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COLOUR STORIES

Interiors, fashion, creativity or life in general – whatever the subject, there’s always something fascinating to say about colour. Here’s where we talk about it.

Vintage Penguin books come in a number of colours, each of which denotes a particular genre.
The many colours of vintage Penguin books

Here are some pretty Penguins for your delectation… The colours add beauty to the tomes and you’ll often see [...]

5 ways colour helped me cope with coronavirus lockdown

I don’t know about you but I couldn’t have done without colour during the various coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Here [...]

How to paint a mini-mural in 15 minutes

I love painting things. Every stage thrills me, starting from leafing through paint cards, comparing shades and buying tester [...]

Stories about stairs

What sayings from your childhood have imprinted themselves indelibly on your brain? My mum was the queen of phrases. [...]

What colour is your house?

What colour is YOUR house? I’ve walked down this street soooo many times (on account of the fact my [...]

The unexpected gift of friendship

Sometimes life gives you little unexpected gifts: tax rebates (rare), a good hair day (rarer), perhaps a broken-handled wabi-sabi [...]

The colourful apple doesn’t fall far…

Good morning and welcome to a new week SIC breaks up tomorrow, which means the massive locker clear-out is [...]

All-year round Christmas decorations

I’ve always loved party decorations When I was a kid and was tasked with licking coloured slivers of paper [...]

Are you brave with colour?

I’m on a proper colour roll today… Here’s another close-up I took in my living room the other day. [...]

Embrace the visual noise

‘Never work with animals and children’ That’s what W.C.Fields once famously said (second-in-command, aged 12, is incredulous: ‘Why? We’re [...]

A triptych by emerging artist Carys Ross in acrylic and oils
How to buy art with your heart

Just when you think you’ve seen all the beauty you can take… My colour-loving friends, I want to share [...]

My multicoloured Etsy find

Yesterday, I talked about how Etsy is my go-to destination for superb colour finds. Here’s one that I bought: [...]

Why I love Etsy

What do you do if you have a spare five minutes? Pour yourself a sizeable G&T? Idly swipe your [...]

My colourful vintage blanket collection

LOOK at these cuties!! Around 15 years ago I went through a phase of buying colourful crocheted blankets. I [...]

The healing power of gerbera flowers

What is it about gerberas? Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that they look like flowers a [...]

Where does ‘cushion’ come from?

I love words I love that there are so many wonderful words to choose from when you’re musing over [...]

My purple Leuchtturm 1917 notebook

What is it about a new notebook? Whenever I get one I get that ‘new school year’ buzz (buying [...]

Colours that go well together

Hello, folks. I wanted to show you this picture I made for my friend Jen’s 50th birthday @yoyojenjen It’s [...]

The colours that cats see

Welcome to my world and the #storyofmyhome  It’s the one where this glorious creature perpetually chases her brother round [...]

My colourful childhood dressing-up trunk

Oh my gosh, just LOOK at these beauties!! Rail after rail of colour-organised vintage dresses, spotted at @topshop in [...]

A guide to vintage Penguin book colours

Here are some pretty Penguins for your delectation The colours don’t just add beauty to the tomes, they also [...]

Colourful street art: why I love it

It’s that time of year I start to feel intense wanderlust In my mind, i circumnavigate the globe and [...]

Welsh colour names

When i was a little girl, my Mamgu (‘grandmother’ in Welsh) looked after me while my mum went to [...]

The joy of watercolour paints

What IS it about a set of watercolour paints? Pure, unadulturated colour joy. I love them most when they’ve [...]

Creating flat lays with Pantone postcards

OK, so it would seem I’ve discovered a new favourite colourful pastime (like I don’t have enough already): playing [...]

How The Colour File got its name

When I started The Colour File, I chose the name for several reasons. When I take pictures, I keep [...]

American academic tassels: what the colours mean

I’m fascinated by the subject of colour blindness A friend told me about a boyfriend she once had, whose [...]

A world of undiscovered colours

Hello, folks, and welcome to a new week. Do you take for granted being able to distinguish between different [...]

Where to find colour in London: Liberty’s

Where do you head to when you’re feeling flat, melancholy or in need of recalibrating after your cage has [...]

How to play the Valspar paint swatch game

When I was a kid, I loved playing Monopoly. It wasn’t on account of being highly competitive (ok, so [...]

Adding Californian colour to a shady spot

Do you ever have a, ‘Why, Miss Jones, you’re really rather beautiful!’ moment about an area of your home? [...]

