If you're looking to learn a variety of new craft projects, One Artsy Mama is a site you definitely have to check out. One Artsy mama is the brain child of Amy Latta. On her site, she shares a variety of creative projects including home decor, kid's crafts, sewing, jewelry, and more. She recently published her first e-book Crochet 101, and it's absolutely fantastic and a must-read resource for anyone looking to get into Crochet.

Amy has tons of awesome DIY and craft projects that I'm absolutely in love with.  I've selected some of my favorite projects and posts from Amy's blog that I think you'll fall in love with.

First of all, if you're interested in learning how to crochet, Amy is an expert. Be sure to check out Crochet 101 and get started today. Amy provides you with all the resources and tools you need to get started.

Create Crazy and Colorful Coasters with Amy: I love this project that Amy came up with. It's so cool, creative, and easy to make.

You Are My Sunshine Framed Art: I absolutely love this project. It's perfect to put around your house or use as a gift for a loved one.

Ever wanted to throw a Lego Party? Amy shows you how to through the perfect lego party complete with Party Favors, a Lego cake, and tons of Lego fun.

Tissue Paper Cherry Blossoms: I love this idea for decorating my apartment. It's absolutely gorgeous! I really want to set aside a time to get this done!

Shabby Chic Jewelry Organizer: Make a jewelry organizer with Amy. I absolutely love this gorgeous jewelry organizer.

I hope you've enjoyed these awesome craft tutorials from Amy Latta on One Artsy Mama. Be sure to connect with Amy on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

I've always wanted to come up with unique ways of saving my memories, and scrapbooks have started to become my creative outlet. I can spend hours a day just choosing different patterns and clip art to combine to really make my memories come to life in the pages of a scrapbook.

I searched the web to find some of the most colorful and creative scrapbook pages, and I hope they inspire you to create awesome projects.

If you're looking to create some colorful scrapbook pages and paper printables use these awesome papers and graphics from Creative Market:

Allegedly we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but let's be honest, when you're browsing a bookstore (online or off) it's the good designs that catch your eye and draw you in for further investigation. And when it comes to catching people's attention, what better way than with a little bit of color.

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While there may not be one definitive "best of" list of books, there's still a lot of smart people out there that put out their own lists, so we decided to take a few of these and compile them into one colorful literary collection. Let's take a look at some of the best books from 2012 and the colors of their cover designs.

Rudyard Kipling's 'The Jungle Book' and his adventures character Mowgli have left an endearing impression on many people, including myself, but chances are this is due to the 1967 Disney animated version that we grew up with. In reality (and not unexpectedly), the Disney version and the original text are quite different. There's a great post that breaks down the differences between the two and it's definitely worth reading if you have an interest in learning more about both versions.

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From comic books to illustrations to animated films, Kipling's classic has been interpreted and reinterpreted by a variety of talented artists over the years. One version that caught our eye recently comes from a Russian publisher and is illustrated in watercolor by May Miturich-Khlebnikov. The illustrations are beautiful and have that warm, handcrafted feel that just makes you smile.

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.

J.J. Grandville was a French caricaturist known for his satirical illustrations. He often featured parahuman and anthropomorphic characters to emphasize his political commentary and satire.

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Published posthumously in 1847, Les Fleurs Animées (The Flowers Personified) is both a satirical and poetic collection of botanical illustrations. Considered by many to be a masterpiece, the original book featured 54 etched and hand-colored illustrations depicting the enchanting world of floral maidens. While the Victorian societal references may not mean that much to us now, the amazing color and character detail have definitely retained their magic after all these years.

These particular illustrations are from an 1867 edition of the book and are available in the public domain.

It has been quite a fun week over here at COLOURlovers. Between our iPad contest with Zazzle, book review on the new Smashing Magazine book, Redesign The Web and so much more!

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FAVORITE BLOG POSTS:

Some of our favorite blog posts from this week are crafty projects you can do with magazine pages and some fabulously colorful digital art by Andy Gilmore! Also, Zazzle is hosting a COLOURlovers iPad Design contest! If you haven't entered, now is the chance, the winner will receive a $500 cash prize.

CMYLK by DESIGN MILK

Design Milk (one of our fave blogs over here at COLOURlovers) has created a brand new column called "CMYLK". Each week, they round up some images – products, interiors, and art – and their associated COLOURlovers color palettes to inspire and delight. This week, features some fabulous paintings by Kristy Gammill. Check out the blog post for more palettes!

Do you "like" us on Facebook? Well you should be because we post awesome photos like those below all week long!

A few weeks back we held a Betabrand sock design contest! The 3 winning designs are now listed for pre-order on the Betabrand website! Pre-order your pack now!

LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB

LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:

• The entire process of creating and building this colorful little room is posted on Design Milk Megan Geckler for Bobble.
• House Beattiful shows us 6 Cheery Yellow Bathrooms. This is great inspiration for those of you looking to spruce up your bathroom for the summer.
• If you haven't had the chance to get yourself a few Pantone Coffee Mugs, now might be a good time to go grab them.

Have any colorful posts you have seen yourself? Share them in the comments below! See you next week with some more colorful round-ups!

