For those celebrating the 4th of July this weekend – Happy Holidays! Our challenge this time at Make it Colourful is to “Add reflections to water” and is so much easier than it sounds. Give it a try but you’re welcome to check back on the challenge site on Tuesday for a few tips.

This is my card and I merged three Make it Crafty images together: Pirate Ship, Palm Trees and Siren of Pearls. Even though it turned out well, I had lots of problems with my coloring – can you believe it?! I tried out a new paper and it was like coloring on dry chalks – just soaked up the ink with no room for blending.

The reflection in the water is done by adding blobs of color under the objects – like orange under the mermaid; and browns and dark blues under the boat and island; and green under the leaves. The way I colored the water made it easy to daub it in without much blending needed – good thing for me. ;D After that I added some white highlights back into the water with a white gel pen.

DT Challenge: Make it Colourful Challenge #25
Main Stamp: Pirate Ship, Palm Trees and Siren of Pearls (MiC)
Patterned Paper: le Cirque (Graphic45)
Chipboard: Flower Leaf Swirls (MiC)

I finally bought an old dictionary at a used bookstore so I could tear out pages for projects and used one on this one. I love the printed text, however, I hardly ever read what words I’ve pulled so hopefully any naughty words get hidden. LOL Anyway, here’s a close up of the Siren of Pearls – I love how bright her tail turned out next to that blue water.

Just a few reminders/announcements: Don’t forget about the fabulous challenges taking place to celebrate Make it Crafty’s first birthday!! You can check out those details HERE. Lastly, Tiddly Inks and Make it Crafty and coming out with a joint release so make sure to check out the details HERE. Have a great weekend and be safe!

Make it Crafty is celebrating their 1-year anniversary and to commemorate this even we’re having FIVE challenges over at Make it Colourful challenge blog! This post includes three samples to get you inspired plus all the details on the celebration events going on – you don’t want to miss it!

Like I said there are five challenges going on starting today and they last the whole month long during the celebration. The theme for those five challenges are as follows:

1. Merge as many images as you can
2. The most creative combination of images
3. Rubber stamps only
4. Chipboard Only (no image)
5. Colour using the MiC Logo colours – blue/mustard/yellow and brown

I chose to work on three out of the five categories… #2 most creative combo, #4 chipboard only and #5 MiC Logo colors … and pictures will be scattered sporadically through the post. The yellow and blue text is courtesy Zoe – thanks for sharing Zoe! ;D

Make it Colourful Challenge: Chipboard Only (no images)

Woohooo – The celebrations have begun at Make it Crafty!!! We are excited today to be sharing this celebration with Quixotic Paperie, who were the very first company to take on the Make it Crafty line of stamps, laser cut embellishments and now the Make it Colour blending card.

Make it Colourful Challenge: MiC Logo Colors

Quixotic Paperie are celebrating too! It has been their two year anniversary celebrations for the month of June! To celebrate we thought, rather than a blog hop we would set a CHALLENGE using Make it Crafty products!!

To get inspired, hop on over to the Make it Colourful challenge blog where you will see the amazing creations our fabulous DT’s have created for this event! PLUS find out all the details on how you can play along!

There are FIVE challenge categories and there will be FIVE GRAND WINNERS!

There will be random winners throughout the whole month. The numbers have been pre-selected and as soon as an entry is added that matches that number they WIN! Winners will be announced soon after entry on the sidebar of Make it Colourful.

Make it Colourful Challenge: Most Creative Combo
Sandcastle, A Time to Relax, Siren Lorelei and Butterfly Swirls chippies

Quixotic Paperie have a little something for you too!! Make sure you pop on over to HERE to enter your name for a chance at MORE Make it Crafty Goodies!!

Zoe, the owner of Make it Crafty has a super duper HUGE Candy give away – choc-a-block FULL of Make it Crafty goodies!! AND I have heard a whisper that she is planning on having random giveaways on her blog throughout the month of July! All you need to do is leave her some love as she’ll randomly be choosing people who have commented on her posts throughout the last year!!

You’ll also receive a set of steak knives when you… hahaa ONLY Joking BUT… for THREE DAYS ONLY you’ll be able to get 40% off Make it Crafty Digi Stamps when you enter the coupon code:

So I do hope you will celebrate with us this month and get into the Make it Crafty spirit of FUN!!

Welcome to another challenge at Make it Colourful where this week we have a woozy of a coloring challenge! LOL Now, that’s not to scare you away because it’s actually really simple once you understand… so stay with me! So what’s the challenge? Color Reflections! Muaha ha ha.

I have to admit, this is one of those cards that I took multiple pictures while in the process of coloring. I colored the images as normal and assembled my card until it was complete then took a picture of it “just in case” my next step didn’t work out. LOL It’s true! Then I added the reflecting colors on the images and retook the pictures of the newly finalized card. ;D

The color reflections can be seen all over the three sprites – it’s where one item “spills over” onto the other and actually does wonders to cover up mistakes if you color out of the lines. Here’s a comparison of the before and after shots where you can clearly see the added reflections all over these cute little tykes! Click on the picture for a larger view – the effect is subtle and mainly in the shadows of the images.

I’m not sure how I like the effect – on one hand the extra color adds a lot of depth to the image and brings the coloring closer to real life. In that aspect it looks gorgeous! However, on the other hand, the extra color is different and I brings down the “brightness” of the images. Of course, I was going for a dramatic effect to show the technique so perhaps there is a middle ground that would be perfect.

I wanted to really showcase these sprites, Cici, Fifi and Toto, so I kept the rest of the card and embellishments darker and more on the monochrome side. That way the colorful sprites really “pop” and grab the eye’s attention. Hope you like the card and have fun with the challenge – can’t wait to see!

DT Challenge: Make it Colourful – Challenge #23 (color cast/reflection)
Main Stamp: Cici, Fifi, Toto and Whimsical Mushroom (MiC)
Patterned Paper: Marjolaine (BG)
Chipboard: Filigree Jewels (MiC)

Copic Markers colored on Copy Paper:
-skin tone: E000, E00, E21, E11
-browns: E40, E41, E42, E43, E44, E47
-reds: R22, R24, R29, R59; R02, YR02, R05, R08, YR18, R29
-yellows: E50, E51, YR20, Y21, Y23
-greens: YG61, YG63, YG67, G99
-blues: BG000, B01, BG02, BG05; BG10, BG11, BG72, BG75, BG78
-pinks: R20, R21, R22
-grays: W4, W6, W8; T0, T1, T3, T5, T7, T9
-color reflections: E43; G40, G82; B41; BG11, BG72; R20, R21, R22; YR02; T0, T2, T4

Did you know? Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies. GRBs are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe and typically lasts 20–40 seconds. Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a neutron star or black hole. GRBs were first detected in 1967 by the Vela satellites, but it was not until 1997 that they were better understood, with the use of optical spectroscopy to detect the first X-ray and optical afterglows and to directly measure their redshifts.
[Gama-ray Burst, Wikipedia.org]