A lifelong love of colouring pencils

I was sketching for one of my colour projects when I realised just how DELICIOUS these pencils looked against [...]

Creating colourful art from ocean plastic

Today, 22 April, is World Earth Day. We should be thinking about our environment every day but our frenetic [...]

The story behind my purple tattoo

Do you have a tattoo? I never used to see myself as a tattoo kind of gal. This was mainly [...]

Colour blocking with pink and mint green

Who loves colour-blocking? Regular readers of the Colour File will know much I love hiding same coloured objects against [...]

‘Blue and green should never be seen’ & other colour sayings

Rules are made to be broken, right? I often think this when I hear sayings that have effectively become [...]

3 April 19: Remembering lost ones through colour

Do you have a colour that distinctly reminds you of someone? When I remember my mum, I think of [...]

31 March 19: A colourful Mothering Sunday

Happy Mothers Day from The Colour File  I’m forever impressed and amazed at the talent I see on Insta [...]

29 March 19: Frames aren’t just for pictures

What do you like to see in a frame? As well as the usual suspects – pictures, prints and [...]

24 March 19: Why are butterflies colourful?

Who loves butterflies? I know not everyone is a fan of animals that flap and flutter (a butterfly phobia [...]

22 March 19: Valspar’s Institute of Primal Colour

I love the opportunity to immerse myself in paint. Not literally (I’m guessing that’s quite a niche hobby) but [...]

21 March 19: International Colour Day

Today it’s a double whammy: its International Colour Day AND the Hindu festival of Holi. As such I’ve been [...]

The blue of falling in love

Colour perceptions are individual – for example, one person’s ‘feeling blue’ blue can be another person’s energising ‘blue sky [...]

Losing your mind to colour

Have you ever almost lost your mind over colour? This pic was one of the first I ever took [...]

Colour and disorder

I remember once learning about the law of entropy. It states that ‘all things tend towards disorder’, whether on [...]

Pastels colour wheel

Good morning from Tuesday. Here’s the desaturated plastics pic I promised you. It’s a blend of pieces from Devon, [...]

Ocean plastic colour wheel

This weekend I went for a walk along the Thames, close to Colour File HQ. There’s one spot where [...]

Colours in conversation with each other

Did I ever tell you how much I love colour? No? 🤔😁Let me tell you again. What I love [...]

10 books about colour

As a colour-lover, I’m often asked colour questions like, ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ The other one is, ‘What colourful [...]

The story of Staffordshire dogs

I love ceramic Staffordshire dogs. Dating back to the 1720s, there are all manner of stories relating to them. [...]

How to create the perfect (colourful) freelance space

When I worked on a national newspaper, we did long hours (news never sleeps, even if you feel the [...]

The psychology of pink

One of the things I’ve learned is that colour isn’t just something we see: the moment it seeps into [...]

The power of a green room

Throwback to when the dahlias were in full bloom and my bedroom was green.. There’s something so grounding about [...]

The story of pink calamine lotion

I’m forever poring over (read ‘virtually licking’) paint cards in search of the perfect shade of _______ (enter whatever [...]

31 January 19: Are you a fan of the fade?

Good morning, folks. I was really inspired by the @marksandspencerhomepr SS19 event yesterday. As well as being overjoyed to see azure [...]

My (growing) vintage cotton reel collection

What object you own gives you the most joy? In the words of Marie Kondo, what ‘sparks joy’ (in [...]

What do you see first when you wake up?

Sending you happy vibes from a sunny Sunday ☀️☀️☀️ One of the first things I see when I wake [...]

The story of colourful kantha quilts

I once read that creative people tend to prefer asymmetry (I’m all for buying odd numbers of things rather [...]

The story of the colour, heliotrope

Are there any words you love and, conversely, any you don’t like? Apparently, the least favourite word in the [...]

The story of green malachite dye

I mentioned some time back how I searched tirelessly for a decade for the perfect coffee table. I eventually [...]

Organising and tidying using colour order

I’m working on a project that’s making me really think about how we organise our stuff. Apparently, us human [...]

Dan Baldwin’s 100 tones of happiness

What would you buy if money were no object? For me it would be art. I already have a [...]

The story of red and white candy canes

Do you put candy canes on your Christmas tree? I tried it once but realised it was a no-go [...]

The story of the white elephant

‘Don’t even THINK about it!!’ That was my mum’s standard response when, a long while back, she’d tell me [...]

