March of the tools!

I am so honored to be a part of this year’s March of the Tools project! As soon as I got the response from Heather saying I was included (how lucky am I?), images of tools started swirling around in my head. I realized that some of the tools that came to mind might not technically be tools at all. I mean, is bath soap a tool? I thought it best to start by defining what a tool really is. A tool is anything used as a means for accomplishing a task or purpose. So, if the task you’re trying to accomplish is cleaning your body and your purpose is to cut down on body odor, then indeed bath soap is a tool. Now that we’ve settled that little foundational concept, let’s get down to my first awesome tool recommendation:



Kuler: Best Online Color Palette Tool
This is an incredible free tool for building color themes. Whether you are a graphic or fabric design professional, quilter, art teacher or just looking to redecorate your livingroom; you’ll find this a very handy site. It’s extremely easy to navigate given the dandy little explanations that pop-up when you mouse over things. In the screenshot above you can see the color palette blocks across the middle. Under the color blocks you’ll see this one is named “firefly.” Just to the right of that you’ll see a tiny square color-slider box. (If this is too small for you to read, just go directly to the site and you can check out these features there.) If you click on the slider you can get a host of specific information about the color breakdowns: hsv, rgb, cmyk, lab & hex. In this same window you’ll see “select a rule” where you can view the complimentary colors, monochromatic, or my favorite, shades. Clearly there are a ton of other features to play around with. I urge you to go to Kuler and explore it for yourself. Then come back and comment, I’d love to hear what you think of it. Thanks for sharing my tool-love. Check out my next tool post where I’ll be sharing the love for my new sewing machine ;-)

Note: they just added flash player 10 functionality so you may have to download it to view the updated site. Be sure to quit your browser after you’ve downloaded flash and before you go through the install process. Otherwise it will not install properly though that may only be specific to macs. :-)