Be the next GelaSkins artist! Gelaskins works with some of the world's finest talent to bring stunning art to any device. You could be the next artist to be featured on GelaSkins and have your pattern available worldwide!

GelaSkins is passionate about great design which is why you'll find some of world's most creative minds gracing their pages. A portion of each skin, case or print sold goes directly to the creator, helping to support and promote independent artists everywhere. Pretty neat, right?

The HardCase is the newest addition to the product family. It is a tough polycarbonate case made to protect iPhones and impact damage and everyday wear-and-tear. Simple to install and remove, the one-piece snap-on construction holds tight for maximum protection. The HardCase allows for easy access to buttons and is compatible with charging cables and screen protectors.

So let's get down to business! Here are the details to enter our contest and possibly win the fabulous prices below.

How to enter:

Submit one of your patterns here. Just select a pattern template that you designed and colored and apply it to the hardcase... Easy as that! Give it a try.

Prizes:

1st place prize: Winner will become the next GelaSkins artist, and will collect royalties on the sale of their design to our customers.

Runners Up: The 2nd-5th runners up will receive $100 gift card towards custom GelaSkins featuring your pattern.

The 1st place winner will be chosen by GelaSkins but the 2nd-5th place winners will be chosen via voting by your community. Once you create your submission, make sure to check out the other submissions and vote for your favorites.

Submissions will close June 4th and we will be announcing the winner on June 5! Good luck!

View all the entries here: Gelaskins Hardcase Entries.

Contest Rules:
All designs entered stay owned by the creators. The grand prize winner agrees to share their design rights with Geleskins, and participate as one of their designers. They will earn a part of all sales of their design.

Our friends at HOW have their grand event planned for next month in Boston. This creative conference is one of the biggest I've ever been to and brings in fine people from all over the world. Not only will we be there, we'll be providing a little colorful entertainment with our Palettes in Real Life interactive exhibit. Come join us and a few thousands other creative people for an awesome time! (I'll also be there signing copies of Color Inspirations, and I'd love to have you sign mine!)

Register for HOW Design Live using the code "COLOUR" and get $100 of the admission price.

HOW Design Live - Boston
In 2012, Boston is the meeting point for the biggest gathering of designers, freelancers, creative team managers, and other creative professionals in the country. That much creative energy under one roof? It’s a recipe for revolutionary ideas and life-changing inspiration. You’ll rethink your approach to work and life, connect with like-minded allies, hear from creative visionaries, and discover new tools to make your job more satisfying and productive than ever before.

Real Life Color Palettes!

We'd had the pleasure of making palettes in real life with our members a few times, and each time we do it we're impressed with your creativity and energy. We're excited to bring the experience to the weekend fun at HOW Design Live. Find us and make a palette with us! Some photos from our last palette making experience can be viewed below:

Bubs | "Readyforlove" | COLOURlover | @Bubs 

Aaron Epstein | "let there be light" | aepstein | 

Molly Bermea | "Ooga Booga"  | mollybermea @mollybermea

Serafina Bermea | "Goo Goo, Ga Ga" 

Greg Hennes, COLOURlovers Official Photographer | "pink parts are punk" | Greg Hennes

Toti | "Ligero" | @patrullaverde

Gail Towey | "Sorbet" | Martha Stewart

Alice Fisk MacKenzie | "Orange Reality"

See the rest of the Palettes in Real Life from the Color Conference here.

Register for HOW Design Live using the code "COLOUR" and get $100 of the admission price.

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!

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.

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.

Source

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.

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.

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.

Source

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.

Source

Source

Source

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

A lot has happened this month already. This week I am going to keep it short and sweet as we have the holiday weekend ahead. This week I'll cover our last survey and a discussion about doing a tribute project for Sunmeadow's family. Thoughts and opinions needed on both subjects.

Community Survey #3: Results Report

In looking at the last survey responses, it's fun to see how COLOURlovers use the site in different ways be that from your desktop or laptop or mobile device.

We had about a 107 entrants to the survey, double what we've had before - Thanks to everyone who got involved. I will be skipping a survey this week in leu of the Easter weekend and the Moo contest.

I will be accepting open suggestions for the next survey which will be based on Groups. Anything and everything Groups related. So suggest away!

The Sunmeadow Project: A Tribute & Family Gift

As a dark cloud shrouded the COLOURlovers community with the sad news that one of our dearest members had passed away, the mass of ways to show our love, life celebrations and tribute to dear Sunmeadow as a wonderful artist and person, have been happening all over the site. It's touching to see everyone surround her passing with such compassion and devotion.

Suggestions have been coming my way to put together a physical tribute for her family. The best suggestion came from, Penina of the COLOURlovers on Spoonflower Group - a book (possibly a Blurb-style book).

