Floral Canvas Projects

Hello everyone, I have a couple of projects to share featuring the beautiful individual flower stamps that we brought to you on the TV shows last month on Hochanda.

Both projects were demos from the show, but the first project was designed to be finished in two ways, depending on how the sales of the items on the shows were going. Little did Lesley and I know that everything would sell out like crazy on that first show!

I decided to separate the word clouds from the flower images on my stamps, making it easier for me to create a lot of my projects, and I just cut them apart very carefully with some sharp scissors. I then slot them back together whenever I want to, jigsaw fashion, to create something with the design as a whole. If you are worried about doing this yourselves, you can simply use masking tape to cover the areas that you do not want to use, ink your stamp, then peel the masking tape away before stamping each time.

I stamped the words over a piece of tissue paper, and glued this to a small canvas with matte medium. Once the canvas was dry, I added some watered down acrylic paint in green and orange tones. I stamped the Floral Delight image onto a whiteboard heart, masking it and adding some paint in the same colours as I had used on the canvas. I coloured the flower image with pencils, and added a single word to the heart to finish. This was the version that was seen on the show.

For the alternate version, I stamped the flower image onto a spare piece of card and coloured it with pencils as before. I stamped the word onto a die cut rectangle and added these to a canvas.

My second project was all about colour matching. I chose a pretty piece of patterned paper by Crafty Individuals, and stuck it to a postcard sized whiteboard piece. Looking at the paper, I could see that it was made up of mainly blue and lilac with hints of green and orange. I painted a larger piece of greyboard with lilac and blue acrylic paint to match the paper, adding hints of green and orange around the edges. I added some harlequin stencilling to match the patterned paper, before stamping the words from the main image across the background using first and second generation stamping. I used grey ink for a softer effect than black ink would have given.

I stamped the Wish Flower onto the postcard piece, and coloured it with woodless pencils, toning the colours to match the background paper.

I hope that you have enjoyed the projects that I have shared with you today, and will give them a try for yourselves. You could make a simpler version as a card, or take elements from my designs for your own projects. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Meditation Canvas

Hello everyone, something a bit different from me today. I have been interested in the artwork of Tamara Laporte for a long time, and have seen other people trying her online classes and enjoying following her tuition and particular style of drawing. I bought a fabulous book that she has published a little while back: Create Your Life Book, which incorporates several projects from the past few years of her Life Book classes. One of the projects caught my eye, as it incorporated a yoga figure meditating. Those of you that know me will know that I attend yoga classes regularly, and find them to be very helpful, both physically and mentally. My instructor is a lovely person, very caring and supportive. She is far more than a teacher, and has become a real friend since I have known her.

I wanted to make a canvas very much along the lines of the project in the book, it seemed very apt to give as a gift to my yoga instructor for her many kindnesses. I had not created anything in this style before, and so I followed the process fairly carefully. There were several times along the way that I wished I was using watercolour paper instead of a canvas, but I did stick to my guns, and it has worked out okay in the end. I hope that I will improve the moreof these that I create, but hopefully, it's not bad for a first attempt!

I started out by drawing the central figure, and adding some colour. Once I had got the basic colour added, I then stuck some scraps of paper to the background.

I added some blocks of colour over the background, and added more detail to the main image, including some chakra symbols.

I added deeper colour to the background.

At this point, I loved the background, but the instructions in the book were telling me to knock it back with some gesso, and I did as I was told!

I added some little doodles and phrases, along with gold dots across the background for a bit of sparkle. I will add a few close up shots for some of the detail:

I know that this project is by no means perfect; my pens hated the surface of the canvas. I would have much preferred the smooth surface of HOT pressed watercolour paper. I need to improve my drawing skills, but practice will help with that. I have really enjoyed this process, and it has been enormous fun. I have had the chance to dig out lots of my unused supplies for this projects, and it has been great to work with these beautiful colours on a gift for my lovely friend. She has now received the canvas, so I can share my post.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Have you got Fifteen Minutes?

