Challenge Thirty-Five, End of an Era

Hello everyone, it is with great sadness that we are announcing that this will be our very last challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Sadly, we have reached a decision that we are not able to provide an ongoing commitment to the challenge for various reasons, and after almost three years, it is time to close the doors on the Challenge Blog. We hope that you have had fun with us along the way, and that you will enjoy this last month with us, as we bring you five weeks packed full of colourful inspiration, tips and techniques, and one last chance to win a £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque.

We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Thirty Four next week, and if you entered the challenge, do be sure to check out the post 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. 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 currently available from the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps and images, but they will not be eligible for the prize. All entries 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 blogs.

We have a beautiful photo and colour swatch for you this month, and we will be sharing lots of stunning inspiration from the Design Team over the coming weeks. Here is this month's colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 20th June 2017, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 28th June 2017. Here are some projects from the Design Team.

We have a very pretty card from Asha, featuring mirror stamping:

Magda has created a watery background, and added just a touch of sparkle to her floral image:

Zoe has used white embossing to show off the lovely flowers on her card against a beautiful background:

Thank you girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something yourselves for this final challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message, details are at the very end of this post; below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy the new challenge, and look forward to seeing your projects,

Judith xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge 34, Week Four

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Challenge Thirty-Four on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you so much for your visits and comments throughout the month, we really appreciate your support. We hope that you have been enjoying the current challenge. There is still plenty of time to enter, and be in with a chance of winning a £15 voucher to spend at Chocolate Baroque. You can find all of the details, and add your entries in this post.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the fabulous entries that we have received for the Challenge so far.

Celia's pretty fairy card incorporates a scene built up using several stamps, dimensional flowers, and a handmade background:

Debbie has entered twice this month, returning from a break, and she has given us two fabulous entries. The first, is a steampunk based card incorporating a beautiful peacock, and oriental flowers. She has created a beautiful layered background:

Her second card is a fabulous watery creation, with lots of detail, again mixing a bit of steampunk into the design. This time, the teal colour is strongest amongst the challenge colours:

Annie has created a lovely vibrant card, set against a dramatic dark background, to show off the btight colours:

Carole has demonstrated how to use a Christmas image in a non-seasonal way for her softly coloured card. The image has been stamped onto a wooden heart, and set against a pretty floral background.

Another Christmas image has been used by Kate, and again been used as so that it can be given at any time of the year. By masking off a small section of the image, it becomes multi-purpose.

Leanne has cleverly used water to bleach away colour from the image, and her background to create a beautiful project. She has mixed stamps from several sets to produce this lovely, dreamy card:

Finally, one of Sandra's entries for this month, is a stunning tag. She has used lace pressed onto her gelli plate to create a patterned background, and used the challenge colours to create a fabulous graduated effect around the edges of her tag.

We have more inspiration from the Design Team for you this week.

Claire has created a page in her journal, she has used a mixture of Christmas images to create a delightful scene:

Magda's project is a quirky steampunk card, mixing stamps and stencils. A great detail is the way the stencil spreads over the top layer onto the card itself.

We have a floral offering from Vronnie this month; a beautiful Brusho background, and stunning blue roses.

 Finally, I have made a card using some long unused stamps, Distress Inks, and water based markers. I have created a sunset sky for a bird silhouette stamp, and added a lovely motivational saying, just right for sending words of encouragement to someone. You can see full details on my blog.

We will be back next week with a brand new challenge, but we hope to see lots more entries from you in the meantime. If you have any questions, but 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.

Challenge 34, Week Two, Winner's Week

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. This week, we are announcing the winners of Challenge Thirty-Three. The winer of the £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Aussie Annie, whose project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Annie, 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.

The Top Three this month have been chosen by the Design Team, who have had a tough time as always choosing from all of your fabulous entries.  This month, as is the case sometimes, we had a tied vote, and we have a Top Four. The Top Four in no particular order are:

Magic Flying Boots:

Leanne:

Shelagh:

Sandra:

Congratulations ladies, you can display the Top Three badge on your blogs. 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 join in with the current challenge. You can find the details here.

We have some more inspiration from the Design Team to share with you this week:

Vronnie has created a beautiful card, using Katya as her focal image, and a fabulous washed background:

Asha's pretty card incorporates a real vibrant pop of colour in those red flowers.The stitched border, and coloured matting are lovely details:

Magda has added lots of clever details to her card; repeat stamping of the focal image to create a background, and fabulous texture to her main background:

Finally Anne's card is really dramatic, the bold colours all work so well together, set against a kraft background. The turquoise elements cleverly draw the eye around the card:

We hope that these projects will inspire you to create something yourselves and to join in with the challenge.

We will be back in a couple of weeks at the end of the current challenge with more Design Team inspiration, and a look at some of your artwork. Until then, we look forward to seeing lots more entries from you. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge Thirty-Four

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for all of your lovely comments throughout the month, we really appreciate your visits to the blog, and love reading what you have to say. We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Thirty-Three next week and if you entered the challenge, do be sure to check out the post 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 currently available from the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps and images, but they will not be eligible for the prize. All entries 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 blogs.

We have a bright and cheery new colour swatch for you this month, and we will be sharing some fabulous inspiration from the Design Team over the coming weeks. Here is this month's colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 16th May 2017, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 24th May 2017. Here are some projects from the Design Team:

Our first project is from Zoe, she has created a background using Distress Inks, using some layering and embossing, with a fussy cut key to complete the card.

The second projects is by Magda, a fabulous ATC, incorporating flowers and harlequins, a great combination.

