gingerandgeorge

Palette Pingpong (No.46) : Special Every Day

Palette Pingpong this week is inspired by two of my favourite people. First of all - and as almost-always - Gabrielle, who challenged me with the prettiest of pictures. Sadly, I'm not sure my palette quite does justice to the gentle, dainty nature of the original image (you can find it over at Gabrielle's blog):

Comparing and contrasting, I think it's the tiny amounts of colour, plus the warm neutrals in the challenge picture which look so lovely. Bigger patches of those same colours somehow don't have the same impact. Bearing that in mind, I made a print-at-home poster, inspired by a conversation with my sister last week.

She is very special to me, every day, and although I know for certain she's special to a lot of other people too, I'm sneakily and selfishly pleased I'm the only one who gets to have her as a sister.  

Mwah-ha-ha. And so on.

So, what about you? I mean, obviously you're special - that's a given - but after you print off your chosen poster (in charcoal or white), who are you going to give it to, and why?

Spill me some beans in the comments below. I am both nosy and secretly less frosty than you might think.

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Palette Pingpong (No.43)

Hola, Pingpong pals.

That time of the fortnight has rolled around again, and today it's Gabrielle's turn to offer you something pretty for free. I challenged her with this photo (via Style Me Pretty) . . . 

. . . and you can see what she did with it over at her blog, the green gal. 

If you haven't played Palette Pingpong before, it really is that simple - look at the pretty picture, click through to see the colour swatch it inspired, then help yourself to Gabrielle's freebie. No sweat, no weird rubbery bat and no arguing over whether the ball was in or out.

Those Olympic pingpongers really should take note.

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Palette Pingpong (No.42) : Spring Notecards

So, it's been a little while since Gabrielle and I have PPP'd (although you might have spotted her stellar roundup post a couple of weeks ago). Did you miss us? 

In order to make things up to you, I have a very happy little printable today, but first, le palette. Gabs challenged me with a beautiful shot, which in turn led to this:

Spring is most definitely in the air, wouldn't you say?

And because it's nice to celebrate good things like longer days, warmer weather, blossoming trees and longer days (did I mention the longer days already? Oh daylight, how you cheer my soul...), I have a pretty set of notecards for you.

There are four different patterned cards and four printable sentiments, so you can mix and match them, however you prefer. Choose from 'thanks a million', 'dear friend', 'ahoy-hoy' (my favourite way of saying hello) and 'happy mother's day'. It's next Sunday here in the UK but, being the fabulous and grateful child you are, you already knew that, right?

You can download each of the cards separately - pink plaid, retro flowers, grey chevron and coral scallops - plus the labels here. Snip out your chosen sentiment, fold the ends back on themselves and then use a tiny amount of adhesive (a glue stick will do) to fix to the front of your folded card. Really easy and - I hope - the perfect way to spread a little spring cheer.

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PS. If you want even more cheer and/or good stuff, head over to Gabrielle's shop, the green gables, and help yourself to 75% off her super-pretty kitchenware. Spring cleaning, ho!

Palette Pingpong (No.41)

A couple of years ago, we decided to paint the render on the front of our old house. It took half a dozen Farrow and Ball tester pots and much squinting before we settled on exactly the right shade of tasteful off-white-ish-grey. Which is why I remain in awe of people who decide to do this to their houses:

[source]

Anyone prepared to exercise (and display) such boldness would surely scoff at the very notion of a tester pot.

Sadly, I'm not sure our current home - or neighbours - could weather anything similar, so I've settled for using the picture to challenge Gabrielle.

Yep, that's right - in the interests of Palette Pingpong, she's going to paint her pretty country cottage violet. 

OK. Not strictly true. But she does have something fancy, free and colourful for you to download over at the green gables, which is just as good. 

And in the interests of friendship, Gabs, please note I'd be entirely willing to offer a helping paintbrush if you do decide to go with that first idea - 'the violet gables'. 

Just so you know. 

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Palette Pingpong (No.40)

Forty, did you say? Forty pictures, palettes and palette-related projects? That's not bad going Batgirl, especially for someone with my shamefully poor attention span.

To celebrate, Gabrielle challenged me with an especially colourful image, which you can find over at her blog, and in return, I made this non-rainbow ordered palette.

It's a struggle for me, not ordering the colours, but I like it this way. Sometimes a little less order is good for the mind. And as proof of that, I've done something quite different with it this time. Please say hello to my palette-inspired fantasy wardrobe (courtesy of Pinterest). 

(BHLDN via Pinterest)

(Analog Me via Pinterest)

(Zara via Pinterest)

(Pia Barile via Pinterest)

 

(One Avian Daemon via Pinterest)

(Anne M Cramer via Pinterest)

(via Pinterest)

(Orla Kiely via Pinterest)

(Story of Things via Pinterest)

(ASOS via Pinterest)

(Gens Du Monde via Pinterest)

Pretty pretty, don't you think?

