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