into the large decorative mat. Stamp the foreground image with Versafine and cover it with your paper mask before stamping the next image behind. Continue covering the foreground images and working towards the background elements.
When complete remove the masks and use a fine tipped marker to join up or draw extra elements where needed.
Colour with watercolour pencils and a damp brush. Overlay some areas with clear sparkle pen. I added extra intense colour with water based inks into the background to make the buildings 'pop'.
Edge the card blank with alcohol marker to frame. Layer and glue down all of the elements. I used 3D foam and glue gel for added depth.
Finish with touches of glitter glue for added sparkle.

Claire has created a stunning canvas, full of texture and  lovely details. This would make a beautiful decoration for your home.

Materials:

8"x8" canvas
Butterfly stencil
Just Butterflies stamp set
Shimmer sprays (shades of green and violet)
Texture paste
Brick effect stencil, Ledger stencil
Silver Gilding Wax
Pearls, diamante gems
Versamark Ink
White opaque embossing powder
Anti-static bag
Acylic Paint- Silver, Green metallic, purple metallic
Heat resistant acetate
Stickles, PVA glue, silicone glue

Instructions:

Begin by applying texture paste through the butterflies and dragonflies, leave to dry.
Once the texture paste is dry, add texture to the background by applying texture paste through the brick and ledger stencils. Try to avoid the butterflies, but if you do get texture paste on them, remove it with a baby wipe and leave to dry.

Spray the violet shimmer sprays generously in the centre of the canvas and the green shades around the edge. Use a baby wipe to blot any areas that look a little muddy and leave to dry.

Dust the stencilled butterflies with an anti-static bag and stamp the coordinating butterflies with Versamark. Emboss with white embossing powder.

Highlight the raised areas of the background by applying silver gilding wax.

Paint the edges of the canvas with silver acrylic paint and leave to dry.

Dust the acetate with an anti-static bag and stamp the butterflies with Versamark Ink. Emboss with white embossing powder. Loosely paint the butterflies on the reverse with green and purple acrylic paint and leave to dry for a few minutes.
Once the paint is dry, cut the butterflies out and glue on the gems with PVA glue. Smear a little Stickles here and there and leave to dry.
Fold the wings up at either side of the body and attach the butterflies to the canvas with silicone glue to give the wings some dimension. 

Thank you so much girls for your gorgeous projects. We hope that they will inspire you to join in with the challenge. We will be back next week with another post, and more projects from the Design Team. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send a message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge 35, Week Two- Winner's Week

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. This week, we are announcing the winners of Challenge Thirty-Four. The winner of the £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Sandra, whose project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratualtions Sandra, 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 entries. The Top Three in no particular order are:

Debbie:

Leanne:

Annie:

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 the current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have more inspiration from the Design Team to share with you this week:

Anne's pretty card has been created using vellum and white embossing, to give a parchment effect to her design. She has coloured the reverse of the image, to give a delicate touch to the flowers and leaves.

Vronnie has created a very pretty card using the large Butterfly image from the Patchwork Butterfly stamp set, and Soft Form Relief Paste. She has added hints of colour to the structure of the butterfly, and then adhered it to a fabulously vibrant background. Very dramatic!

I have made a card using gold embossing powder to stamp my images before masking them. I used Distress Inks to colour the background, then adding stamping with the Large Crackle Background, and extra shading.

We hope that these projects will inspire you to create something yourselves, and to join in with the challenge.

We will be back next week with more inspiration from the Design Team girls. Until then, we look forward to seeing some of your entries into our final challenge. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge Thirty-Five, End of an Era

Hello everyone, it is with great sadness that we are announcing that this will be our very last challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Sadly, we have reached a decision that we are not able to provide an ongoing commitment to the challenge for various reasons, and after almost three years, it is time to close the doors on the Challenge Blog. We hope that you have had fun with us along the way, and that you will enjoy this last month with us, as we bring you five weeks packed full of colourful inspiration, tips and techniques, and one last chance to win a £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque.

We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Thirty Four next week, and if you entered the challenge, do be sure to check out the 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. 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 beautiful photo and colour swatch for you this month, and we will be sharing lots of stunning inspiration from the Design Team over the coming weeks. Here is this month's colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 20th June 2017, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 28th June 2017. Here are some projects from the Design Team.

We have a very pretty card from Asha, featuring mirror stamping:

Magda has created a watery background, and added just a touch of sparkle to her floral image:

Zoe has used white embossing to show off the lovely flowers on her card against a beautiful background:

Thank you girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something yourselves for this final challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message, details are at the very 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 34, Week Four

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Challenge Thirty-Four on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you so much for your visits and comments throughout the month, we really appreciate your support. We hope that you have been enjoying the current challenge. There is still plenty of time to enter, and be in with a chance of winning a £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque. You can find all of the details, and add your entries in this post.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the fabulous entries that we have received for the Challenge so far.

Celia's pretty fairy card incorporates a scene built up using several stamps, dimensional flowers, and a handmade background:

Debbie has entered twice this month, returning from a break, and she has given us two fabulous entries. The first, is a steampunk based card incorporating a beautiful peacock, and oriental flowers. She has created a beautiful layered background:

Her second card is a fabulous watery creation, with lots of detail, again mixing a bit of steampunk into the design. This time, the teal colour is strongest amongst the challenge colours:

Annie has created a lovely vibrant card, set against a dramatic dark background, to show off the btight colours:

Carole has demonstrated how to use a Christmas image in a non-seasonal way for her softly coloured card. The image has been stamped onto a wooden heart, and set against a pretty floral background.

Another Christmas image has been used by Kate, and again been used as so that it can be given at any time of the year. By masking off a small section of the image, it becomes multi-purpose.

Leanne has cleverly used water to bleach away colour from the image, and her background to create a beautiful project. She has mixed stamps from several sets to produce this lovely, dreamy card:

Finally, one of Sandra's entries for this month, is a stunning tag. She has used lace pressed onto her gelli plate to create a patterned background, and used the challenge colours to create a fabulous graduated effect around the edges of her tag.

We have more inspiration from the Design Team for you this week.

Claire has created a page in her journal, she has used a mixture of Christmas images to create a delightful scene:

Magda's project is a quirky steampunk card, mixing stamps and stencils. A great detail is the way the stencil spreads over the top layer onto the card itself.

We have a floral offering from Vronnie this month; a beautiful Brusho background, and stunning blue roses.

 Finally, I have made a card using some long unused stamps, Distress Inks, and water based markers. I have created a sunset sky for a bird silhouette stamp, and added a lovely motivational saying, just right for sending words of encouragement to someone. You can see full details on my blog.

We will be back next week with a brand new challenge, but we hope to see lots more entries from you in the meantime. If you have any questions, but 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.