June: A Month of Colour
all photo masks in this post by Rhonna Farrer.
And now it all becomes crystal clear: welcome to June and a month of colour here at shimelle.com. Over the next thirty days, you’ll find challenges, projects, tutorials and articles all about colour. The projects cover a range of crafts and home topics, with pretty much everything coming back to a scrapbook focus in one way or another. Most exciting of all, there are some very special guests who will be sharing their ideas here, and I can’t wait for you to see what they’ve come up with. I hope you will join in too!
The jar of pencils and a few other colouriffic images will become pretty symbolic over the next few weeks, and today I wonder if asked to pick just one colour from this tin of pencils, which colour would you choose?
As a little girl, I always chose the red crayon. It was the only crayon in my box that would be so short you couldn’t see it when you opened the box. If I used the sharpener on the back of the box, any other colours became streaked with red, since that was usually the only colour that needed to be sharpened. And I know I learned to write the word ‘red’ before I learned to write my name — I copied it off the label. I only remember because I then wrote it in every colour in the box and a grown-up looked and said it was confusing to write a colour in so many…colours.
Out of crayons and a little older, my favourite colour changed. I discovered green, which had far more depth to its shades and didn’t seem to become an entirely new colour like how red turns to rose and then to pink as it gets lighter. Green is always green, whether light in spring or dark in winter pines. Maybe because of that early love of red, I thought green was a strange choice for a favourite colour, and I kept it to myself for a great number of years. One day it came up in conversation while choosing decorating colours for a school event and it turned out all three of us in the conversation had a love for green, and we all tended to keep it to ourselves. Over the next four years there were many suggestions that we our school change its official colours from purple and gold to purple and green, and at one point there were even swatches bandied about to show how the combination could work, even if it sounded repulsive. Of course the school colours never changed, but to this day I will add green to any purple-based colour combination…and rarely gold.
Somewhere in those first years of being out on one’s own, it seemed I was basing all my accessories on various shades of black, black and black. Hopefully I didn’t overdo it for too long — the combination of black clothes, pale skin and dark hair did make a few people surprised that I left the house during daylight hours. To be honest, the motivation behind this lack of variety in colour was entirely practical: it had to do with doing my own laundry and shopping on a student budget. For several years, I got by with a weekly load of black washing and saved all the other colours up for a trip to the laundrette once a month or so…and I can’t remember any incidents of accidentally turning my laundry red or grey or any of those other things that are supposed to happen when you start doing your own laundry. Soon the all-black phase passed, but I never really had any intention of giving up black classics, so I still value a black dress, black tights, black shoes and black eyeliner. And if I fail to add some colour to all off that, I find The Boy will comment on how easy it was to forget he married Emily Strange.
If you ask others to guess my favourite colour, I think most people would say pink. And I love pink. In my house, on my pages, in my hair — definitely all about the pink. But pink has a special status as my second-favourite colour of all time. Throughout all my phases of loving other colours of the spectrum, my second favourite choice has always been some shade of pink. (Strangely, I have the same system for films. My second-favourite film of all time has been the same since about 1993. The number one spot and all the other spots move around, but second-favourite is second-favourite: the perfect stalwart answer to any tough situation.) I am thankful that pink doesn’t seem to mind the lack of the top spot, and I’m pretty sure that second-favourite position will be hers for years to come.
So through all the phases, which colour will I say if you ask me for my favourite? It turns out my teenage self had it right: my absolute favourite colour from way back then right up to now is green. Not every shade, but quite a few. I got enough neon green in my childhood to shy away from that now…but lime is just fine. And I completely overdosed on preppy hunter green in the 90s, when I even owned hunter green denim jeans. But all other greens are pretty much fabulous in my book. If I could only own one colour of cardstock, it would be Bazzill’s parakeet green. Not at all practical, as surely white would be more adaptable, but parakeet has my heart. I buy it fifty sheets at a time and have to replenish more than once a year. I have parakeet coloured shoes…parakeet coloured cardigans…and let us not count how many parakeet coloured handbags.
Your first challenge in this month of colour? Celebrate your favourite colour. We did something similar in the first week of Scrap Like You Mean It this year atUK Scrappers. Except then the challenge was just to scrap with your favourite colour. This time, scrap about your favourite colour. Or colours! Why be decisive when you can include a dozen?! I started asking people this question a few days ago and it appears to be something many people don’t think about after childhood…but I reckon crafty types are different. So let’s see a little love for your favourite colour.
How you might complete the challenge…
…a traditional or digital scrapbook page
…a minibook of your favourite colours
…a photograph of you wearing or surrounded by your favourite colours
…a carefully arranged portrait of your crayon box
…a blog post telling the story of your favourite colour
or any other idea that comes into your head!
To help get you started, you can download a free set of ‘my favourite colour’ photo overlays by clicking here. [PC users, try this download if the first option gives you trouble.] The download includes four .png files: my favourite colour and my favorite color in both black and white. The files are formatted for a 4×6 landscape photo, but you can move them around to fit any photo you like. (If you’ve never added an image over your photo, click here for a tutorial.)
There’s more to come later today: I’m telling you, this month of colour may change things around here! See you then.
xlovesx
Want to help spread the word about this month-long project? Add one of these logos to your blog or message board signature.
A Month of Colour logos: small medium large signature bar
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Read more about: colour free-digital-downloads
Next post: Scrapbook your favourite colour
Previous post: Last clue...
1 June 2009, 03:55
Yay! Thanks very much for this. I’m just starting to get into colour a bit more myself, so this is perfect for me. I think it’s the sunshine – always cheers me up.
