Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Playing with colour - but without the mess!

I am quite scared of colour. I prefer pastels, and creams ... and rarely do I use bright colours - and when I do, I can only really handle one strong colour at a time then I spend time calming the colour down by accenting it with softer tones. 

This colour matching process is unavoidable for any crafter/designer ...  mixing and pairing, playing and seeing what colours work well with eachother.

With many crafts, it can get messy! Personally I spend hours scattering all my supplies out - and then dismally I have to spend hours getting everything back into it's rightful place.

On many occasions I have had all my beads scattered around on the table, in groups of combinations to see what colour combinations work, with groans of dismay from the hubster about how beads get "everywhere" (he does have a point) ....  this is the start of each project, this messiness will never stop, but it is easier if I know what direction i'm going in before I start to drag every bead out of it's box.

Quite a while ago - I stumbled across a great website ... http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr
This website allows you to select colours, and it will search from over 10,000,000 interesting images from flickr that have a creative commons licence to show the colours that you have selected.


It helps me with the bright colour combinations so I can see if they work for me ...


It helps me dream of summer ...


I get carried away with it with my favourite colour combinations ...


It helps me with heavenly pastels ...


So I hope it helps you too ... !
If you have no time to get out your craft stuff, or beads, masterial, paper or paints ... but want to start playing with colours, it's a great place to go searching for colour inspiration.

This year I am going to use it more to help me branch out of my comfort zone, to see new combinations that I have never used before and then will challenge myself not to be scared of too many bright colours in one piece.

Have fun playing!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Happy New Year!

Hey there! Happy New Year!

Well, I have been quiet recently here on the blog :) But some of you will probably know why!

On 31.12.2011 I got married! Yay!

For the past few months I have been completely distracted, I have not been making much for my smittenkitten.de shop, I have been reading a lot of my favourite forums (Craft Pimp, Crafteroo & Beadbuddies to name but a few) but I have not been contributing as much as I normally do. I have been concentrating on dresses, shoes, table decorations, hair & makeup, wedding favours, bridesmaids, venue, registrar, wedding cake, kiddies goodie bags, photographers, bridal underwear, stationary, chair covers, and on and on ... rather than crafts and/or beads! hehe! It's honestly been exhausting, but down to the final detail, everything was perfect - So I'm gonna give a shoutout to who we used for these final details.

The Venue - DeVere Mottram Hall - Click here to read my trip advisor review.

The Dress - Maggie Sottero "Alexandria" - Bought from Maria Modes - Macclesfield.

The Suits - I'm still shocked that he chose a tailcoat! - Hired from Slaters - Manchester

The Band - GrooveThing - North West

The Bridesmaids Dresses - Dessy - Bought from Maria Modes  - Macclesfield.

The flower girl dress - Organza beaded dress - John Lewis

Photographers - Gallery Studios - Warrington

The wedding cake - Marks & Spencers (it was AMAZING!)

The flowers - Kate at The Mustard Seed florist - Macclesfield

The chair covers - Gemma at Cheshire Covers - Knutsford

Hair & MakeUp - Ruth at Orchid Blush - Across the North West

Wedding favours - Sweets & Chocolates from UK wedding favours / boxes and ribbons from ebay

Table decorations - Crystal lanterns from Range UK / table runners, bubbles, snowflake confetti and table diamonds from ebay / mirror plates from wilkinsons / Tealights and Glimma Holders from Ikea

Guest Book - Thumbprint guest book from - Not on the High Street

The day itself was amazing, memories keep on floating in and out of my head - and I keep on asking Joe lots of questions too about his memories, things that I may have missed! Things still coming to me, and now it was a week ago already ... it still feels like yesterday :)

There will be a million more pictures to come, I don't want to bore you with too many, so here are a few favourites from my facebook tags this last week.




Cutting the Cake

First Dance

My Mum, Sister and I

I loved the beadwork on my dress :)

My Niece Mia and I

Me, Hubby and my sister