A New Year Wish

Hello everyone, it is hard to believe that another year has passed.I hope that you have all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the new year with optimism. I know that not all of you will have had someone to celebrate with, or are missing loved ones. I hope that you can enjoy the friendship that we offer at Chocolate Baroque through the blog, the Facebook Group, and the Ning Group. The groups are all very friendly, and if you sign up for Chocolate Baroque's weekly newsletter, you can find the links for each place in the newsletter. You can ask questions, pick up lots of tips, and find heaps of inspiration.

Personally, I have had a mixed year, but I always feel that a new year offers the possibility to try new crafting challenges, and to learn new skills. I always want to be able to do something else! My craft room is bulging as it is, but there is room for more, and I love to experiment with colour and texture. My two projects that I am sharing with you today are both very cheery, and will hopefully chase away the Winter blues. The first one is a scrapbook page that I made as a TV demo for the Hochanda shows last month, featuring Lesley's Designer Papers 8" x 8" - My Floral Soul, and the Movie Strip Collage stamp.

I started the project by stamping a fern from the Wild Meadow stamp set onto the background, using Versafine Clair ink. I added a sepia photograph of my parents, celebrating their golden Wedding Anniversary. I changed the photo to a sepia effect, because I wanted to use it for a different occasion. I stamped the flower image onto a spare piece of pale kraft card a couple of times, and coloured it using Koh-I-Noor paints. I decoupaged the image, and added it to the page. I made my own ticket, and stamped a sentiment from the Shared Beauty stamp set onto the centre. I added brown ink onto a couple of scrabble tiles, which are my Mum and Dad's initials and a bingo piece, to represent the number of years they have now been married, and also added those to the background.

These papers are lovely for scrapbook pages, they are the perfect size, and are great to add a bit of stamped detail if you wish. I added a piece of kraft card behind mine for extra stiffness.

My second project uses the same background paper , but in the plain version, to make a pretty card. I stamped the Be Kind image onto some book paper a couple of times, using Versamark and gold embossing powder. I added three different colours of Distress Ink for shading. I also stamped and embossed the image onto a piece of kraft card, and added the book page flower layers onto the kraft card script layer. I then adhered this panel to the decorative paper. I stamped the sentiment onto the background with a deep orange ink, which I then used to edge the paper. A kraft card mat finishes the card.

Thank you for your support in 2018, your visits to the blog, and your kind comments. Have a wonderful New Year, and I look forward to your visits in 2019.

Take care and best wishes, xxx

Wildflowers Through the Seasons

Hello everyone, I have a project to share with you today ustilising the fabulous Tagtastic stamp featured on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I wanted to show another use for this stamp, and paired it up with the Wild Meadow stamp set for my project.

I started by stamping the image on masking tissue several times, and cutting the image out. I then stamped the image onto my background using grey ink a couple of times, and then masked the images. I stamped the image again, masking those images, and continued, building up layers of the tag, until I had filled the page. I then added Fossilized Amber onto the background to fill in the 'blank' areas. I added different colours of Distress Inks to the tags, using reverse masking, and then stamped foliage into each tag using various colours of Versafine Clair Ink, while the reverse masks were in place. This meant that the foliage stalks did not overlap the edge of the tags.

I had great fun creating this card, and you could use the idea in a much smaller way for a tag or mixed media project.


I have a bonus project which I created more recently, as I needed to make a Christmas card for my lovely Hubby. I used one of Lesley's beautiful papers, one of the plain designs. I drew a circle in pencil, and added a few snowflakes, which I embossed using white embossing powder. I added a sentiment from the Let's Get Festive stamp set, and built the wreath using foliage from the Wild Meadow stamp set. I added a touch of shading used Seedless Preserves Distress Ink to make the snowflakes really pop.

I will be back later in the month with more ideas to share with you, but would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas. I hope that you can enjoy the day, whatever you are doing. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Flower Meadow

Hello everyone, it is time for the Fifteen Minute blog post over on the Design Team Blog today. I am sharing a card from that blog post here as well.


Lots of our projects feature Lesley's beautiful designer papers this month, and this card from myself uses one of the patterned papers from the collection. I have stamped foliage from the Wild Meadow stamp set using a variety of Versafine Clair inks, and then stamped the Floral Grunge flower onto the background, using a deep teal colour. I stamped the flower head onto one of the plain papers, and decoupaged it onto the main background. I also added a small butterfly paper pieced from a scrap of the same paper. The sentiment comes from the Be Kind stamp plate. I edged the paper with ink before adding it to a white card blank.

These papers are perfect for creating quick cards, whether you use the patterned, or the plain versions, they take surface stamping so well.

Do hop over to the Design Team blog and check out what my team mates have made. Thanks for stopping by, xx

Rainbow Tags

Hello everyone, I have a project to share today using some of the stamps and papers that we brought to you on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I wanted to use a little bit of everything in this project, and incorporate lots of colour to cheer up these gloomier days that we are having at the moment.

I started by stamping three of the Tagtastic tag shapes with Versamark, and covering them with white embossing powder. I also added three of the little tag 'hole' shapes onto the background of each tag, and then heat set everything. I stamped and embossed three of the flower designs, Shared Beauty, Floral Grunge, and Movie Strip Collage, and a little butterfly from the Wild Meadow stamp set onto some of the lovely papers designed by Lesley, and used the papers to help me decide on the colours that I used to colour each tag. I settled on three colours of Distress Ink for each tag.

Once the tags were coloured, I stamped the sentiments from the Shared Beauty stamp set over each tag in the same colours of Distress Ink. I cut the flowers and butterflies out of the papers, and adhered them to the tags, and then attached the tags to a tryptich made from corrugated card. Finally, I added some rainbow coloured ribbon to each tag.

Thanks for stopping by, xx