Wednesday 25 November 2015

Challenge 17, Week Two - time to announce our Winners!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. This week we are announcing the winner of Challenge Sixteen. The winner of our £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Barbara, whose card was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Barbara, we hope that you enjoy your prize.

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. Please email Lesley on lesley@chocolatebaroque.com so that she can organise your voucher.

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








Congratulations ladies, you can display the Top Three badge on your blog. 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 enter the current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have some more Design Team inspiration for you this week. Asha has made a beautiful Christmas card using one of the new individual Flowerhead stamps:

Julie has created a softly coloured romantic card using a ballon image from the Punky Hearts stamp set:
Thank you so much for your projects girls, we hope that they will inspire you to create something yourselves for the current challenge. 

We will be back next week with more projects from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing some entries from you. If you have any questions and cannot find the answers on the blog, please send us a private mesage using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section. 














Wednesday 18 November 2015

Challenge Seventeen

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you so much for your comments and support throughout the month, we really appreciate the time that you take to stop by, and love reading what you have to say.

We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Sixteen next week, so if you entered a project last month, please be sure to check the announcement 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 that are currently for sale on the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps, but they will not be eligible to win the prize. All entrants 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 blog.

Now onto this month's challenge:




The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 15th December 2015, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 23rd December 2015. Here are some inspirational projects from the Design Team for you:





Zoe:

Thank you so much girls for your inspiration. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending us a private message. Details are at the end of this blog post, below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy these lovely new challenge colours, really vibrant, with a touch of gold, perfect for Christmas projects, or suitable for cards all year round, as Debbie has shown. We look forward to seeing your projects for the challenge,












Wednesday 11 November 2015

Challenge 16, week Four

Hello everyone, welcome to our final week of Challenge Sixteen on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your support and lovely comments, we really appreciate reading what you have to say. We hope that you have been enjoying the challenge; there is still time to enter, and you can add your project to the link in this post.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the entries that we have received for the current challenge, and showcasing just a few of them on the blog. We have had some fabulous entries, and it is always difficult to choose from such a great selection. Here are a few projects that we would like to mention:

Val:




We have a free download from Lesley for you this week, a really great script background combined with fruit. It has a real Autumn feel to it. The Design Team have made some great inspirational projects as you will see. Please do not pass the image onto others, but send them back here to collect the freebie for themselves.

To obtain your free download, please click on the image below. Once you have enlarged the image on your screen, right click the image, choose the option 'Save As', and save the image to your computer. You can now print the image onto a variety of surfaces for your crafting projects.



The Design Team have been making some beautiful projects for your inspiration using the free download. Anne has made a beautiful card incorporating some of our newer bird stamps:


Claire has made a very pretty tag incorporating some of the Autumn fruit stamps that match the download so well:

Finally Florence has made a beautiful card using a globe artichoke stamp.

Thank you so much girls for your lovely projects. We would like to say a special thank you to Florence, as this is her last project for the challenge blog, as she is stepping down from the Design Team, as you may have read on the Design Team blog this week. We will miss Florence so much, as she has been a staunch supporter of the Design Team, and the Challenge Blog, and her colourful and unique projects have been such great inspiration.


We hope that the projects will inspire you to use Lesley's download paper to make something yourself. If you do make something using one of Lesley's downloads, why not upload a picture to our Facebook page? We would love to see what you have made.

We will be back next week with a brand new challenge, but hope to see lots more entries for the current challenge from you in the meantime. Don't forget if you have any questions, and you can't find the answers on the blog, 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.




Wednesday 4 November 2015

Challenge 16, Week Three

Hello everyone, 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, here is the inspirational photo and colour swatch that we are using for our current challenge:




You can find a link to the current challenge here.

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 that you like to create your projects; inks, paints, pens, pencils, etc., as long as you stick to the colours from the colour swatch in your project. We offer a monthly prize of £15 and the winner is drawn by Random.org from those entries that have used Chocolate Baroque stamps currently for sale on the website. We welcome entries from anyone however, and all entries will be considered by the DT members for a slot in the Top Three each month. You can find the rules on the 'How it Works' tab at the top of the page.

This week, we have more inspiration from the Design Team. Asha has made a beautiful floral Birthday card:



I have made a tag uaing one of our newest flowerhead stamps:
Anne has made a quirky scenic card, and very kindly written a tutorial for you to follow:




Materials:
Country Views stamp set
Sunburst Scenes stamp set
Mackintosh Sentiments stamp set
DL card blank (approx. 20.5cms x 10cms)
Printed sentiment from computer
White stamping card (suitable for alcohol ink colouring)

Alcohol ink pens: pale blues and greens, pink/purple, golden yellow and black
Memento inkpad: Tuxedo Black
Distress inkpad: Peeled Paint
Fine tipped marker- alcohol ink resistant (water based)
White gel pen
Clear crystal glitter glue
Blue PVA pearls
Adhesive and sticky foam pads

Instructions:
Stamp the scene with Memento Ink. Some of the foreground elements, such as the trees, will need to be stamped first, and masked, before stamping the images behind.
Use the black detail pen to draw and 'join up' the landscape. Colour with alcohol pens. Finish by adding highlights with the opaque white gel pen.
Trim to fit the card front and edge with Distress Ink, and finally black pen to create a frame.
Stamp the sentiment 'Just to Say' onto a die cut topper and glue on the printed sentiment. Edge with Distress Ink and the black marker. Stick to the card with foam pads.
Finish with a little glitter sparkle on the sun and roof tops, and PVA pearls on the sentiment plaque.

Anne writes, 'I enjoyed making this quirky landscape with the little house on a slant. Thought that it would be a nice card to send and bring a smile to a friend going through a difficult time. I hope that you like my project. I am looking forward to seeing your entries for the Challenge this month, Anne x'

Thanks so much Anne, and Asha, for your inspiration this month. We hope that that we have inspired you to join in the challenge yourselves and be in with a chance of winning the £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque. We will be back next week with another post and some more inspiration 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.