Chocolate Quente 2014! Part 2 of 3

I was invited to stay a couple more days in Porto. Usually as soon as we finish this events we are off to the airport but I was given the opportunity to visit properly Porto.

The blue and white tiles, the cafes, the shops, the food... I loved it all!

El Bolhao Market is a proper market. From literally live stock (on the right) to flowers, bread, carpets and more.

It is not only Spanish people who like to have a siesta - can you spot the bakery lady? - or leave a candle to the Virgin Mary.

I loved the streets of Porto. Small and narrow, large and imperial...

Squares, churches beautiful buildings, including the Imperal McDonald's!

Porto is just beautiful and charming.

The we went to 512 ideas, Patricia's shop.

 It is full of loveliness.

From embellishments to fabric to everything!

But the reason why we went there is that unbeknown to me, Patricia had organised a surprise patchwork workshop. You see mondays its their patchwork workshop, but as the Chocolate Quente event was  the day before it had been canceled. Then I said over the two days that I wanted to learn how sew this year, and Patricia organised the surprised workshop for me and the regulars.
It almost made me cry of joy! How thoughtful! And on the right you can see the bag I made, well we - as in Patricia and I - made because I could have never made it on my own.
After we went for dinner with the patchwork girls.  I adore portuguese crafters!

(Part 3 and last of the trip coming soon...)

Chocolate Quente 2014! Part 1 of 3

I finally get round to edit the 500+ photos I took from my trip to Porto - Portugal - to teach at Chocolate Quente, one of the best scrapbooking events in Europe. It is organised by the fabulous Patricia Villa-Boas. I was one of the tutors among the fabulous Teresa Collins, Beth Kingston, Jeff Filimoehala from Graphic 45 , and Patricia Villa-Boas herself. To be honest, I felt a bit out of place alongside those great talents! 

I arrived late the friday afternoon, greeted by a non-portuguese type of weather, but I still fell in love immediately with the beautiful city of Porto. We visited churches and the Palacio da Bolsa.

Spending time with Teresa, Beth, Jeff and Joao Pedro (Patricias husband) was fabulous and the hot chocolate was amazing!

The next morning we started the workshops. On the left you can see the project I taught using Basic Grey Indian Market papers and stickers.

The last class of the first day. Almost all spanish ladies! I loved all five groups they were all fantastic!

There was some shopping to be done...

Including Sizzix dies...

And I stole a few minutes from Manoli Picatua - a fellow paper crafter tutor from Spain - to captured this photos.

As I did with Nuno Raposeiro and Toñy Hernandez. I love happy faces!

Filipe, Patricia's son, took this photo of me while I was taking the photos. Yes, I was that happy!

And the official photos of the five tutors!

This says it all!

More posts to follow...

Pure Heaven

So I like chocolate, a lot. Like a lot! Not sure what it is but I love it. Yesterday, I went to Harrods with Dawn and JJ after she had done the QVC show. And of course the chocolate hall of Harrods is brilliant, it has all the pertinent chocolatiers: Prestat -uk manufacturer of my favorite choc bar, Choxi-, La maison du Chocolat -good french one- and my favourite Belgiam one outside of Belgium, Neuhaus. And yes, I did get an small box which I am savouring right now!
Tomorrow I have a full day of workshops at The Glitter Pot doing die cutting and embossing, Fun!
Will post one or two photos after the class.

For the real chocoholic

So last week I showed you how I used the little wraps. Well, now it is time for the large one. I buy chocolate in large quantities, little bars are only all right for the handbag.
This one holds a real size chocolate bar, so I used one of the pages of the Craftwork Cards 8 x 8 album which is already cut in the same shape as the little wraps. This one I made for Leonie Pujol, who really makes life sweeter as she is a true sweetie.

Wraps to wrap

My love for the Craftwork Cards Wraps is well established in this blog. But I had never use them before to actually wrap something else than card, which can be done in amazing ways as seen in Julie's blog. By the way, Julie Hickey is the person behind the wraps, she came up with the idea and designed them, not only she is a great friend but also a card making genius.

So, I wanted to give some friends a little sweet present so I made two chocolate wraps, one for her and one for him. Since his birthday was recently, I used an old stamp with the Happy Belated Birthday on, and since there was no apparent reason for hers, I decided to go for the Just Because.

The white foiled papers are also from Craftwork cards, the flowers are Prima.

New chocolate love

I do love chocolate, dark, rich chocolate. That is a fact well established between my friends and family. By the way, Mars bars and that sort of stuff does NOT qualify as chocolate in my books.

The first requirement is that it should be 70% Cocoa Solids minimum. Then, it should glossy and that cracks nicely, as a non glossy one will be too dry and rough or not smooth enough, and the clean cracking noise means that is fresh and cold (as opposed to warm cause if it is warm it loses some of its taste and texture).

Lindt 70% has been a firm favorite of mine for a very long time. In fact it was the first 70% minimum that I came in contact all those years ago in Mallorca. But lately I found the supply that I have found in supermarkets around where I live has lacked the freshness, texture and even the flavor I have became accustomed to.

So, I have trying different ones. A colleague of my husband got me this one from Paris. To die for. Really. That good. But to go to Paris just for the chocolate...that is a bit too much even for a crazy chocolate lover like myself.
I tried Montezuma and Hotel Chocolat. The first one is good, but not enough, the texture is not very refined. Hotel Chocolat has a fabulous chocolate line called The Purist, its 75% Tanzanian is very good but, you can not buy in its own anymore.

But today with my grocery delivery I had a nice surprise. A lovely little box, nicely designed that looked like this:


OK, the photo is not mine - I would had never put that blue ribbon nor the bright pink fabric in the background!- I am sucker for good graphic design, put anything with a nicely designed wrapper and I will buy it, so as soon as I saw it in the freebie bag I wanted to tasted but, before I eat anything, specially chocolate, I always read the contains. I do not have any dangerous food allergies, however I am very picky as the list of flavors I do not like is a very long one. So, I soon saw the 63% minimum cocoa solids. A bit disappointed, that is below my minimum requierements of 70%.

I hear you saying, all that long write up for this?

Well, not quite. While I was doing some design work on the computer I felt chocolaty, in need of a chocolate taste. And beside me there was Choxi+. I tried a small piece first. Then a second soon followed, and a third was needed to make sure that first and second impressions were accurate. It is actually it is a brilliant chocolate. Glossiness, tick; nice crack noise, tick. Rich flavour, smooth texture.

The best? I am not sure, but certainly the marketing doesn't harm as it says that cotains up to three times the level of antioxidants. With a 10gr piece, you are sorted for the day. I will try to stick to this, I think I prefer this to the five a day! -provably you are meant to do both.

So here it is: to the little happiness that chocolate, good, extremely good chocolate brings us!