Happy Friday COLOURlovers! Today we are going to do something a little different for Community Day. First up, we have an awesome template challenge we've organized with one of our wonderful craft authors, Tonia Davenport, who comes over from CreateMixedMedia.com.

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Secondly, each week I am going to feature the first of many community surveys. They are only going to be between 3-5 questions to help us understand what you lovers would like to see on the blog, on community posts, contests, you name it. Let's just call it a quick raise of hands on some topics. I'll promise to keep them short. In turn, we'll give one participant at random selection, a COLOURlovers T-Shirt each week.

This week's survey topic: What do you want Community Day to be about?

I can guess all day long what you guys would appreciate being featured on Community Day, but why not ask you? So let's show a raise of hands...and remember, one person will win a t-shirt!

CreateMixedMedia Template Contest 

This is a template contest. That means you will need to use either Seamless Studio or Seamless Lite to make your initial submission.

The challenge is for you to design some numbered templates - a pattern design. These will be showcased for the first week of April, days 1 through 7.

• We will need a template for numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 - That's SEVEN WINNERS!
• You may include graphics within the template as long as the number you chose is legible (see how it will preview on createmixedmedia.com below).
• The theme to base your design on is "April Fools Day" and "April Showers" - combined or singly.
• Seven different winners will get a $25 gift code at the NorthLightShop (applied at checkout). 
• Winners will be chosen by CreateMixedMedia. 
  

CreateMixedMedia.com does an artistic feature on their homepage showcasing the days of the month, coordinated one week at a time - see below.

Days of the week shown on createmixedmedia.com

You will have from today (March 2nd) until Wednesday, March 21st to submit designs in the comments of this post.

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As crafters and sewers, we emerge from our cozy winter projects and start looking for fresh, colorful crafts that will get us ready for warm weather ahead. So we've put together a collection of spunky spring crafts to kick off National Craft Month.

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We bring you a the latest trends in DIY to brighten up your life be it you prefer to sew, work with fibers or even glue, it's all here in a bundle of color and style!

20-min Tote DIY | Repurposed Jeans Bag DIY | Boxed Pouch DIY | Diana Hobo free pattern | Kindle Slip-Case |  Felt Checkbook Holder DIY | Easy Knit Produce Bag DIY 

If you make anything this spring, it has got to be a new bag, clutch or tote of some sort. Changing up your carriers or adding new ones to your collection will add a little skip to your step for certain! The 20-min tote is an awesome way to utilize a great print you want to see hanging around and that denim bag is the trendiest done with repurposed jeans.

Those adorable boxed pouches can be used for organizing anything from makeup, hair irons, art supplies, accessories, you name it.  At the end of the day, most of these are the quickest projects to start your spring crafting off right. In addition, a great book by Kay Whitt came out last fall called, Sew Serendipity Bags which would also be an excellent choice full of colorfully inspired patterns, as her style is unbeatable!

Blue Clover Pants modeled on author Sarai | Skirt & Dress

What better to go along with a new bag or tote accessory than a new outfit? The Colette Sewing Handbook, is chalk full of spring and summer fashion patterns perfect for any beginner to intermediate sewer. Sarai also continues to offer tips, tricks, more in-depth tutorials and alteration ideas (usually with tutorials) to the patterns in the book.

In addition to all this available support, she features real sewers from around the globe on the Coletterie blog, with photos of finished outfits from the book and a small interview. A great sense of community and an excellent purchase that keeps on giving.

Coffee Filter Flowers | Felt Hair Pins | Felt Dahlia | No-Sew Vase Flowers | Bottle Cap Button Flowers | Felt Hair Accessories  

Heading away from sewing projects, here is a colorful collection of minimal to no-sew DIY flowers to get your floral fever on. Between crafty arrangements for your table or something to adorn and accessorize with, they're all full of texture and color!

patterns (scroll the page to find each): Green Grocer Tote | Daisy Motif  | Loopy Roses | Irish Roses | Love You  | Mabel Pillow | Granny Garland

Springtime brings flowers, farmers markets, celebrations and an itch for warm weather and sunshine. This is the time to start getting some summer-loving colors on and around you! A cheery market tote, a bright celebration banner or a few unique flower patterns to add to your lapel, hair, shoe clips, bag, you name it - bring some flowers out before they actually sprout!

Techniques (also need to scroll to find each): Larksfoot (technique) | Squiggly Wiggles (technique) | Granny Squares

Check out these wonderful techniques. The Larksfoot (shown above) works so well with an ombre palette, the Squiggly Squiggles is fun and funky and really pops with a large, loud palette and granny squares, well gee you can do so much with them!

