You probably already know about the "in" colors picked out every season by Pantone. However, knowing about them and using them in your jewelry designs can be two different animals. Color is super important in jewelry designing, especially if you work with bead weaving and/or stringing techniques. Being able manipulate colors and how they work with each other can often separate you from the many other beaders out there.

Long time beader, author, and color expert Margie Deeb has made her career around the idea of color. You may know her from some of her books such as The Beader's Guide to Color. She also has a new book soon to be published called The Beader's Color Palette.

Along with her books on color, Margie has developed some smaller pdf-type files she sells through her site, most recently the Color Report for Bead Artists (Spring/Summer 2008) ($9.95 US). It is a 15 page pdf file with 40 palettes, similar to the one pictured above. She based her palettes on the Pantone colors, and then includes sample jewelry pieces as well as various color combinations and bead ratios to try out. Though this is not a "how-to" make jewelry file, as in you won't get directions on how to make the jewelry pieces pictured, you will get a number of different color combinations, some mirroring the jewelry pieces she provides as examples of how the colors would look in a finished jewelry piece.