This guest post is written by Jay Harris. Jay is a Home Depot sales associate and a regular contributor to Home Depot’s blog. His interests include home lighting, home automation, and solar panels.

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The kitchen is one of the most active and important rooms within your house—one that gets quite a bit of attention when it comes to home makeovers. You’re in and out of the kitchen constantly. Between preparing meals each day or just grabbing a quick snack, it seems like you end up in the kitchen more than any other room. With this much foot traffic, it needs to be a room that looks decent and represents your home properly.

Lighting can play a big role in helping this come to fruition. Lighting also plays a big role in how your color scheme will set the mood for the room. Kitchens are meant to be inviting rooms—they entice the appetite and help you to relax and unwind from your day.

Let’s illustrate how light can play a role in making kitchens stand out.

Boy, you all have really been bringing your a-game for this latest design contest! For two weeks we've watched the amazing HardCase designs roll in and now it's time to switch gears into the voting part of the contest. But before we do that, let's take a moment to thank the awesome folks over at GelaSkins that have made this whole thing possible.

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The GelaSkins brand was born from a passion for great design. That's why they work with the world's most creative minds, bringing stunning artwork to any device. The GelaSkins library is rounded out with thousands of works by established and up-and-coming independent artists, classics by the Masters, and patterns by renowned designers. Notable partnerships include National Geographic, Tim Burton and Norman Rockwell. Expressing individual style is easy with thousands of designs to choose from and simple tools to help create a unique look for any device. Personalize phones, tablets, laptops, e-readers and more!

This guest post is written by Alex Black. Alex writes for printing experts Print Express. In his spare time he studies graphic and web design and is learning to code.

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For most people, it’s important to stay refreshed and inspired when they work – especially for people who do creative work. When you’re in an office that’s interesting, vibrant and colourful, it’s more likely that you’ll be inspired with the creative work that you do. The opposite, of course, is true – it’s hard to be inspired when you’re in a dull, lifeless cubicle. While large corporate businesses tend to have focus on a working environment like the latter, it’s the fun small businesses and startups – and those of us lucky enough to have home offices – who are opting for more fun and colourful working environments.

The artwork that hangs on the walls of the office can have a huge impact on the atmosphere and culture of the workplace, whether it’s the slogans used (Facebook famously has posters that say “Move fast and break things”) to the more subtle, beautifully designed pieces that improve the overall aesthetics. If you’re looking to liven up your office and help inject some colourful creativity, we’re here to help give you some inspiration. This collection of colourful, beautiful office artwork is sure to make an impression.

We're currently running a contest with the awesome folks at GelaSkins to see who will join them as their next artist. Earlier this year, we ran a similar contest and the talented COLOURlover that won was Sylvie Demers. Since her winning design was selected, Sylvie has become an artist with GelaSkins, and you can now buy her designs on their website.

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She was kind enough to answer a few questions for us and we're excited to share our conversation with you guys. Thanks Sylvie!

We had so much fun with our GelaSkins contest earlier this year, we're excited to say we've cooked up another awesome one for you guys. This time you get to create a design for their new iPhone 5 HardCase for a shot at becoming the next GelaSkins artist!

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The GelaSkins brand was born from a passion for great design. That's why they work with the world's most creative minds, bringing stunning artwork to any device. The GelaSkins library is rounded out with thousands of works by established and up-and-coming independent artists, classics by the Masters, and patterns by renowned designers. Notable partnerships include National Geographic, Tim Burton and Norman Rockwell. Expressing individual style is easy with thousands of designs to choose from and simple tools to help create a unique look for any device. Personalize phones, tablets, laptops, e-readers and more!

The HardCase by GelaSkins for iPhone 5 is a tough, polycarbonate, snap-on case. It's available in a wide array of great designs by artists from around the world. You can even be the artist and design your own – import family photos, company logos, or patterns you've created at COLOURlovers.com.

Thanks for another great contest everyone! We're excited to announce the talented winners and show off their winning designs. First, let's take a moment to thank the great folks at Drift Studio that helped put this contest together.

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Drift Studio is an incubator for design and product ideas. Their mission is to create elegant and thoughtful products that marry form and function while offering something more – the ability to personalize. Attention to detail, quality materials and craftsmanship form the foundation of furniture you can be proud of.

And now time for the much anticipated contest winners!

Paint Chip Pals is a recently launched Kickstarter project and brainchild of Andrea and Cliff Currie, the creative minds behind HandMakeMyDay.com. Think adorable, paint-chip inspired, plush characters designed to add a bit of colorful personality to the everyday world of blah.

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Andrea and Cliff are trying to raise enough money so they can bring one of these inquisitive characters to life, and backers get the chance to choose which one it will be. Check out their project video to learn a little bit more about the people and ideas behind Paint Chip Pals.

Howdy COLOURlovers! It's been so great to watch all of your amazing tabletop designs come in over the past week -- inspiring, to say the least. As with all good things, the entry period must come to an end so that we can continue with voting and get to those awesome prizes from the folks at Drift Studio.

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Drift Studio is an incubator for design and product ideas. Their mission is to create elegant and thoughtful products that marry form and function while offering something more – the ability to personalize. Attention to detail, quality materials and craftsmanship form the foundation of furniture you can be proud of.

One of their unique product offerings is the ability to upload your own designs to their website and create a table featuring your very own artwork. Talk about a great conversation starter when you have house guests!

Print design speaks to us. Posters, flyers, invitations, business cards -- they're tangible, nostalgic, and because we can actual touch the designs, extremely personal. So much creativity and ingenuity can be packed into an 11x17" poster, or a 2x3.5" business card, it's no wonder I can get lost for hours and hours looking at amazing designs.

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For your viewing pleasure, here is a selection of great print inspiration from around the web.

Jessica Genest Identity by Nicolas Ménard

Orita Sinclair Prospectus by Bravo Company

Howdy COLOURlovers! It's been a little while since our last contest, but we have a great excuse -- we've been working with the folks at Drift Studio to cook up something special we think you're going to enjoy. :)

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Drift Studio is an incubator for design and product ideas. Their mission is to create elegant and thoughtful products that marry form and function while offering something more – the ability to personalize. Attention to detail, quality materials and craftsmanship form the foundation of furniture you can be proud of.

For this contest, Drift Studio is excited to engage the COLOURlover's community to help design tops for its new line of coffee tables, Riff Tables. A coffee table can be one of the most central focal points of a room's decor. Use your creative juices to create a conversation piece that will look great and display your unique personality!