The story of coral colour

After the punchy Ultra Violet of 2018, Pantone gave us Living Coral for its 2019 Colour of the Year. [...]

The story of my pink bathroom

Do you have a favourite room in your home? I love my Angie pink living room and, as a [...]

The wonder of colourful birds

I once visited a bird sanctuary in Trinidad and I remember doing a 360 degree turn and seeing colourful [...]

The story of the yellow smiley face

I often muse upon the whole ‘What did the first person to do X really think?’ thing. You know, [...]

Yellow covers for ‘smart thinking’ books

Hello lovely people I was just lusting over my pile of beloved Penguin poetry books and it got me [...]

Fear of colour: chromatophobia

As someone who loves colour with a passion, I’m fascinated when people tell me they’re afraid of it. They’re [...]

Coloured bar charts: the (only) best bit of maths

I’ve never been too hot on the mathematics front (I try to hide in a cupboard if second-in-command needs [...]

The story of Missoni stripes & chevrons

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you chevron knitwear, then it’s time to thank your [...]

A story about colourful phone directories

Has colour ever helped you to solve a problem or conundrum? As a trainee reporter, I was asked to [...]

The story of denim

How many facts do you look up each day? I’m not sure if counting will make me feel good [...]

The story of how the RA cups went missing…

When I was younger, I’d go to the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) with my mum, and (typical kid) [...]

The perfectly perfect art of kintsugi

I adore imperfection. Imperfection is, to me, perfection, because it’s real. My life is imperfect in some crucial ways [...]

Colour quotes in Shakespeare

When we did Shakespeare at school, I loved any reference to colours For example, Othello’s ‘green-eyed monster’ (not to [...]

The story of magenta

I love magenta. Named after a battle between the French and Austrians in Lombardy, this colour that is 50:50 [...]

5 colourful holiday destinations

Someone recently asked me what my ideal holiday destination is. On a general level, the answer is almost certainly [...]

Stories about colour blindness

Since I started the Colour File, I’ve been fascinated by the stories it’s led me to, including our about [...]

Frida Kahlo’s colourful diary entry

Colouring pencils excite and inspire me: they are representative of a universe of creative possibilities. They also make me [...]

The colours of heraldry

When I was a child, my brother and I were occasionally looked after by an elderly neighbour. She wouldn’t [...]

How to decorate with Dulux Spiced Honey…if you don’t like brown

A childhood of being dressed in ‘autumn’ colours and living in a beige-coloured house was enough to give me [...]

The colours of Bordeaux

Who, what or where is your creative muse? Although historically a person or even a goddess, I’ve discovered that [...]

The Colours of poetry

Hands up who loves poetry? I have to confess, I don’t love it all. There are some poems I [...]

The story of blue for boys & pink for girls

Welcome to Saturday, folks. One of the things I love about colour is how we come to recognise and [...]

The story of the ‘green room’

Ever wondered what’s behind the term ‘green room’? TV studios have them for waiting guests to help calm their [...]

The colour rules of Tiddlywinks

Anyone out there play tiddlywinks? Apparently its a highly competitive pursuit, thanks to a bunch of Cambridge University undergrads [...]

Do women see more colours than men?

My mum once said she could never marry anyone who sings out of tune. I think my criteria would [...]

The joy of flat lays

Who loves aerial views? Whether it’s the view from a plane or pictures of the earth from space, I’ve [...]

A story about colourful stamps

A friend of mine was an avid collector of stamps when he was a kid. He’d buy them with [...]

Eduardo Paolozzi’s London Underground mosaics

Have you ever noticed something for the first time that you’ve actually seen a million times before? I had [...]

Memories of mixing school powder paint

When I was at primary school, if you were really well-behaved you got to mix the paints. They came [...]

The story of sugar almonds

Don’t you love colourful traditions? They’re a thing of family and fable, often springing from quirky habits and strong [...]

Colour for mental health

Colour is potent and powerful and has the ability to effect change in so many ways. At the London [...]

In love with Peruvian textiles

When I went to Peru a few years ago, I was captivated by the awesome Andes (altitude sickness aside) [...]

The story of Stib colouring pencils

As a bit of a swot, I always quite liked the start of a new academic year. Covering exercise [...]

The story of red clover bugs

On The Colour File a while back, I told you about the time my brother and I were made [...]

Colourful beach huts

HANDS UP who had a Wendy house when they were a kid? I didn’t (which possibly explains the ‘dolls [...]

