An Official Pantone Barbie! That's Right. Mattel's New Pink in Pantone Barbie Doll.

Barbie is in the Pink. Pantone Pink 219C, to be exact. Mattel and Pantone have just released the new doll, designed by Linda Kyaw, for pre-order. The destined-to-be-a-designer's-favorite doll, with a retail price of $52.99, will ship in January 2012.

PINK IN PANTONE® BARBIE® Doll:
Barbie is all about pink, particularly PMS 219, her signature color -which, believe it or not, is actually owned by Mattel .



Barbie is clad in a pink, fitted “leather” bodice, with two straps and a flower accent made of Pantone color chips:



The glamorous dress celebrates the Mattel Barbie Pink fashion heritage with a long full skirt made of Pantone color chips in PMS 219C:


And the ensemble is topped off with white shoes, complete with pink soles and PMS 219C written on them (for those who are not familiar with Pantone matching system of inks, the "C" stands for 'coated'):


Silvery and black bangles and “silver” hoop earrings complete the look. Pink has never looked so pretty. Doll cannot stand alone. For the adult collector.


Pre-Order your Barbie® Pink in Pantone Doll here

Color Me Christmas! 10 New Pantone Christmas Ornaments.

I've been waiting for these for awhile. Almost made them myself last year. Finally, Pantone Universe has come out with Christmas ornaments made by Studio Badini Createam for Selab. So far, I can only find them at Seletti, but I hope they'll be making their way to the US soon. Made of glass, the Pantone Xmas Balls are available in ten different PMS colors.

Last minute update: According to Seletti, these will not be available until Christmas of 2012 :(












Don't forget there are many other fun Christmas-related Pantone items like wrapping paper, cards and bags and Christmas inspired Pantone Posters




For more information on the Pantone Xmas Balls and where they ship, go here.

A Temporary Tattoo Inspired by Pantone Chips!

In contrast to my earlier post today about permanent inking here's a much more light-hearted temporary option. As part of the Designy Temporary Tattoos from Tattly, graphic designer Josh Smith created an ode to Pantone color chips by creating a temp tatt inspired by their color chips.







The transparent rubdown is named TATTONE and uses the numbers and letters "5k1n" spell out skin:











Each sheet comes with 2 chip-sized Tattones and a deluxe-sized Tattone for when you need to send a stronger message. $5

Buy it here



To see the full collection of Designy Temporary tattoos, visit Tattly here.

Ah, the Sweet Smell of Design. Pantone Candles. Pantone Toothbrushes, Too!

Ah, so that's what PMS 15-5217 smells like.
Pantone Universe (the company behind the Pantone Matching System of colored inks) just keeps pumping out the products - this is actually my thirteenth post on Pantone-related products.

The latest Pantone-branded item for the home from the color inks standard are scented Pantone candles in three sizes and 10 PMS colors. Apparently the candles are created by Belgium-based Ilanga for Pantone and like many of the their products for the home, they do not seem to be available in the US, at least not yet.











Although there is a dedicated website, it is not up and running, but you can purchase some of the candles at Vinçon (only Honeysuckle and twilight) and at Colette (where they carry 7 of them in two sizes).

Pantone Toothbrushes & Pantone Contact Lens Cases

In addition to the candles, other new offerings from the Pantone Universe are Pantone Toothbrushes in a set of five and Pantone Contact Lens cases.


buy the set of 5 here.

Pantone Contact Lens cases

buy them here.

Pantone Universe

Pantone Color Chip Cookies! Kim Neill Bakes Up Deliciously Divine Design.

Freelance designer and illustrator Kim Neill was inspired to turn Pantone color chips into edible cookies after finding the Pantone color tins by Seletti at a nearby art supply store.


above: Kim Neill with her fabulous Pantone Chip cookies in the Pantone Tins, above right

As a holiday gift for her clients, she filled the tins with rectangular sugar cookies topped with colored icing and used an edible marker to indicate the PMS colors.




Kim even made METALLIC pantone chips. Using bottles of silver and gold edible luster dust to rush atop the icing, she created cookies in PMS Metallic Silver 877, Gold 871 and Pink 8062.



The cookies in the tins were a huge hit with her clients. The faves? Seems that the PMS 485, PMS 183 and Silver 877 were the most popular.

How to make Kim's brilliant PANTONE CHIP COOKIES:

FOR THE DOUGH:
She used Mary’s Sugar Cookie recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook. Super tasty. Recipe here.

Roll dough out between 1/4” and 1/8“ thickness. Thinner cookies keep their shape better. Cut 2” x 2.5” rectangles out of dough (using a stencil from cardboard may make it easier). Cook until lightly golden brown, keeping an eye on them as they cook because they cook quickly.

Note: If you are filling a Pantone Tin, three batches of cookies will only fill up the tin halfway. They are big tins, so to resolve this, Kim ended up lining the bottom of the tin with folded over bubble wrap to make the tin appear full.

An alternative to the tin would be to fill with Pantone mugs with the cookies, which make for a nice individual gift. Purchase the Pantone Storage Tins or the Pantone Mugs for your cookies.

FOR THE ROYAL ICING:
This is a great recipe to use because it keeps color vibrant, doesn’t fade and dries nice without being too hard. Flavor with white vanilla here if you can. Regular vanilla tends to darken the icing a bit. You might want to add a bit more milk then the recipe calls for to get the perfect spreading consistency. Recipe found here.

DECORATING THE COOKIES:
Make a big bowl of white royal icing. Start by spreading a strip of white icing across the all the cookie bottoms and let dry. Now use what’s left of your white icing to make colors.

Scoop 3-4 heaping tablespoons of icing in a tiny bowl and then color with solid food coloring. This will color 3-5 cookies. Once you are done with one color, rinse your bowl out and start again. Doing colors this way keeps the mess down and you don’t have to worry about what you just mixed drying out. Using a food dye pen, write the matching [or closest] PMS number down on the cookies.

Kim used Gourmet Food Writers, available for purchase here. To make the Metallic Chips, use a soft brush or cotton ball to burnish icing surface with gold or silver luster dust, available for purchase here.

all images and recipes courtesy of Kim Neill.