1 June 2009, 03:57
I also love green – the shade between chartreuse and lime is my favorite. Oh and I also have a soft spot for salmon pink.
1 June 2009, 04:02
Love colour – especially earthy colours. Looking forward to this.
1 June 2009, 04:04
Thanks Shimelle. This is going to be such colourful fun!
1 June 2009, 06:43
Yay – this looks exciting! Definately also a fan of the green – in fact I’m wearing a green dress right now, and yesterday I was wearing… a different green dress! Also loving turquoise right now.
What’s your second favourite film?!
1 June 2009, 06:51
Fuschia pink is the colour I naturally go for when faced with a choice of.. well, anything! Not a fan of green, but I make one exception for lime, which I absolutely love! And thanks for the link to the tutorial – that is something that’s been baffling me for some time now. :-)
1 June 2009, 07:41
oh i am so very excited about this… woot!
1 June 2009, 08:56
Sounds like fun
Thanks for the box of goodies which arrived this morning from your Twitter giveaway / room tidy.
1 June 2009, 09:48
yey.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizzyandflat/3584838035/in/photostream/
1 June 2009, 10:24
Awesome project, totally love color and I will be posting about it on my blog!
Thanks Shimelle!
1 June 2009, 11:13
Oh cool! This is going to be awesome (she says as she realises she’s wearing black and grey… and that’s what I’ve worn the last 3 days running…) I love color. I feel very much like running out to WHSmith and getting a shiny new box of crayons.
1 June 2009, 11:52
Love this series! Can’t wait to see more. I am inspired!
1 June 2009, 12:29
This looks like it is going to be great fun. Pink is my favourite scrapping colour, and black is my constant second-best colour. When it comes to favourite colour it chops and changes. Right now I am in to bright jewel colours.
1 June 2009, 12:30
excellant time for me to test out the bumper pack of crayola goodies i originally bought for my niece and nephew to play with…well thats wot i told the boss anyway lol
1 June 2009, 12:34
Sounds fab!! Very exciting!
1 June 2009, 12:34
This sounds awesome! Thanks for the challenge & the overlay!
1 June 2009, 13:03
I am unable to open the MAC OS X files on my PC. I think it has something to do with sharing files between Mac’s and PC’s and the additional stuff in the Mac download that confuses the PC. At least that’s all I could find out from the internet. You may have to do something different with the ZIP files for us non-Apple people,unless you know something I can do. I have other MAC OS X files that will not open but don’t care about them the way I care about these particular colour overlay files. I hope you can help.
Joan
1 June 2009, 13:11
Sounds like tonnes of fun. Will def play along. Shame I’m marking exams from Friday for the month, but there’s always July to play catch up x
1 June 2009, 13:14
Lovely idea! I will TRY to put something on my blog each day.
1 June 2009, 14:59
Green is defintely my favorite color, and have been wanting to scrap a page about it for years (eeek!).
1 June 2009, 15:23
This is going to be so much fun! I love colour – but what’s my favourite colour? Hmm, not really sure. I’ll have to think a bit harder about that before I start scrapping! Your pot of pencils reminded me of my colourful ribbon jars so for now, I have used your fab overlay on a photo of those. (By the way, I’m a PC user and had no problems extracting the PNGs from the zip file!) Thanks for sharing Shimelle!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32625951@N05/3586645148/in/set-72157619021537693
1 June 2009, 15:36
loveit loveit loveit loveit!
This is going to be so fab – i’m really excited!
Shimelle, can I ask where did you get your gorgeous photo overlays used above?
1 June 2009, 16:13
I had similar jeans too! Much prefer the “blue” jeans these days though! ;-)
1 June 2009, 16:25
YAY ! Shimelle is the BEST ! Thanks so much for the inspiration. Gorgeous photos, too.
1 June 2009, 18:05
Oh, I have not been here in a while and I have missed your great prompts! You inspired me just by reading this post! I will be following this closely this month ;) Thank you!
1 June 2009, 18:25
This sounds great fun, I just love colour, and I am a green fan too. Off to update my blog, and to try to add the logo. Will also try using the overlays, although that is all new to me.
Thanks Shimelle.
2 June 2009, 08:26
The Bazzill Parakeet Green is the BEST paper. It is the perfect green to use for every season or reason. Glad to see that someone else feels that way too.
2 June 2009, 10:35
I am a green fan too but is that because at the moment its a fashionable colour I think not its one colour that I keep coming back to. Can’t wait to get going with this. Thank you Shimelle xx
2 June 2009, 11:01
I’d pick a nice salmon-coral color from the colored pencil jar. And thanks for the download, Shimelle!
2 June 2009, 22:17
Pink has always been my favorite second color as well. Too funny :)
4 June 2009, 12:43
I had no problems picking my favourite colour (it is my favourite after all) but picking photos to scrap is becoming a challenge!
6 June 2009, 08:00
I actually painted my dining room and living room almost parakeet green! I love it, but it is an unusual color choice for those rooms. I’m not crazy about purple as a companion color in my decorating. What other colors do you like with it? I also own a parakeet handbag!
7 June 2009, 18:17
I’m enjoying this Month of Color so far. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and the sweet free wordart! Have a great week.
10 June 2009, 04:55
Only a bit behind :) Here’s my blog post
30 June 2009, 17:27
I loved the challenges I was able to take part in before the exam marking put a stop to my fun. Here’s what I did with the challenge on 1st June :)
http://rebekahthehappyscrapper.blogspot.com/2009/06/month-of-colour-and-mojo-returns.html
16 May 2011, 21:46
Thanks so much for your colour overlays & tutorials – both helpful
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