Chocolate Class

On Saturday, I taught a class at Stamp & Scrap Trap. I came up with 2 CHOCOLATEY projects! I have a collection of chocolate stamps and wanted to share my love with the ladies at the store. :) It was a full house with 14 stampers and as always, everyone was so sweet!

The first project is a chocolate book. It is made with chipboard coasters and contains 5 card stock pages. 3 are decorated with a chocolate sentiment and light embellishments and 2 are adorned with a pocket which holds a Ghiradelli chocolate square. It is bound together with the Bind It All machine! I LOVE that thing. If you don't have yours yet... WHY NOT? :)

The box is a custom box I created. It holds 4 Ghiradelli chocolate squares in it. The box was inspired by my eight year old, Madeline who made me a cute box last week with some supplies she got in an American girl "tear up" book. LOL She gave it to me in the morning before school and by the time she got home, I had my class sample finished (several prototypes later). I showed her as soon as she got home and she exclaimed, "MOMMY, I INSPIRED YOU!" It was SO sweet!

Here is the Ghiradelli chocolate box. The top uses a "box flap" closure. The ribbon and "tag" slide on to add a little flair to the box! BTW, the "Approved" stamp came from EBay, so I cannot share a source for it.

Here is the box, open. Each Ghiradelli chocolate square was decorated with a different chocolate sentiment!

Here is page 3 of the chocolate book. See the chocolate chip head I added to the "How Sweet It Is" MFT set! I mean... really... aren't we chocolate heads? LOL I LOVE chocolate so I definitely fall in this category!

This is page 4 of the chocolate book. Notice on the back side of all the pages, I stamped random chocolate chips in Versamark. On this page, I used a strip of patterned paper to create the pocket and added a sentiment to the pocket.

Ghiradelli box directions:

• Cut card stock to 5 ½ X 5 ½”
• Score on all sides at 1 ¾”
• Cut along ONE score mark on each side creating 4 flaps
• Cut patterned paper to nest inside each square panel of box (4 pieces of 1 7/8 X 1 ½”
• Adhere them to the side panels of the box. They will not center perfectly. Simply make sure that the pieces of patterned paper are centered left to right, and then leave the same sized border at the bottom (directly next to the center square).
• Punch 4, 2” circles (blue smooth Marvy punch) out of a solid paper that coordinates with your patterned paper. Fold each circle in half and use bone folder to crease well. Apply adhesive on one half of the circle and adhere the 4 circles to the 4 sides of the box.
• Apply adhesive to all 4 flaps and assemble box.
• Stamp 4 chocolate sentiments on card stock. Punch out with 1 3/8” square punch (or trim with paper trimmer). Mat sentiment on brown card stock. Punch 4 patterned paper pieces using the PINK Marvy scalloped square. Stack all pieces together and then adhere to top of Ghiradelli chocolate square. I taped the flaps of the wrapper to the back of the chocolate square wrapper so it would fit perfectly in the box. After all chocolate squares are prepared, slide them into the box and close the flaps of the box in a “crossing” pattern.
• Tie a ribbon around the box and adhere a tag or label to the ribbon.

More ideas for you:

• Choose a theme and build a book around it! Tea (use tea bags in pockets), coffee (use powdered creamer of individual coffee packets for pockets), candy (choose candy that is flat and will fit in pockets like sweet tart packages, pop rocks ETC), cupcakes, cake, sweets, kids (pictures in pockets), family (pictures or mementos in pockets) etc.
• Create a book without pockets and include inspirational sentiments, funny sentiments, or heartfelt messages to the recipient!
• Include CLEAR pages in your books.