Blue & white azulejo tiles

One of my favourite colourful things about Porto is the traditional azulejo tiles. There are buildings where lore and [...]

The story of fractal art

Fractal pictures were all the rage in 1989 (yeah, ok, so you weren’t even born then…) when I went [...]

The story of Porto’s colourful swallows

In Porto I saw ceramic birds for sale at every turn. I was told they first came about in [...]

A story of loss and love: green for Oscar

I always wear green for Oscar, my son’s twin brother, who died. It’s a colour tradition that happened largely [...]

Black and white interiors: love or loathe?

Those of you who know me will know I’m not the biggest fan of black and white in interiors. [...]

The story of coloured barricade tape

I want to share a colour story that was told to me in Porto. As you know, I am [...]

Colourful Porto street art

Since arriving in Porto four days ago I’ve been hunting for someone I know. Well, not technically ‘know’: more [...]

What’s your first colourful holiday memory?

Good morning, folks. Well, I’m three days in to my Porto colour holiday and I’m having a riot, so [...]

The story of why Portuguese buildings are yellow and blue

When we were working on Shelfie back in deepest, darkest January, with short shooting days, the colours du jour [...]

The joy of putting things in colour order

I recently read that 40 per cent of millennials choose holiday destinations based on whether they’ll photograph well for [...]

My top 4 interiors styling tips

When it comes to interiors, colour tends to come first, before I think about anything else. In many ways [...]

Pale green and blue bridge perfection

I have this thing about bridges.  I told you about my love of the Severn River Crossing back in [...]

The coloured front doors of Aberaeron

As you may recall, I recently changed the colour of the front door at Colour File HQ. ‘Yeah, so?’ [...]

My colours of Wales

I’m off to Wales – the Land of my Fathers – where, I’ve been happily reassured, it’s a good [...]

My love of Art Deco pthalo green

Do you ever fixate on a colour then discover it pops up in your life in all manner of [...]

13 July 18: Picture wall joy

Good morning, folks. I know it’s only 24 hours since Shelfie was published, but I felt the need to [...]

Ocean and river plastic collage

Recently, I’ve been creating a series of Thames plastic collages, set against different coloured backgrounds. In a slightly obsessional [...]

2 July 18: The art of furniture-shifting

Are you a furniture-shifter?  Guilty as charged. When I was a kid, I loved nothing more than changing the [...]

The perfect coffee table

Did I ever tell you about my coffee table (see here, in the foreground)? I spent literally a decade [...]

Cafe Nerro indigo

Do you ever come across a colour that makes you think, ‘I need to see more of that!’? I [...]

29 June 18: Tales of Walton Street SW3

When I was kid, my mum told me she was known by friends at her Welsh boarding school as [...]

23 June 18: Crimson, cravats & crime

Hello, folks. I’m on such a colour high after yesterday that I thought I’d spread some more Thames coloured [...]

27 May 18: Purple Thames shelfie

Who saw the lightning in London last night? As second-in-command and his friend ran in and out of the [...]

Blue, green and yellow: the joy of analogous colours

What are your thoughts on analogous colours – clusters of colours next to each other on the colour wheel? [...]

29 April 18: Yellow Thames plastic

Morning, my colour-loving friends. Now, I don’t know what it is but there’s something about this yellow Thames plastic [...]

What is the Blue Mind effect?

I grew up near the River Thames and I live near it now, just a few miles from my [...]

Marrs green: the world’s favourite colour

Recently I blogged about my love of colours that seem to defy categorisation. Well, I’m pleased to say that [...]

How to make a colourful masking tape greetings card

Happiness is making things, especially if it involves colour. Here at The Colour File, we’ve been lusting after MT [...]

Tangerine Dream

Happy Sunday, Colour Filers 🦊🦀🦐🔥🍊 And what a sunny Sunday its turning out to be. It’s getting me in [...]

In praise of green

Hello to all you lovers of green I love this shade of green – I spied these impossibly high [...]

Colour trios: Orange, yellow and pink

I’m big into orange at the moment, or, more specifically, mandarin and tangerine. I spotted some matched with pink [...]

Red and green

Here’s a dose of red and green, despite the popular saying that dictates they should never be seen together [...]

23rd March ’17: Paisley print

Happy Thursday, folks 🦋🌼🐻. I did it again…I went in search of colour and found macaroons…happily, they go perfectly [...]

Why I Love Faded Colours

During my gap year when I was 18, I worked in an orphanage in southern India. After washing my [...]

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