My Colors

I so wanted to take part in Me Made May 2013. But, alas, I don't really have enough me mades to last for a month. This is my goal for next year. To actually sew so much, that I could pledge myself to wear at least 2-3 times a week me mades. But, I loved getting inspiration from others and enjoyed the posts of other bloggers. Inspired by Gillian, who included a color palette for her MMM'13 challenge, I wanted to create my own color palette. Not really to challenge myself, but to think more about the colors I use and what kind of fabrics I buy. I came up with the following:

The idea is that the smaller rectangles are sort of accent colors, so that I have more neutral tones to choose from. This isn't really that strict and I'm not going to go and throw away clothes that don't fit to the palette. But I've noticed that these are the colors I wear most often. And if I look at the things I'm sewing, the Réglisse has pink and brown in it, the Sassy Librarian Blouse will be from orange and yellow and the swimsuit from turquoise and red. So, not bad...

Pin it! Clip it! Chip It!

There are several sites I like to use to plan wardrobe and sewing. The one that everyone probably knows by now is, of course, Pinterest. If you haven't checked this site out, you totally should. It's basically a website to build inspiration boards. You can pin pretty much any picture from the internet, except from Facebook. You can make any boards you like. You get few ready made, but these can be deleted. I like to use it for planning something special, like I had this inspiration board for my charleston/flapper dress (well, I might still use it and make another one...). If you want, you can follow me here.

Well, I don't talk more about Pinterest, since everyone seems to know it already. But there are other sites that seem to be less known. One, that I like, where you can make mood boards or plan outfits, is Polyvore. I like that you can actually plan what goes together, since I use Pinterest as a more general inspiration. I haven't used it a whole lot yet, but to get the idea, here's one of my mood boards for spring outfit:

Spring style by rankkaapina

You can see my other sets and follow me here. I also sometimes pin Polyvore sets to Pinterest. You can use the ready items from different online shops or you can clip your own images with Polyvore's clipping tool. There are also templates you can use, if you don't like the white background, or you can make a template of your own. I did a little practice run, but the sets are easy to design, especially with a white background. Why don't you give it a try?

The last site I want to introduce is Chip It by Sherwin Williams. Here you can take any picture from the internet and their program gives you the main colours from it. Here is one of mine as an example. It's not as social as the other sites, but you can also pin these images to Pinterest. It's a great way to get colour palettes, if you like colours in a certain picture.

I'd love to hear in the comments what is your favorite inspiration site!

Colour blocking

Well, I know I'm a year late, but as the colour blocking seems to continue this year, I thought I'd write about it. Especially, because I really like the idea (big fan of colours here). I think one of the clearest examples what it is is explained by Wendy from Wendy's Lookbook (see the video below). I found the beginning a little bit annoying, but it gets better :) She demonstrates well how to choose the colours as well as giving some examples of outfits. The video is about 10 min, but most of it is examples, so the beginning was the thing for me (the things about the colour wheel and choosing different combinations).

Color Blocking for Spring/Summer (2011):

Wendy has also made an introductory video about colour wheel, that I thought was fun and here also you can see the way of choosing which colours to combine:

The Painter's Color Wheel with Clones!

I have also included a colour wheel here for reference:

 

And of course some examples how to apply this. First there are some lovely examples from Shabby Apple's collection: The Block. I especially love the combination on the left. It's so vibrant and fun.

 

You should also check the tips of Fabulous after 40 about colour blocking. Don't let the title of the blog fool you, the tips are good for people under 40 as well. And if you want more ideas, just go to Pinterest and search for color blocking. And of course there's Google, but I think Pinterest gives better results.

Michelle Obama does colour blocking

Colour blocking on runway