A bit ago we posted about crafting with paint chips. Today I wanted to post about another product you probably have laying around your house that you could turn into totally awesome art.

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Have you ever tried to find a use for magazines and catalogs that you finished looking through? Throwing them away feels like such a waste sometimes, doesn't it? Well today we are posting about various art projects you can do with those old magazines to repurpose them and bring those pages to life, for the second time. These projects are also a great way to give your kids something to do, using only products you already have in your home.

The magazine sunburst is probably my favorite piece of magazine art yet. All you have to do to create such an art piece is a roll up magazine pages and paste them together. Check out how she did it. Next to this fun DIY is a cool magazine clock that you can get off Etsy.

Source: Sunburst, Clock 

I know the holidays aren't upon us for quite a while, but here are some fun things you can create for the season. Creating bows from magazine pages is super easy and a fun touch that you can't find anywhere else.

Source: Ornaments, Bow

Magazine jewlery! Want to find something unique to wear? This is definitely a good route to take, and you can even make it yourself which is even more impressive.

Source: Bracelet, Necklace

Here are a few fun ways to add a little bit of magazine crafting into your home.

Source: Frame, Coaster

 Now this is one incredibly awesome vase! Even without flowers, this is such a statement piece for you home.

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This is a fun craft project for you and your kids! And they make for great storage after the fact.

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What are your favorite pieces? I would love to see the color palettes and patterns you all can create with such fun inspiration. And if you have the chance to craft with magazine paper, I would love to see pics of what you are coming out with.

We are very excited to review the brand new Smashing Magazine book, REDESIGN THE WEB.  I'll start by saying that I would not only recommend this book to every designer, but it is a must for any person who is in the position to make decisions about their website. Why do I think this? Understanding the how and why behind design allows you to learn the types of questions you should be asking about your website and will help the entire design process immensely.

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Let's start by taking a look at the table of contents:

Chapter 1, The Business Side of Redesign, was my favorite chapter in the book. Focusing on the business of design is by far the most important part. This concept can sometimes be overlooked when you get caught up in "making it pretty". "The most powerful defense against fashion is simple: we must ask why." Great tip to try next time your clients wants a "make my website look like that" design.

Another great point brought up in this chapter is the designer-client relationship. I agree that many of these relationships are broken. Without the client understanding the how and why behind your work they tend to focus on the looks, not the purpose. Here are some pointers to create a better relationship.

Chapter 2 dives into the technical needs of a company and offers some basic advice for clients when it comes to exercising their options and choosing the right platforms for their needs. This includes everything from choosing the right content management system to your commerce platform.

The following chapters cover the basics of HTML5, the great advantages of using CSS3, and some of the new features and benefits both of these languages have to offer. It also touches upon Javascript and some tricks to replace complex JQuery. If you are familiar with both HTML + CSS, you will understand the tips and pointers these chapters have to offer. Here is just an example of what you will find:

Source: Page 107

Chapter 7 goes over a variety of Photoshop tools at your disposal. Most of these techniques are pretty basic if you are a Photoshop know-it-all, however there might be a few that you didn't know about. If you are new to photoshop, this chapter is a perfect way to learn some new techniques. Here is an example of  from the book:

The chapter, Designing With Personality, was another stand out chapter of this book. Personality really is what sets brands apart. Below are some examples listed of the benefits of creating a personality.

The concept below is extremely valuable. Copywriting isn't always taken into account in design, but in terms of building a brand with personality, it is a very key element that must be given some thought.

A great example quoted from Chapter 10: "GE made its giant corporation feel more humanly by sharing the individual personality of its workforce. It showed us the passion and pride it has for its craft. and we felt it.

There is a landing page strategy that can absolutely benefit you, further than getting early access sign-ups, that is brought up in this book. This is known as the "hidden survey". You can gauge interest and demand of a product that hasn't even been built yet just by monitoring the number of early-access sign ups. Another great way is offering a short "Help Us Build Something You Want" survey asking them a few short questions geared toward getting valuable information that you can use. Getting to know the people that use your product is the best way to build a product.

If you are just starting in the field of design, this book is definitely for you. It will quickly get you up to speed and give you some great pointers that will most improve your current workflow.

If you are well into the field of design this book might not offer entirely new concepts. Still, there is always an opportunity to learn and overall, it is definitely worth reading to see what new ideas you can take away from it.

Get your copy of the new Smashing Magazine book, Redesign The Web.

So many fun things can be done to make Easter a little more festive. From crafty decorations to different ways to dye eggs, these ideas will get you excited for the Easter festivities.

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Craft up this yarn garland using balloons, glue and yarn. Check out the DIY tutorial.

These bags and tags are perfect for finding and gathering Easter eggs.

Source: Tag, Bag

Have you heard of cake pops? I'm sure by now the answer is yes. The fabulous Bakerella has thought of how to turn everything under the sun into a fabulous cake pop, and these easter eggs are no exception.

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Looking for fun ways to spruce up those eggs? I guess traditional egg dye isin't the only way to make eggs look awesome. My personal favorite are the neon dipped eggs. Oh how I love neon at the moment.

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Happy Easter from all of us here at COLOURlovers! We hope you enjoy your weekend!