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Choosing A Color Palette

by | Nov 24, 2007 | Decorating Inspiration

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Choosing A Color Palette

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!

 

Choosing A Color Palette

Choosing A Color Palette

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!

Choosing A Color Palette
dull
Choosing A Color Palette #443333
Choosing A Color Palette #996666
Choosing A Color Palette #bbaa66
Choosing A Color Palette #ccccaa
Choosing A Color Palette #887788
vibrant
Choosing A Color Palette #553322
Choosing A Color Palette #cc4433
Choosing A Color Palette #eeaa11
Choosing A Color Palette #ffeeaa
Choosing A Color Palette #aa88aa

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.

www.colorschemer.com

www.behr.com

www.paintquality.com

www.colormatters.com

www.colourlovers.com

Colourlovers.com was really fun. They had some beautiful bird photos people had submitted and made color schemes for. Check this one out:

 

Choosing A Color Palette

Choosing A Color Palette

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.

41 Comments

  1. rochambeau

    Mother Nature knows what she’s doing!!
    The Palates you share are beautiful!

    Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving Melissa!

    Constance

    Reply
  2. janet

    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

    Reply
  3. Kathleen Grace

    Amazing! What a fun toy, I can’t wait to give it a try!

    Reply
  4. Penny, Mosaic Artist

    Melissa, this was a fun post! I am going to check out the color generator website and the others. That bird is gorgeous!
    Penny

    Reply
  5. Christine

    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!

    Reply
  6. Terri

    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.

    Reply
  7. Jenn and Jacqui

    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

    Reply
  8. Cottage Contessa

    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)

    Reply
  9. Sophiehoneysuckle

    Ooh it’s fab-I love little gadgets like that! Isn’t the blue bird stunning!! Hope you are having a lovely Sunday!xx

    Reply
  10. Martha

    Oh my gosh!!! I llllooooove those colors!

    Love the fungi. I have a fungi screen saver:)

    Thanks for your inspiration!

    Martha

    Reply
  11. Nan

    How fun! That bird’s color is gorgeous.
    Nan

    Reply
  12. Jennifer Froh

    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! :)

    Reply
  13. Vee

    Wicked cool! I’ll be playing with that today for certain.

    Thanks, Melissa!

    Reply
  14. Becca

    Oh now THAT is FUN! And those nature pics are simply gorgeous!

    Reply
  15. Barbara

    Such beautiful and inspiring colours in nature, and nice photos too. Brightens the dark days.

    Reply
  16. Neutral Dwelling

    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!!!

    Reply
  17. A Fanciful Twist

    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

    Reply
  18. Sweet Remembrance

    What a terrific color palette!
    And the bird’s color is so beautiful…
    Priscilla

    Reply
  19. Rachel

    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.

    Reply
  20. Rhoda

    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

    Reply
  21. Abby from The Blissful

    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 ;)).

    Reply
  22. JO

    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

    Reply
  23. kari & kijsa

    Wow- God’s palette is always perfectly unbeatable! What a great tool (and some great fungi as well!!)

    blessings,
    kari & kijsa

    Reply
  24. beachy

    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

    Reply
  25. Arch

    This is awesome:-) You bet nature is the best inspiration:-)

    Reply
  26. Elzie

    This was very interesting. Must come back and read more later on. Hope you’re having a good day.
    Love Elzie

    Reply
  27. Mrs. Jones

    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!

    Reply
  28. Pat

    Great post, Melissa! I love the colors of the bird!

    Pat

    Reply
  29. the feathered nest

    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

    Reply
  30. Jen

    Oh, I love these colors! I love color in general but this is fabulous!

    Reply
  31. Daisy Cottage

    What a beautiful bird – just gorgeous! Thank you for sharing..

    xo,
    Kim

    Reply
  32. rebekka

    Woah…that IS cool! I’ve got to try it!

    Reply
  33. chickengirl

    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.

    Reply
  34. All Things Bright and Beautiful..... Creativeflairchic

    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

    Reply
  35. All Things Bright and Beautiful..... Creativeflairchic

    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

    Reply
  36. Erin

    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.

    Reply
  37. Cre8Tiva

    i depend upon these color tools for the magazine and for my designs…the bird is wondrous…blessings, rebecca

    Reply
  38. Denise Schuler

    Love those colors! Adding you to my favorite links! Denise

    Reply
  39. Muralimanohar

    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

    Reply

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