A Journey Around the Skull, which inspired a previous post, recommended checking out the textile blog Dots and Lines are Just Fine, and though just getting started with their collection, they still had plenty of inspiring palettes.

A selection of 100 patterns from the COLOURlovers' group Designfruit Ornate.

A selection of 100 patterns from the COLOURlovers' group African Abstractions: "Colours and patterns that evocate the culture of the African continent and its influence among other countries. Preference for abstract patterns."

Here's a selection of 94 patterns from the group Show your Tartans created back in October of 2007. To see more great plaids and tartans check out these other groups as well: Plaid Patterns, Plaid Pride, Plaids and Tartan Lovers and Wearable or Stareable Plaids. Feel free to link to other similar groups in the comments if there are others I missed.

For those of you a bit confused on the difference between plaid and tartan the short answer is that plaid is a piece of clothing and tartan is "any of numerous textile patterns consisting of stripes of varying widths and colors crossed at right angles against a solid background." To learn more check out this forum and these pages: Tartan & Plaid.

A nice write up about the latest wallpaper trends and tips on how to best incorporate them into your home or office by House to Home.

Archive designs

Wallpapers taken from the archives are historic but far from old-fashioned. Follow our tips to make a traditional archive-print wallpaper work beautifully in your home.

• You don’t have to live in an old house for these wallpapers to work, but, for best effect, choose a design that suits the scale of your home. For example, the small florals typical of the 1930s can look lost in a high-ceilinged room, while heavily patterned Victorian prints can overwhelm a small or low-ceilinged space.

• To make a beautiful wallcovering the focus of the room, pick out key colours from the design and repeat them in plain fabrics and painted woodwork.

• To mix in other prints without outshining the wallpaper, stick to a limited colour palette. Alternatively, choose another print from the same collection – they’re grouped to co-ordinate, so the hard work’s been done for you.

• If you like an eclectic look, you can team an archive wallpaper with modern furniture, but echo the design – for example, a pattern with gentle curves will look better with furniture in curved shapes.

• If you want to find a paint that matches the tones used in an archive wallpaper, look at heritage and period paint collections.

Geometrics

Love geometric wallpaper? Use it to create a fabulous look with these simple rules.

Continuing our vintage fabric series, today we're looking at some great color inspiration from a collection of pink vintage fabrics. This collection, along with plenty of other fine image sets, can be found here, and were put together by True Up, which happens to be wonderful resource for fabric news.

Wrapped up nicely for the holidays, here are 29 inspiring vintage holiday wrapping papers. Hopefully, this great collection from xtinalamb will not only give you some color inspiration, but maybe inspire to reuse paper, or start your own collection to help avoid the extra 5 million tons of waste generated each year during the winter holidays; four million tons of this is wrapping paper and shopping bags (source).

Continuing our vintage fabric series, today we're looking at some great color inspiration from a collection of blue vintage fabrics. This collection, along with plenty of other fine image sets, can be found here, and were put together by True Up, which happens to be wonderful resource for fabric news.

Purple Fabric

Continuing our vintage fabric series, today we're looking at some great color inspiration from a collection of purple and brown vintage fabrics. These collection, along with plenty of other fine image sets, can be found here & here, and were put together by True Up, which happens to be wonderful resource for fabric news.

Purple Fabric

With the weather turning a bit chillier and the snow beginning to fall I thought it was time to check in on the top palettes, colors and patterns that include that wintry white.

White Palettes