This book would include her works of art on COLOURlovers, but I also thought it might be nice to also include notes of tribute from her fellow community members and closest friends on COLOURlovers as her father had expressed an interest in being able to come back and read through all the wonderful things members had to say about her.

Tribute submitted by COLOURlover hana* located on page 2 in the APC Group Tribute to Sunmeadow

The COLOURlovers Team is in support of a project we could gift to her family as a colorful piece of Sunmeadows artistic expression on COLOURlovers.com.

Will any other members in addition to Penina, be willing to assist in organizing this project? With over 6,000 palettes, 10,000 colors and close to 800 templates it will be quite the undertaking to filter through what to include and in what order.

I am also up for alternate  suggestions for a tribute piece. A quilt has crossed my mind, but I think a book would certainly be able to fully encompass all her beautiful works and messages of love and support by members. Thoughts?

Another wonderful tribute piece of Sun's palettes by COLOURlover, hana* in the APC group on page 3

Sunmeadow was such an intensely defined COLOURlover that the reality of her loss was so great to many who knew her well and even to those who did not. Let's give the gift that Sun gave us, to her family to cherish and treasure as well.

*Sunmeadows wonderful works of art and account will remain online.

Group Tributes List to Sunmeadow

Sunmeadow: Colors | Palettes | Patterns | Templates

A tribute in Artist Palette Challenge (APC) - One of Sun's groups, now administered by WordofMouse.

FFP - SUNMEADOW, a tribute in the Freeze Frame Project Group administered by Gasp365.

Sunmeadow was honored in the March 2012 Remembrances, in the Remembrance Group administered by ketisse.

Sunmeadow Memorial HPP in the Haiku Palettes & Poetic Patterns dedicated to the memory of Sunmeadow, also administered by ketisse.

Sunmeadow Fields, a tribute section in The Anythings Group administered by American Women.

And lastly, a look back at Sunmeadows moment as CLAD (COLOURlovers Artist of the Day Group), also administered by American Women.

*Please let me know if I missed any.

When I first started this site 7 years ago, it was a quick and easy decision to call it COLOURlovers: It was all about color for people who loved it. But now with 1.5M members from around the world who have loved, err, liked more than 10,000,000 pieces of shared content... I think we can all agree, that's just too much love!

It's also worth noting that in the current state of the world with ongoing wars, political tension, financial implosions... What the world really doesn't need is more love. That's why I'm super excited to share with you the new & waaaay better COLOURlikers!

It's just like the old COLOURlovers, but now without any of the love. What has love ever done anyway?! You're all probably used to liking things on Facebook anyway, so this should be an easy transition.

Start Sharing the Like!

So go check out the profiles of other likers. Go like some palettes or patterns. Share the like!

Don't worry, we're kidding. Happy April Fools. We still love you.

Life is a fragile thing and it always hurts the heart when somebody passes well before their time. We're deeply saddened by the loss of one of our active, loving, creative & supportive members; sunmeadow. She leaves many friends here in our community and we're incredibly honored to have the privilege to continue hosting & sharing her creations with the world. We may have 1.5 million members now, but every single one is important to me and is greatly appreciated. We love you sunmeadow and thank you for all you shared with us and all the inspiration you will continue to share.

A close friend of hers let me know of the sad news. They also noted that she was a very private person and that she would appreciate her personal details not be shared here. I will respect her wishes and ask you to do the same.

Her last palette randomly created was entitled "Wings To Fly" and I believe she has them now. I can't possibly honor all that she shared here with us in one post, but I'll share some of her most popular creations below... and please feel free to share yours in the comments.

Sunmeadow: Colors | Palettes | Patterns | Templates

Sunmeadow also created hundreds of beautiful pattern templates. Here are just some of them:

Thank you Sunmeadow. Rest in peace.

Crayola has been the standard for crayons, and at least partially responsible for bringing color naming to the mainstream for 126 years now.  The crayons and color names have come a long way from the standard 8 color crayon box of black, blue, red, green, brown, yellow, violet, and orange.

Over the years they've added plenty of new colors to their line of wax crayons but not all of those can still be found today. Some of those  colors have been discontinued or renamed, for various reasons, and since 1998 they've maintain a core collection of 120 colors, (check out our post 'All 120 Crayon Names and Color Codes' here in the COLOURlovers blog to see them all and grab their digital code equivalents).

The retired colors.

Retired colors are tucked away in the Crayola Hall of Fame but that's no place for color! So here we look back at those colors that are no longer at our finger tips but can live forever in our digital coloring books. Click on the colors to grab their digital equivalent from the COLOURlovers' library.

Header image from Wikipedia