Julie's background was created by using grated pieces of colour blocks, and adding water. The mini mandala stamps over the top really add to the swirling effect.

Finally, Marga's beautiful blended background creates a lovely backdrop for the large focal flower. Notice the crackle element too:

Thank you girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something yourselves for the challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message, details are at the very end of this post; below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy the new challenge, and we look forward to seeing your projects,

Judith xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge 33, Week Five

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Challenge Thirty-Three on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Thank you for your lovely comments throughout the month, we really appreciate your visits to the blog, and your continued support.

This week, we are taking a look at some of the entries that we have received for the current challenge, and showcasing them on the blog. We hope that you enjoy the selection that we have chosen to share with you.

The first card comes from Sandra, a very pretty card utilising images from the Wild Meadow stamp set, to create a scene, with added inked mountains and a sun behind:

The second card is a lovely dimensional card created by Shelagh, incorporating a fabulous butterfly and leaves created using watercolour paper:

Celia's journal page is our next entry, showcasing some of our Spring themed stamps. She has created a delicate background and then made a focal panel for the bird image, surrounded by flowers to give more dimension:

Kate has created a very clean and simple style card for one of her entries this month. The simple pastel background is all that is required to complement the floral panel, and the softer tones are still perfect for this colour challenge:

Finally, Janny's quirky card using images from the Steampunk Birds stamp set is perfect for this time of year, when we are thinking of Easter cards. The cockerel reminds me of my own chickens when we kept birds in the garden, he is such a great image:

We have some more inspiration from the Design Team to share with you this week. Vronnie has created a super Easter card using some of our newest stamps:

Marga has created a delightful floral card, adding some texture stamps into the background to create added dimension to her one-layered card:

Zoe has used the beautiful Fritillary stamp for her project, adding a few scattered sequins to the soft background:

Thank you girls for your inspiration as always, and we hope that the designs will inspire you to create something yourselves for the challenge.

We have had some fabulous entries from you this month and hope that you have enjoyed using the colours in the current colour swatch.  Thank you to everyone else who took part in the challenge this month, there is still plenty of time to enter before the deadline next week. You can find a link in this post, where you can add your entry.

If you have any questions regarding the challenges, 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.

Challenge 33, Week Two

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. This week, we are announcing our winners of Challenge Thirty-Two. The winner of the £15 prize to spend at Chocolate Baroque is Leanne H., whose project was drawn by Random.org as the overall winner. Congratulations Leanne, 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.

The Top Three this month have been chosen by the Design Team, who have had a tough decision choosing from such a fabulous selection of entries. The Top Three in no particular order are:

Annie:

Autumn:

Celia:

Congratulations ladies, you can display the Top Three badge on your blogs. 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 join in with the current challenge. You can find the details here. 

We have some more inspiration from the Design Team to share with you this week:

Anne has created a beautiful card featuring a tropical bird and some pretty die cut flowers:

Magda's music themed card is perfectly complemented by the background stencil:

Julie's romantic card, full of hearts and focal butterfly, is finished off with pretty glittery details:

We hope that these projects will inspire you to create something yourselves and to join in with the challenge.

We will be back in three weeks' time at the end of the current challenge with more Design Team inspiration, and a look at some of your artwork. Until then, we look forward to seeing lots more entries from you. If you have any questions, and cannot find the answers on the blog pages, please send a private message using the contact form located at the very end of this post; you will see it after the comments section.

Challenge Thirty-Three

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. Hopefully after last month, you will be accustomed to our leaner look blog, with just three posts a month. We will be posting twice at the beginning of each month to announce the new challenge, and the following week to share who has won the previous challenge, then again right at the end of each challenge to review some of your wonderful entries into the current challenge. It has been a hard decision to cut back the number of blog posts, but unfortunately, it has been so time-consuming preparing weekly blog posts, we hope that you will understand why we have made the cut backs. We will still have some fabulous inspiration from the Design Team in each of our blog posts, and hope that you will keep up with us on Facebook as well. Thank you as always for your support and comments on the blog each month, we really appreciate your visits.

We will be announcing the winner of Challenge Thirty-Two next week, and if you entered the challenge, do be sure to check out the post 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 currently availalable from the website. We welcome entries incorporating other stamps and images, but they will not be eligible for the prize. All entries 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 blogs.

We have a fabulous new colour swatch for you this month, and we will be sharing some stunning inspiration from the Design Team over the coming weeks. Here is this month's colour swatch for the new challenge:

The challenge will close at 12.00 p.m. on Tuesday 18th April 2017, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday 26th April 2017. Here are some projects from the Design Team:

Asha has created a pretty floral card, her flowers are set against a glowing background and are coloured beautifully.

Anne's lovely card incorporates the gorgeous Big Bold Background, which marries perfectly with the Rose Stem Script image.

Claire has used one of the Pink Pig journals to create her project, and used it with the rings at the top, allowing her to have the book standing open as a decorative piece of artwork. She plans to create several projects in the journal and change the open page regularly.

Magda's softly coloured card has been created with Pan Pastels. The delicate background creates a lovely backdrop for the vibrant crocuses.

Finally, Vronnie's delightful scenic card incorporates a mixture of Spring-themed stamps.

Thank you girls for your inspiration using the new challenge colours. We hope that they will inspire you to create something yourselves for the challenge. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the challenge blog team. You can get in touch by sending a private message, details are at the end of this post, below the comments section.

We hope that you enjoy the new challenge and look forward to seeing your projects,

Judith xx

An InLinkz Link-up