Obviously my actual wardrobe is every bit as extensive and colourful, and I'm not sitting here in jeans and a black sweater.

Absolutely not. 

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Palette Pingpong (No.39)

Morning, blogistas. 

I'd love to hang around and chat, but I'm all caught up in gazing at this bee-yoo-tiful picture.

[source]

See? Gorgeous.

I picked it out as today's Pingpong challenge for Gabrielle. If she's managed to stop with the gazing for a few minutes, you'll find both a palette and a project over at her blog, the green gables. Or, as they might call it on the pretty website where I found the photo in the first place, os oitões verdes.

Yes, that's right - I speak the Portuguese. And no amount of suggesting I found the picture during a lazy browse around Pinterest will get me to confess otherwise.

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Palette Pingpong (No.38) :: Two for tea

Today's Pingpong is something of a double celebration. As well as setting the challenge, my lovely green gal-pal Gabrielle also inspired the resulting project, although not entirely on purpose. 

But before I get to that, the colour swatch:

Pretty? Yep, I think so, but then the starting point was so gorgeous, it wasn't too big a leap.

My choice of project is based on an idea I had a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for nine floss colours to work it up, and the fact there were exactly nine shades in my Palette this week made it too perfect to resist going ahead. 

If you're thinking you've seen that design before, you probably have - it's one of Gabrielle's yummy tea-towels. I've had mine for a while now and love the pretty aqua-on-calico print.

But, when I was browsing the Sublime Stitching website a few weeks ago, these cute tote bag designs made me realise my tea-towel might be dual-purpose. Not as in doing the dishes/using it to grab hot plates out of the oven (I am much too good at setting linens on fire to risk that anymore), but in a pretty-as-it-is-but-would-also-make-an-awesome-embroidery-project kind of way. So, I got stitching.

Nothing too complicated - split stitch for the hearts (I couldn't resist arranging the palette into colour order) and a whipped backstitch for the bunting string. I'm still deliberating whether I might stitch the little strip of text at the bottom, too. 

If you like the idea of doing something similar, now would be a pretty good time to throw your hat into the ring. Don't tell my Mother Hubbard-like kitchen, but apparently it's National Baking Week. Gabrielle, who I know from first-hand experience bakes an impossibly good Victoria sponge - no burnt edges, crater in the middle or anything - is celebrating this by offering a 25% discount on all the kitchenware in her shop, the green gables, until Sunday 23rd October (find the code and info here).

Personally, I'm thinking I need another tea-towel, so I can hang a plain one next to my embroidered version in the kitchen. So I can get twice as much drying up done, not because they'll look really pretty hanging up together.

Obviously.  

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Palette Pingpong (No.37)

Hola, Palette fans.

It's that time of the week again (or fortnight, if you're paying very close attention). Today I shall be doing this without ado, further or otherwise, because word is Gabrielle has a shiny new Pingpong tutorial to share.

Here is the picture challenge I set for her:

[source]

It's by the reliably fabulous Elsie Larson and, let's face it, a more colourfully inspiring Flickr stream you could hardly wish to find. 

So, this tutorial? Follow me like the Pied Piper, won't you, and let's have a look.

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Palette Pingpong (No.36) :: Desktop wallpapers

 

Anatomy of a Palette Pingpong post

Gabrielle sends me a picture.

I use it to make a colour swatch.

I set about making something fancy from the colour swatch.

I work on it for over an hour.

Photoshop crashes.

I remember that Command+S is my friend.(Command + S saves time, and sanity, and most importantly of all, it saves the stuff you’re working on.)

I start again.

Because I like you and I want to share something pretty with you.

(Press Ctrl+click for Mac / right click for PC to save or set as background)

I hope you like them.

I hope you’ll download them.

I hope when you look at them, they will remind you Command+S is your friend, too. Saving stuff is good.

The end.

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Palette Pingpong (No.35)

So, apparently today is Thursday. How that happened, I'm not quite certain, but Thursday it is and round here that means Palette Pingpong.

Even though she's been crazy-busy launching a new (and very gorgeous) Christmas line over at the green gables, Miss Gabs was still up for a little colour-schemeing, and this here is the picture I chose as her challenge:

Pretty, no? It's from The Wedding Chicks (and before you go reading anything into that, I found it via Pinterest). The site is lovely, particularly if you *are* looking for wedding ideas, or even engagement/couples/general party inspiration. Despite its ability to steal away hours of time you didn't have to spare, I do love how Pinterest so often leads you to blogs, websites, shops and artists you might never have otherwise discovered. 

For now, though, it's me leading you over to Gabrielle's blog to see what she's done with that photograph... 

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