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!