Wednesday 25 May 2016

Challenge 23, 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 Twenty-Two. The winner of our £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Jane, whose project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Jane, 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.

Owing to the great difficulty that we had choosing a Top Three this month, we actually have a Top Four as chosen by the Design Team. There were some fabulous entries, and you made the decision really tough for us! The Top Four in no particular order are:

Sue:



Congratulaions 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 this page. Well done to everyone who entered, and we hope that you will enter our current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have some more Design Team inspiration to share with you this week.

I have made a card using some of the Design a Tree stamps to create a woodland scene, combined with a stencil and lots of different inkpads:
Julie has created a very pretty floral card using some of our Sunflower stamps. Her swirly background and pretty embellishment complete the card perfectly:
We hope that our projects will inspire you to create something and join in with the current challenge yourselves.

We will be back next week with another post and more projects from the Design Team, but until then, we look forward to seeing 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.



Wednesday 18 May 2016

Challenge Twenty Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your support throughout the month, we really appreciate your visits to the blog, and your wonderful comments, which we always enjoy reading.

We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Twenty Two next week, so if you entered the challenge 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 colour 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 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.

We have a lovely colour palette for you to play with this month, and some gorgeous 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 14th June 2016, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 22nd June 2016. Here are some projects for your inspiration from the Design Team:

Asha's funky floral card would brighten up anyone's day:
Magda has created a bold tag, using a stencil, and added an inspirational quote:
Claire has created a CAS card using a Zentangle style butterfly:
I have made a set of notelets with Brusho backgrounds, and white embossing:


Thank you so much girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will have you reaching for your own crafty stash to create something yourselves, and join in with 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 blog post below the comments section.

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



Wednesday 11 May 2016

Challenge 22, Week Four

Hello everyone, and welcome to our final week of Challenge Twenty-Two on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your support and lovely comments throughout the month, we really enjoy reading what you have to say. We hope that you have been enjoying the challenge, and the inspiration provided by the DT this month. There is still plenty of time to enter, and you can add your projects to the link in this post.

This week, we are taking a look at a few of the entries that we have received for the current challenge, and showcasing them on the blog.

Penny's love of steampunk has taken a citrus twist this month, as she has co-ordinated with the spicy challenge colours:
Janny has opted for a Mackintosh themed card for her entry:
Sue's lovely background is a great backdrop for the lovely tulip image:
Lesley's pretty Brusho and bleach card showcases some great techniques:
We have a free download from Lesley this week, a stunning design that will be useful for both masculine and feminine cards alike. 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 computer 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.  Claire has created a three dimensional scene, combining parts of the background and lots of stamping.

Anne has also used a combination of stamping and the fabulous background to make her clever card:




Thank you so much girls for your lovely projects. We hope that they will inspire you to use Lesley's download paper to make something yourself. If you do make something using one of Lesley's downloads, please share it with us by uploading it to our Facebook page, we would love to see what you create.

We will be back next week with a brand new challenge, but hope to see lots more entries for the current challenge in the meantime. Don't forget, 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.









Wednesday 4 May 2016

Challenge 22, Week Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. We hope that you are enjoying our current challenge, and the inspiration provided by the Design Team. For those of you who are visiting the blog for the first time, here is the inspirational photo and colour swatch that we are using for the current challenge:

You can find a link to the current challenge here.

This week we have more inspiration from the Design Team. I have made a Spring themed card, using one of our lovely bird stamp plates, combined with an image from the Autumn Poppy stamp plate.
Anne has made a beautiful card using the large fern stamp from the Wild Meadow stamp set.
She has very kindly written a tutorial for her card:

Materials:

Stamp sets: Wild Meadow, Words of Inspiration
5" x 5" card blank suitable for stamping and inking
Distress Inks: Carved Pumpkin, Mustard Seed, Crushed Olive, Mowed Lawn
CutNDry Foam
SunBurst Stencil

Step by Step:

Using CutNDry Foam, blend Distress Inks straight onto the card, using Carved Pumpkin at the top, blending into Mustard Seed, then Crushed Olive at the base. Dry with a heat gun.
Place the stencil over the card and sponge through gently with water. Lift the ink by patting with tissue. Dry.
TIP: Do this quickly and do not rub the card as the fibres may start to break up.
Stamp the ferns and sentiment with Mowed Lawn Distress Ink. Stamp the ferns quickly, inking the stamp and stamping two or three times in succession, (i.e. without re-inking), to get the more faded ferns in the background. Repeat until you are happy with the arrangement.

Thanks so much Anne for your super card and great tutorial. We hope that you will be inspired by these projects and will join in 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 he comments section.