I have been having some fun! No, I haven’t been doing my Christmas decorating like many of you (but I did gather up some inspiration photos for those of you who are decorating already, you can find it here). I really wanted to get my holiday stuff out, but instead of getting my boxes down from the attic my husband decided to clean out the garage. What? He hasn’t cleaned the garage in about four years! Sigh. Oh well. You must take advantage of their motivation to organize, so I guess we will postpone decorating day. I didn’t want to go in the attic alone, you never know what critters might be in there.
Meanwhile, I found a nifty gadget via my new friend Pam from Housemartin blog and soon to be shop Ink & Peat. It is a color palette generator. And I thought some of you might enjoy it too. I’ll do a little demonstration in a minute.
I have also been wanting to share some really beautiful nature photos with you all from another new friend Paula at Neutral Dwelling. Do pay her a visit sometime and tell her how beautiful her photos are, she is a very sweet person and has a great blog, too! I had mentioned at one point that I really needed to get some fungi on my blog, because if you are really hip (which I am not so much) you like fungi in decorating. I didn’t want to be left out of the fungi group. I have learned about fungi decorating from my other friend Vanessa. She always has the best fungi. Anyways, Paula came to the fungi rescue and sent me these beautiful photos to share! So, now, I too have fungi. Thanks Paula! I’m so hip!
I think these photos are beautiful, nature is always so inspiring. Selecting colors from nature can be a great way to choose a color palette. God did such a nice job with His colors, no? We can learn a lot by studying how color works in nature.
For those of you ready to choose a color scheme for a room, website, or are wanting to try something new with your holiday colors, you can use a color generator tool to help in the sometimes daunting process. You just plug in the url of any photo you love and it will give you a complementary color palette. From there you could choose room colors, fabrics, or even holiday decorations that would be inspired by your favorite photo.
To tie in the fungi, just for fun, let’s use it as a basis for a color palette. To demonstrate, check this out! You’ll have to go to the color generator website to try it for yourself, but here is my attempt. If I loved fungi, I could plug in the following photo and voila, a color palette emerges (actually two, one is dull and one is more vibrant). That way you can have rooms that are inspired by things you love!
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Isn’t that cool? It is just plain fun. Here are some other internet sites that are helpful to use in choosing color schemes, understanding the psychology of color, emotion associated with color, and other interesting paint and color tidbits.
Colourlovers.com was really fun. They had some beautiful bird photos people had submitted and made color schemes for. Check this one out:
I believe this bird photo is also part of a flickr set from Dailyville
Isn’t that bird gorgeous? There were tons of color schemes made from birds. They were just stunning to look at. I love birds. And fungi. All the cool stuff God made.Fungi photos used by permission. Copyright Neutral Dwelling.
Mother Nature knows what she’s doing!!
The Palates you share are beautiful!
Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving Melissa!
Constance
That is pretty cool, I will have to try it sometime to get out of my rut. And who knew fungi were cool, must have had my head buried, oh wait a minute, if that were so I probably would have seen the fungi and known they were in style. LOL
Janet
Amazing! What a fun toy, I can’t wait to give it a try!
Melissa, this was a fun post! I am going to check out the color generator website and the others. That bird is gorgeous!
Penny
Thank you so much for sharing! This is such a unique and truly inspiring post! seriously…fungi?LOL…
But yes, God’s creation has the best color combinations!! truly fabulous my dear!
What a darling bird. Yes, I tried one of those colour generator sites once but was annoyed because I could not save or print the colors. Then I figured out how to do a screen save and print, and now will have to go back and try it again. Thanks for the reminder!
xo T.
Hi Melissa, thanks for the info on the colour generator sites, will definitely be checking that out, our new Nest is a blank canvas! Love the bird, how sweet are they?? We could look at this one all day, it would make a beautiful background wall paper on the monitor! Jenn and Jacqui
Very cool! Thanks for sharing these sites. I agree with you, mother nature is a perfect role model. In fact, I have only just posted about this very thing in my blog too! Hope you didn’t find anymore little critters hiding out anywhere?! lol
Amanda (aka Cottage Contessa)
Ooh it’s fab-I love little gadgets like that! Isn’t the blue bird stunning!! Hope you are having a lovely Sunday!xx
Oh my gosh!!! I llllooooove those colors!
Love the fungi. I have a fungi screen saver:)
Thanks for your inspiration!
Martha
How fun! That bird’s color is gorgeous.
Nan
Oh, that bird is just amazing… I choose those colors! LOL! Thanks for the links… they are incredibly helpful.. even for web design! … I may just have the new color scheme for my next web project! :)
Wicked cool! I’ll be playing with that today for certain.