Hawaiian Flowers FREE printable PDF crochet pattern

If you're looking for a great way to color block and add some palette-love to your body or abode this spring, get cracking on one of these fabulous projects from Sarah London, author of Granny Square Love.

LOVE pattern | Cartwheels pattern | Wind Swept pattern | Snow Globes pattern

If quilts were nothing special to you before, they will be after you take a second look at, Quilts from the House of Tula Pink. Tula is a total trend-setter for an entirely new kind of quilting. If anything, her projects will give you fantastic inspirational colors, textures, patterns and shapes.

So what are you working on right now? What medium is your favorite to work with and what colors are seeping in to all of your projects?

Spring Palettes:

 More COLOURlovers spring palettes...

When deciding to paint a room we tend to have a heck of a time picking that perfect paint color. But some crafty people took it a step further using paint chips as inspiration for a paint replacement. Beyond that, there are some crafty ways to reuse those billion paint swatches you are left with once you finally pick your perfect paint color. Here are some quick tricks, easy DIYs, and all around great ideas inspired by paint chips. For lots more paint chip ideas, check out our Pinterest board.

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If you are looking for the perfect way to create a statement piece in your house, and you are a lover of color, this might just be the perfect thing. And the best part is, the cost is extremely low (depending on how many paint chips you can get from your local paint shop).

Source: Paint Wall, Bedroom, Wall, Stairs

Love is most often associated with the color red. Be that by conditioning of incessant advertising or that we are drawn to it by nature. Secondary to red is of course pink, in almost any level of saturation.

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Red is one of those colors that possesses the strongest Ying and Yang of its theoretical definitions. Between love and hate, rebirth and death, the human relationship in any combination, could literally be summed up in the meaning of the color Red. Pink has what I would describe as a temperamental scale, more based on softness versus loudness than the extreme left or right end of the spectrum.

"Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love." - paper-leaf.com // COLOR THEORY poster freebie

As we know, colors can generate a wide variety of emotions. Red might be the most diverse and along with pink, a tag-along little sister, many other colors in tow can lend a visual message of love a great big pop!

Falling in Love by Etsy artist,  DJEMBE & CANVAS

"Cranes represent longevity and grace. The flocks ascend our champagne symphony, where love is blessed upon those who simply believe." - posted by artist at the listing

The artist gave us a wonderfully light feeling with this palette and the birds adding further motion. I also like how the painting balances the realities of "love" with a little bit of darkness in the bottom right corner. What do you think of this palette and representation of falling in love?

Poster design is a really fun, inexpensive and unique way to explore your creative side. From the 1,000's of fonts, variety of poster sizes, and layouts, sometimes, it's difficult to know where to start!

Once you master your design techniques visit Next Day Flyers for fast poster printing at great prices.

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Today we are interviewing Jessica Sprague, design guru and owner of JessicaSprague.com. In February, Jessica is heading off a four week Poster Design course. She is also giving away not one, but TWO seats to this really awesome class! I couldn't be more excited about the class after taking Jessica's Subway Art class. I'm a busy mom, so I don't have a whole lot of time to join in a live class, which is why I love Jessica's classes- they are self-paced and available forever!

Follow Jessica: Twitter & Facebook

Can you tell us about yourself, how long have you been designing? Teaching? Do you have a job outside of JS.com?

In my former life I was a web & user interface designer for a software company, so I've been designing in some form or another for about 14 years. I started teaching digital scrapbooking, Photoshop, and graphic design in 2007 when I opened  JessicaSprague.com. Since then it is my full-time job, and I love it!

What three (or less) singular colors do you most identify with, why?

My favorite color is green - I love it in almost all of its shades from lime to olive. It's the color of growth and regeneration, of calm energy, of prosperity, learning, balance, and harmony.

If you had to describe yourself [currently] as a five color palette, what colors would they be? Could you provide me with HEX codes so I can create a JS palette for you? :)

I feel like I am a blue, two greens, and a red, coupled with a dark grey. Hex: aed835, d9ea65, 81c9c0, a90c19, a90c19

The greens I've already described. The blue is an ocean representing responsibility, stability, trustworthiness. The red represents fire and emotion, and the dark grey brings some gravity, but also represents the dark that balances the lighter, fresher colors.

If you could be a shape, what shape would you be? (i.e. a polygon = triangle, hexagon etc...)

I would be a 5-pointed star. :)

For those of you following Leatrice Eisemen's training schedule, her 4-Day Color Training Program is off to a start this very morning in Burbank, CA. LindaHolt and ModernMuse (aka Michelle Stroescu), the two COLOURlovers who won full and half scholarship for the class back in November are excitedly enjoying their first day of learning and meeting Leatrice.

