Picking a color palette for your room

I am getting a bit tired of the colors in my bedroom.  When we moved in here 11 years ago, we painted the walls a lovely blue that was reminiscent of the Colorado skies we had just left.  I still really like the color, but I think I'm ready for a change.

I'm pretty good at knowing when I DON'T like a color, but pretty bad at knowing which color(s) I would like instead.  But then I saw an ad in a magazine for MyColortopia.com.  You can upload a photo with colors that inspire you, and the website will generate a color palette of Glidden paint colors for you.

One of my favorite things to look at is Lake Michigan.  The blues of the sky and the water plus the browns of the sand make me happy.  So I dug around in some old photos of trips to Lake Michigan and I found these two that might work.

I went to MyColortopia.com, scrolled down to the box labeled "My Image Inspiration" and clicked on "Go To Tool".  Then I was prompted to upload my photo (2MB max). Once the photo thumbnail was visible, I could drag the little crop box around my photo until the colors I liked best were in the box.  I clicked on "Show Colors" and it gave me several options to choose as my favorite main color.  (See the middle column in the screen capture below.)

My favorite color from those options was "Creamy Blueberry" so I selected that color, and the website generated three 3-color palettes using that color.  If you mouse over each of the colors in the palette, the Glidden paint color name appears. You have the option at this point to print the information, or email it to yourself or pin it to Pinterest.

I took a screen capture and made my own little reference card in Photoshop that showed the photo and the three palette options - along with the Glidden paint color names.

And here are the results I got after uploading the beach picture.

I liked a couple of the paint colors from this photo. The one that matched the sky (Blue Marina) is very similar to the current color on my walls so I was curious to see what Glidden would pair with it.  And then I also generated a palette using "Deep Blue Shadow" that matched the water in the photo.

That was a fun little exercise!  But I'm no closer to knowing what to do with my room because I like all these palettes!  If I had to pick a favorite right now it would be the middle option for the lighthouse picture (silver dust - buttered sweet corn - creamy blueberry).  But then what?  Do I paint the walls Creamy Blueberry?  That might be a bit much.  Maybe the walls are Silver Dust and the curtains/bedding are Creamy Blueberry and the accents are Buttered Sweet Corn?  Any suggestions?

Patriotic Banner From Old Jeans

We recently went on a family road trip that involved 8 hours of driving each way.  I am unable to read in the car without getting sick, but I've discovered that I can sew!  I made a couple little craft kits to take with me to pass the time more quickly.

This little project took up much of the drive home.  It's a patriotic pennant banner made from old jeans and felt.

Of course, because I made this craft in the car, I didn't photograph any of the steps.  But I don't think it's too hard to figure out how I made this.

My kit consisted of

• a couple of legs cut from old pairs of jeans, both dark and light wash
• red felt
• red and white embroidery floss
• patterns for the pennants, the stars, and the letters (I cut those shapes out of cardstock using my Cricut and used the cardstock shapes as patterns when cutting the fabric.)
• scissors, pins and a needle

Step 1: Cut everything out using the patterns. (5 pennants from the darker wash jean, 5 of the bigger size star from the lighter wash jean, 2 smaller size stars and the USA letters from red felt)

Step 2: Fray the edges of the pennants by pulling out some threads.

Step 3: Attach the light denim stars to the pennants with a straight stitch using 3 strands white embroidery floss.

Step 4: Blanket stitch the red felt letters and stars onto the denim stars using 3 strands of red embroidery floss.

When I got home, I stitched the pennants to a red and blue ribbon using my sewing machine.  Now my mantle is all ready for the 4th of July.  And maybe even the olympics!



Patriotic Star Cookies

I had (got) to bring a treat to my Bible study this week so I made star-shaped cookies and frosted them in red, white, and blue.  I did the outlining, but let my kids do most of the flooding.  The ladies at church were so impressed when I told them that my boys had frosted the cookies.  It's all about the squeeze bottles.

I made the boys stick to solid colors for the cookies that I was bringing to church, but then I let them loose on another batch of cookies.  Armed with outline and flood icing plus sprinkles, they had a lot of fun.  I love watching them be creative!

Have you ever seen such a festive collection of cookies?