Hello everyone, it's time for our monthly Fifteen Minute blog post over on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog.  The post endeavours to share quick and easy ideas for creating cards and projects that can be completed in fifteen minutes or less. These projects are great for new stampers who could be put off by more complicated projects that look too difficult for them to attempt. The projects may also be useful for people looking for batch card ideas for Christmas cards, wedding invitations, or craft fair stalls, etc. There is no limit to how many cards you can make with Chocolate Baroque stamps, so these ideas are perfect for multiple projects.


I have made three quick cards for you, showcasing the lovely new stamps and colouring pages that were featured on the January Hochanda TV shows. You might have caught a quick demo that I did with a couple of these cards on those very busy shows. If you blinked, you might have missed it though! For my first card, I created a gelli print background using a round gelli plate, I used Distress Inks in blue and green shades, brayering the colour onto the gelli plate. I pressed a piece of bubble wrap onto the plate before taking a print with a white card blank. I really like the pattern that the bubble wrap creates, and it tied in with the bird image, which has lots of hand drawn circles incorporated into the image. I then stamped the Bird of Joy, minus the word cloud onto the background. I added one of the words from the Floral Delight image, by masking everything else off before I inked the word, using low tack masking tape. I removed the tape, and then stamped the word. I have actually cut my words away from my images, because it makes it easier to use the words separately from the images, but by using the masking tape to cover the other areas up, you do not need to do this. I coloured the image and added some coordinating pearls to finish.

To create my second card,  I stamped the Medici Flower onto some pretty Crafty Individuals patterned paper, and coloured the image with the woodless pencils. I then matted the background onto black card:

For my last card, I created an acrylic block background, simply adding colour to an acrylic block with Distress inkpads, spritzing the block with water, and swiping it over the background. I added a piece of colouring page, trimmed from a completed page. I have lots of the page left over to create plenty more cards like this. I then simply added a sentiment to finish the card.

Once you have coloured several of your colouring pages, it is great to be able to turn them into other projects, Cutting them down into tags, cards or adding them to mixed media projects means that they will be appreciated, rather than stuck in a folder somewhere. You might remember the card and tag that I made using the earlier set of colouring pages that Sue designed. You can see them in this blog post.

The Design Team have created some lovely projects on the Design Team blog for this month's Fifteen Minute post, do check out  what they have been up to by visiting the blog. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Book of Flowers

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today showcasing all of the beautiful stamps featured in the Chocolate Baroque Anniversary TV shows in January on Hochanda. I hope you managed to catch the shows, they seemed to go in a flash, and Lesley and I were overwhelmed by your enthusiasm for all of the products that we brought to share with you!

My project is a concertina book, made with two pieces of whiteboard for the covers, which I have covered with some lovely patterned paper by Crafty Individuals. I stamped one of the images, minus the words onto the cover, and coloured it with the Koh I Noor woodless pencils that we also featured on the show. I chose to cut my stamps apart, separating the word clouds from the images, which made creating this project much easier. When I wanted to stamp the words and images together, I just placed them back together on the acrylic block, slotting them together like jigsaw pieces. You could just use masking tape to mask the words off, ink the images and peel the tape away before stamping if you wanted to as an alternative.

I created some pages for the book using smooth watercolour paper, but cartridge paper would work equally as well. Each page measures 10.5 cms x 14 cms, and I allowed an extra panel to join the sections together each time. Cut your strips of paper, score and fold them, and decorate as you like. I decorated the back of the pages using Distress Oxide Ink, and stamped the words from several of the images on top, creating a tone on tone effect.

On each page front, I stamped a different flower image, and coloured these with Distress Inks and a water brush, keeping to a common colour theme throughout.

As I assembled the book, I added some ribbon before adhering the pages to the covers, which allowed the book to be tied shut with a bow. This was such a fun project to make, and would be a lovely keepsake for someone special.

Thanks for stopping by, xx