About

Welcome to the world of Chocolate Baroque!

If you already know us and are calling by to browse the latest additions to the Chocolate Baroque range, then welcome back and feel free to have a good look around. If this is your first visit and you want to know a little more about us and what we do, then read on...

OK, so who are you?

Chocolate Baroque is a small independent art and craft company, based in the historic market town of Barnard Castle in County Durham in the North-East of England, run by husband and wife team, Glenda and Adrian Waterworth.

We design and manufacture our own range of natural rubber art stamps as well as a range of paper-craft CDs that provide background paper designs, frames, tags and other artistic elements for you to print out and use in your greetings cards, scrapbook pages and other mixed media artwork. We also design digital art for you to download and use in your own art and craft projects.

As well as our own products, we also sell a select range of other art and craft materials – particularly things that complement our own ranges or things that we love and find inspiring ourselves.The art and craft industry being what it is, we're always on the lookout for new and interesting products, so things around here will be staying pretty fresh. You may also sometimes find "limited edition" or "pre-order only" items on our website, where we either make a product available for a limited time or only order items into stock if there is sufficient demand for a particular product that we wouldn't normally carry.

I like your products, so how do I order from you?

In general, the best way to place orders is through this website – our online shopping facility is based on a well-established, industry standard ecommerce platform and we accept most major credit and debit cards through our secure payment gateway. For general queries or questions about the progress of your order, you can email us – we check our mailboxes regularly and try to respond to all emails as soon as we receive them.

However, if you don't have access to the 'Net, never fear, you can still contact us by phone – although please bear in mind that we only have a very limited number of lines and are run by a very small team, so it might take a while to field calls if we're busy!

Do you ship worldwide?

In principle, we can ship to anywhere in the world, however there are some regions and countries that are very expensive to reach and there are other parts of the world that have problems with shipments regularly going missing or being stolen in transit.

Obviously we ship items throughout the UK and, generally speaking, we have never encountered any major problems with shipments to anywhere in Western Europe, North America (USA and Canada), Australia or New Zealand. Any of those regions are available as online shipping destinations on the website. For other countries or regions, we recommend that you contact us via email in the first instance so that we can work out whether it will be possible to ship to you and how much it might cost.

Do you offer free shipping?

We do offer free shipping on orders over £25 (£15 for Guild members) within most of the UK mainland (basically, just about anywhere in Britain except Northern Ireland , the Isle of Man or certain areas in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland). For smaller orders, we try to keep shipping charges as low as possible, although some items may incur a surcharge if they are particularly awkward or expensive to ship. Unfortunately, we can't offer free shipping on overseas orders; however we will always try to find the best value way of getting your order to you as quickly as possible. Some very bulky or heavy items may have a shipping surcharge added.

Are Chocolate Baroque products available elsewhere?

Yes – our stamps and paper-craft CDs are available through other retailers, both online and regular "bricks and mortar" art and craft shops and stores.If you own or manage a craft shop or art store and are interested in retailing our products, you can contact us via email or by phone to find out about our full range, our pricing and how we can help you be a successful Chocolate Baroque stockist.

Do you have a design team?

Yes, we have a small and dedicated design team who help us to produce inspirational merchandising and marketing materials for our stamps and CDs. The Chocolate Baroque design team has its own blog at chocolatebaroque.blogspot.com where you can see pictures of some of the beautiful artwork that our talented crew produces.

Membership of the design team is juried and any vacancies and details of the application process to become a member will be announced on the design team blog.

Are your designs copyrighted?

Yes, most of our stamp, CD and downloadable designs are original artwork produced by our own in-house designers and copyright on all those designs remains with us. However, we are an angel company, so you are free to sell items that you have made using our products, so long as the item is hand-crafted by you rather than just being copied or reproduced from our original.We will pursue violations of our copyright to the full extent of the law; however, if you are interested in commercial licensing of our designs, you can always just contact us for details and pricing. We're not unreasonable people!

Do you have a physical shop or storefront?

We are based out of commercial premises, however this is in an industrial unit rather than a normal shop and we don't have the space or staff to provide any kind of onsite store or factory shop at the moment.

Do you offer classes or workshops?

We don't have the space to run workshops or open days at our premises, but we are looking into the possibility of hiring another local venue for classes, etc. We may also be hitting the road at times, bringing Chocolate Baroque demo days and workshops to your local stockist.

Do you attend art and craft retail shows or stamp conventions?

We are still trying to work out the details of the UK show circuit and whether we will be able to put in a personal appearance at some of the regular show venues. However, even if we're not there in person, we hope that you'll be able to get your fix of Chocolate Baroque stamps and CDs from any of our stockists who regularly attend shows.We don't currently have any plans to attend shows or conventions in other countries, although the US and Canada are top of our "wanna be there" list and we are going to investigate the possibility of putting in guest appearances with some of our US and Canadian stockists.

I keep hearing or reading about "Graphicus", "Elusive Images" or "Artylicious" – what's the connection?

Prior to setting up Chocolate Baroque, we ran a similar (but larger and more diverse) art and craft company called Graphicus, which manufactured stamps under the Elusive Images brand name and CDs under the Artylicious brand. Sadly, Graphicus was forced to close in 2010 and Chocolate Baroque is our new venture, focussing more closely on our own products and designs. Our existing CDs and some of our older stamps may still appear under the Elusive Images or Artylicious names, since we do hold some existing stock of these items in their original packaging. However, new products will all be appearing under the Chocolate Baroque name.

Chocolate Bar-what?

Yes, we know what you mean, but there is a good reason for the name.When we were starting out, we pondered for a while and considered coming up with a name with Stamps or Craft or Crafting in it, which would have been nice and descriptive, clear and obvious – but also a bit boring. In fact, we thought it would be really boring. I mean, yes, it's great from the point of view of describing what you do, but it really didn't float our boat.We wanted something that sounded rich and velvety, maybe even a little decadent and indulgent; something that had a nice feel when you said it and that would roll trippingly off the tongue and suggest all the myriad delights of colour and design; something interesting, different and noticeable. It took a while. Lots of different ideas were thrown into the mix, most of them involving the combination of a colour and another word – animal, vegetable and mineral all went into the pot, along with abstract ideas and assorted funny stuff. Peacocks, butterflies and even starfish were involved at various points along the way. Then we watched a programme on TV about Baroque art (which was a great programme, by the way) and we thought "That's the kind of word – and it also reflects a little something of our own approach to art and design!" All we needed then was a colour, but we just couldn't go with a simple one, oh no, we needed something a bit different. We wanted something that suggested a colour, but had a rich and indulgent quality with a nice mouth-feel. Hang on, that sounds like the way that they sometimes describe...chocolate!So Chocolate Baroque was born. It's interesting, it's tasty, it's elegant and it's a delightful indulgence that can lift your spirits and make you smile. It's also the only chocolate that can do all of that with no calories. What's not to like?

Last updated February 2011