Thanks, Melissa!
Oh now THAT is FUN! And those nature pics are simply gorgeous!
Such beautiful and inspiring colours in nature, and nice photos too. Brightens the dark days.
Hello Melissa,
I just came back in town from the holiday and was pleased to see that the fungi photos were used so beautifully in your post! Glad they came in handy. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!
Oh I love your Fungi!!! I am so glad your friend sent you those!! And that bouquet of Fungi! LOVE!!!! Isn’t fungi just miraculous???
Soooo, this bird here. WOW! oh I want that bird! I know greedy me!!!
The color palettes are just dreamy!!!!!! xxo
What a terrific color palette!
And the bird’s color is so beautiful…
Priscilla
Aren’t the color palette generators fun? If you don’t have access to Photoshop, these programs are certainly a great way to boil down a picture to it’s essence. pic2color.com is another fun one.
Oh, he is a pretty blue bird! Now what is this about fungi decorating? I have never heard that one…you’ll have to tell us more. I thought I was well-read in decorating trends, but this one must have slipped by me, LOL.
xo,
Rhoda
Melissa, you and your ideas continue to amaze me. What a fun post. Now that I know about the color generator website, I can use this to help customers who have seen a photo they love in a magazine or on a website but are struggling to translate the color scheme in “real time” on their walls and into their fabric choices. Voila!
Here’s a secret: I’m technically colorblind, at least according to the little flip book you have to look through during the screening in the optometrist’s office. I can put outfits together just fine, thank you very much (though I have been accused of some interesting color pairings from time to time), but there are certain shades I can’t see the same way other people can. One thing I *do* see very well, though, is color tones. So I think when I put an outfit or a room or even a display in my shop together, I think and see tonally rather than in terms of “matchy-matchy.” I love those interesting color pairings! Thanks for a fun way to cap off a weekend. (It just struck me how funny that last sentence would seem to someone whose primary passion was, say, football ;)).
Oh Melissa… such beautiful colors!! I am such a fan of blue… blue and cream … blue and white… blue and silver…
How nice of you to take the time to write such an inspiring article about color
PS… I added you to my blog list too
HUGS
Wow- God’s palette is always perfectly unbeatable! What a great tool (and some great fungi as well!!)
blessings,
kari & kijsa
This is such a great post!
I have to admit I have lots of colors going on in my house. I guess I collect too many different things in too many colors! lol
This is awesome:-) You bet nature is the best inspiration:-)
This was very interesting. Must come back and read more later on. Hope you’re having a good day.
Love Elzie
That is so amazing! Now I can just pick my fabric and let the website pick the paint colors for me. Picking colors is something I absolutely torture myself over. It’s a good thing my husband does my painting for me!
Great post, Melissa! I love the colors of the bird!
Pat
I’ll have to give that a try, seems like a fun and interesting thing since picking color is such a torture for me!
Thanks for all the Christmas mantle photos – I’m really stuck this year cause I don’t feel like doing a garland and lots of stuff. I’m going to keep it simple and a few of those photos were just the inspiration I needed.
You’re the best!
xo,
Manuela
Oh, I love these colors! I love color in general but this is fabulous!
What a beautiful bird – just gorgeous! Thank you for sharing..
xo,
Kim
Woah…that IS cool! I’ve got to try it!
oh yum! Nature is definitely inspiring! You’ve got lots of pretty things on this blog to look at, yay!
I’ve been obsessed with interiors lately….trying to redo parts of my apartment, and you’ve got too many inspiring pics here! Thanks for sharing.
very cool. Finding unique color palettes is always fun! Thanks for the links.
Dear melissa – thanks so much for this post – I had heard about this feature/gizzmo colour thingy but wasnt xactly0 sure 0what0 it0 00 – sorry – son pressing 000 as he sits on my knee patiently waiting for me to finish typing so that we can, get this, – watch thechurch
bulletin on line!!!
Hugs!! FX
Melissa – I’m back!! – & he’s off playing – anyway – I saw a website that use this it’s called Kris colour stripes color-stripes.blogspot.com/ – it is beautiful!
Also – just had a look at your website – the orange/red bedroom with the padded headboard you designed is beautiful
Wonderful ideas for choosing colors . I love the pictures and the palettes of the mushrooms
So neat! I love God’s creativity. Nature is so inspiring. I linked to this post and your sweet escape Christmas post on my blog.
i depend upon these color tools for the magazine and for my designs…the bird is wondrous…blessings, rebecca
Love those colors! Adding you to my favorite links! Denise
Oh, wow, this is AWESOME! Felicity over at All Things Bright and Beautiful sent me over to help me with my blog colors conundrum, and I am sooo glad she did! :D