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To tide you all over until we get to do a followup with both Linda and Michelle about the class experience, Leatrice kindly took the time to answer the intriguing questions each winner had asked at the time of receiving the announcement that they had won.

Q & A From LindaHolt

Linda: I would love to know what the process is and what goes into choosing the Color of The Year? 

Leatrice: I literally travel the world looking for clues.  If I see a color that I think is ascending in importance, I make special note of it and then look for evidence in it gaining momentum.  Fashion is always a good indicator, but it is not the only design area that must be examined.  There are so much creative design areas that must be considered including graphics, the world of art, product design, home furnishings and so on .  Another very important part of the choice is tapping into the “zeitgeist ‘ of the world around us and the emotional message that the color imparts.  For example, with the that big gray elephant  (the economy) still looming large and the concern that is being felt internationally, we would not want to choose a color that could be a “downer’.  Instead we listen to people’s aspirations and try to give them a color that, at least symbolically, satisfies and encourages their needs and hopes.

We bring you a great interview with Jason Allen, of Haft2.com, an intriguing firm that focuses on, yeah, you guessed it, color! The focal point today is to showcase their 2012 Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project, and absolutely amazing piece of quality!

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I was highly impressed with the presentation of the calendar. It was delivered in a nice silver tin with a branded paper wrap and a wonderful opening letter about the project and the Haft2 mission - I felt like I had just received a very nice gift!

Haft2 is giving away three calendars to some lucky winners on a fun challenge (see bottom of post). I would like to add that I just so happened to come across this project originally from the comments on our previous post about 2012 Calendar Print Trends. I just had to know more about it, see the real deal and get to know what Haft2 and Jason were all about. I'm sure glad I did.

Do you like making jewelry? Do you like playing with shrink plastic? Perfect—me too! Shrink plastic offers endless possibilities when it comes to creating personalized jewelry.

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When it’s in its final shrunken state, this plastic is incredibly durable and it can be sanded or drilled into just like wood, Plexiglas or metal. So, when you’re creating pendants, charms, or, in the example I’ll share with you here, “beads,” even if you forget to punch holes in it before you shrink it, you can always drill holes afterward.

Start with clear shrink plastic. It comes semi-clear or in several solid colors, but for this particular technique, clear works best. Drop alcohol ink (my favorites are Ranger Ink’s Adirondacks) onto scraps of the plastic, or, full sheets if you prefer. It’s fun to watch the ink blend and redistribute itself. This ink comes in a large assortment of colors, so it’s easy to find and use your favorite palette!

So many great things have happened on COLOURlovers in 2011, but one major, behind the scenes project that only a very small portion of members have been aware of was a quilt project straight from the heart of the Group: COLOURlovers on Spoonflower.

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Group administrator, leader and very involved COLOURlover, Penina, wanted her group to be something more than just a group of people who loved the idea of fabric. So one fine day back in July 2011, after coordinating ideas to make a digital quilt from the group member creations, she had the thought, “What’s stopping us from making a real quilt?!”

Penina wanted this quilt project to have purpose and to involve as many group members as possible. This also meant that the final piece would need to have a good home at a single location; so who would get the quilt?

Gift wrapping has taken on a whole new life in recent years. It almost seems like it has become a competition to see who can be more genius at the art of gift giving.

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If this display of craftiness won't get you in the mood to dig around your house for things you can turn in to beautifully embellished gifts, I don't know what could. Here we give you a fabulous collective to top, tie and cover your gifts in an eye-devouring display!

Covering: Wrap It Or Bag It

Receiving a gift wrapped in anything other than ordinary wrapping paper can be intriguing and a lot of fun. There are many ways to creatively get the proper packaging for a gift. Crafters seem to be conquering the feat of the "gift card" gift. Anywhere from creating fancy hand-made envelopes to putting one in a handmade snow globe - there are some fun ways to tackle making it look cute.

Mini Envelopes | Word Search Wrapping Paper | Stamped Kraft Paper | Lace Covered Kraft Paper | Stenciling | Fabric Covered Gifts | Newspaper Gift Bags | Embroidered Fabric Gift Bags | Egg Carton Gift Box | Patterned Pillow Boxes (or up-cycled toilet paper rolls)

The possibilities and ideas are endless! Fabric covered gifts could potentially go to the seamstress or crafter to reuse (the whole gift with gift idea here). Lace and dollies are being used plenty as embellishments in many variations. Embroidered fabric gift bags would be perfect for children to reuse or store the gift that came in it. Did you run out of gift bags and wrapping paper? No big deal, dig out some Kraft paper or newspaper and create your own gift bag! Lastly, pillow boxes and up-cycling toilet paper and paper towel rolls are trending massively right now.

However you wrap it up, make sure you embellish it fantastically too!