CHOCOLATE INSPIRATION!

My best friend gave me, for my Birthday,  the most devine box of chocolates I think I have ever been given in the whole of my life!

They were a visual pleasure, when opening the box for the very first time…. Oh, that delicious scent of fresh rich chocolate made me feel quite giddy with delight!  Now, normally I would go ploughing  head first  into chocolates… offer them to the family to devour them fairly quickly.  However, some thing held me back, I think it was because I knew (for me)  this box of deliciousness was telling me to savour more than  just the taste of them… I needed to really look at them for their beauty.  It was actually about  a whole week  (that is a long time for a chocolate fiend to have an open box of chocolates in the house!) before the first one was eaten…   And boy… were they wonderful!

They came from   “…and Chocolate…” a very special little chocolate shop in Howarth, West Yorkshire.  Please go and have a   look at http://www.andchocolate.co.uk/   to see all about the shop, and beautiful, yummy chocolate,  from boxes, bars, individual choc’s to the fabulous, fun looking chocolate pizza!!

If you love chocolate, or want to give chocolate for St Valentine’s Day  to your loved one (0r any other special occasion)  you won’t find   a more delicious treat, than from “….and Chocolate…. “of Howarth…. trust me!

This is the box!   There were some really unusual flavours, for example,  last one on the second row had weeny flakes of chilli  which zapped you in the back of the mouth with heaps of flavour, then sent a whizz of chocolate-chilli right thru to your boots!

Then there was my all time favourite (and I bagged both!) top row, second chocolate, was rich caramel/toffee with a crunchy sprinkle of salt…. oh yes… devine!

I am still buzzing about my chocolates.  Before even one had been eaten I took photo’s of them, I had  a mixture of sadness and pleasure when we were tucking into them greedily,  as I didn’t like  seeing the empty spaces.   I wanted to capture the memory of this box so decided that I would re-created them (ish!) in fabric!

This is what I came up with…  yes, these are made from fabric, beads, gems and embellishments.

When my friend came around for coffee, I showed her what I had been making.  I think she was quite taken with them.  I explained that I had planned to pop them for sale in my etsy shop   just in case there was “someone” out there who needed a box of fabric chocolates… well… there might be!  She asked if she could be my first customer as she wanted to give them to Sara from “…and Chocolate…”  Naturally I was delighted!  My first sale!

She picked out which ones she wanted from the  proto-types that I had made, found a nice little box and off she went.

Since then I have been busy with my chocolate idea, have made a batch more.  Looking through my stash of crafting goodies for nice little tasty bits and bobs,  sourcing little packets and pots of cute beads.    I  have spent hours and hours perfecting what I consider is a good “look” for a fabric chocolate.  I’m so excited, that I have infected my sister,  she has been looking out for embellishments for chocolates too…. she’s  my biggest fan, thinks I am a bit bonkers… but knows exactly how I tick! I love her!

If you “need” some chocolates of your own, please have a look at my ETSY shop where I have them for sale…

Here is a taste of what my “Wren Chocolates”  look like…

If you have a favourite choccy, or want a special selection, PLEASE feel free to get in touch as I would be more than delighted to have a go at a special order for you.    My ETSY SHOP is called THE SEWING WREN…

Thank you very much Alison for my Birthday present and  “…and Chocolate…”  for the inspiration for my choc’s!

TOP 10 FACTS ABOUT CHOCOLATE

1. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, there are about 40 beans contained in each pod.

2. One cocoa tree produces about 50 pods twice a year. Each pod has enough cocoa for about 8 bars of milk chocolate, or 4 bars of plain. Each tree gives between 400 t0 800 bars of chocolate a year.

3. The Ivory Coast  produces more cocoa than any other country in the world 37% of the worlds total.

4. Ghana, just under 21% and Indonesia at almost 14%.

5. Research published in 2012 showed a high correlation between a nations chocolate intake and the number of Nobel Prize wins.

6. Mayans and Aztecs originally used chocolate as a cold drink made from crushed cocoa beans.

7. The word ‘chocolate’ was first recorded in English in 1604, though England’s first cup was not brewed until 1647.

8. 200 years later J.S. Fry of Bristol invented the chocolate bar.

9. The British spend an average of just over £1 a week on chocolate.

10. The word chocolatier (makers of sellers of chocolate) is an anagram of Hitler’s cocoa.

These facts were taken from THE EXPRESS news paper… for more details go to http://www.chocolateweek.co.uk

Thanks for popping by,

Bye for now  Jay X

Please leave me a comment, just skip past the email bit, hope to hear from you soon, thanks!

My extra little snippet for you…

A bolt of lightening is powerful enough to toast 160,000 pieces of bread… true!

Fact by Soo