Category — Melamine Dishes

New Melamine patterns, new guides!

Anyone who has tried to match colors when buying online knows how difficult it is. Colors vary on each computer, depending on the resolution, the quality of the display and often the quality of the photograph itself. Our eyes all perceive color differently too. This makes matching anything a challenge.

One of the issues that has come up in the past few months is how our solid color melamine dishes coordinate with the patterned ones. And what seemed at first like a no-brainer, is in fact a bit more challenging.

Colors that we thought would obviously go together, when put side by side, actually do not work.

In an effort to help our customers pick out the best possible combination, we have devised a buying guide that we will divide by pattern to keep things simple. We photographed each design with each solid, so you can see for yourself. And we will give our opinion and rank them according to our personal opinion (and since we have them here, we can tell honestly and without the biais of a monitor, what we feel works).

Beauville Fruit

View the Beauville Collection

1. With Yellow

Actually pretty good, it brings out the yellow in the pattern

2. With Blue

Beautiful and restrained.

3. With Red

Wonderful, it makes the fruit more vibrant

4. With Green

Also very good

Our conclusion: they all work well, which is nice. Mix and match, or pick your favorite color. Or go with the main color in your table scheme. You cannot go wrong with this very versatile design.

New Melamine patterns, new guides!

Anyone who has tried to match colors when buying online knows how difficult it is. Colors vary on each computer, depending on the resolution, the quality of the display and often the quality of the photograph itself. Our eyes all perceive color differently too. This makes matching anything a challenge.

One of the issues that has come up in the past few months is how our solid color melamine dishes coordinate with the patterned ones. And what seemed at first like a no-brainer, is in fact a bit more challenging.

Colors that we thought would obviously go together, when put side by side, actually do not work.

In an effort to help our customers pick out the best possible combination, we have devised a buying guide that we will divide by pattern to keep things simple. We photographed each design with each solid, so you can see for yourself. And we will give our opinion and rank them according to our personal opinion (and since we have them here, we can tell honestly and without the biais of a monitor, what we feel works).

Havana Rooster

View the Havana Rooster Collection

1. With Yellow

Actually pretty good, it brings out the yellow in the pattern

2. With Blue

No surprises, but perhaps a tad too dark

3. With Red

Not our favorite but it’s OK

4. With Green

Not bad, but not great either.

Our conclusion: yellow works best, followed by blue.

These days it seems you cannot open a magazine or listen to a radio program or watch television without hearing about ‘green’ products and how to be a smart consumer while at the same time doing your bit to reduce waste and encourage recycling.

Europeans consumers are ahead of Americans in many ways in this area, for cost reasons, and other reasons. For example supermarkets in Europe have long charged customers extra for plastic grocery bags. And trash bags too. Because streets in the cities are narrower, and fewer people in big metropolitan areas drive, the use of supermarket ‘caddies’ is also quite common.

collapsible trolley by Reisenthel

These make perfect sense for navigating smaller narrower stores and streets but they are also catching on in the United States , especially since they store flat and take no room at all!

Another type of shopping bag consumers in Europe rely on increasingly are the Carry Bags, such as the one pictures below

Carrybag by Reisenthel

These come in a variety of sizes, for adults and children, making shopping less of a chore, and more shared fun!

Family shopping fun…

Along the same lines, consumers are looking for recyclable items, or re-usable items. For example, rather than paper towels, using regular dish towels, even for mop-ups and spills.

Or Melamine, sturdy dinnerware, instead of paper and plastic disposable plates and dishes, such as those made by Le Cadeaux

Entertaining with Melamine dishes, pretty enough for any occasion!

These are just a few ideas of what we can do to create less trash, and re-use the items we own….

Anyone who has tried to match colors when buying online knows how difficult it is. Colors vary on each computer, depending on the resolution, the quality of the display and often the quality of the photograph itself. Our eyes all perceive color differently too. This makes matching anything a challenge.

One of the issues that has come up in the past few months is how our solid color melamine dishes coordinate with the patterned ones. And what seemed at first like a no-brainer, is in fact a bit more challenging.

Colors that we thought would obviously go together, when put side by side, actually do not work.

In an effort to help our customers pick out the best possible combination, we have devised a buying guide that we will divide by pattern to keep things simple. We photographed each design with each solid, so you can see for yourself. And we will give our opinion and rank them according to our personal opinion (and since we have them here, we can tell honestly and without the biais of a monitor, what we feel works).

I. Gallo Red

View the different Gallo Red Products

1. With Yellow

Can work, depending on what else is on the table.

2. With Blue

Definitely a good choice

3. With Green

Not really a good combination

4. With red

Yes, a good combination and the reds work together

Our verdict:

Red and blue are 2 obvious choices, yellow can be done if you like it and green is not recommended.

II. Gallo Yellow

View the different Gallo Yellow Products

1. With Red

Not the obvious choice but not a clash between the red in the pattern and the solid red

2. With Yellow

A nice combination and the yellows work together just fine

3. With Blue

Surprising but it does work

4. With Green

Not ideal, the greens are not the same. Not horrible either though.

Our verdict

Yellow is always good. Red and blue can be done, we do not recommend green (too much ‘olive’ in the solid plate)

III. Gallo Blue

View the different Gallo Blue Products

1. With Yellow

A fresh and fun combination

2. With Blue

Not bad – the blues are not the same but they do not clash
3. With Green

We do not recommend it. Hard to see in the pictures but the greens do not blend well

4. With Red

An excellent choice

Our verdict

Red is really good, yellow and blue are fine and green is not recommended

IV. Gallo Green

View the different Gallo Green Products

1. With Yellow

Fresh, summery and fun, works well and brings out the yellow in the patterned dishes

2. With Blue

Not bad, the blues do blend well with the blues in the patterned plates

3. With Green

This is the combination that sparked the entire series we have done on the combinations. Does not work well at all! The greens clash horribly. We did not realize it until a customer wanted to coordinate these and we saw how ugly they were together. The green in the patterned plates is more ‘turquoise’ and the solid plates more ‘olive’ and they do not look nice together at all.

4. With Red

Not bad, and quite festive really!

Our verdict

Avoid the green for sure. The others work fine but this is one of the harder patterns to combine.

Anyone who has tried to match colors when buying online knows how difficult it is. Colors vary on each computer, depending on the resolution, the quality of the display and often the quality of the photograph itself. Our eyes all perceive color differently too. This makes matching anything a challenge.

One of the issues that has come up in the past few months is how our solid color melamine dishes coordinate with the patterned ones. And what seemed at first like a no-brainer, is in fact a bit more challenging.

Colors that we thought would obviously go together, when put side by side, actually do not work.

In an effort to help our customers pick out the best possible combination, we have devised a buying guide that we will divide by pattern to keep things simple. We photographed each design with each solid, so you can see for yourself. And we will give our opinion and rank them according to our personal opinion (and since we have them here, we can tell honestly and without the biais of a monitor, what we feel works).

Provence Rooster

View the different Provence Rooster pieces

1. With Red

Unexpectedly, this works quite well – the reds in the pattern do blend with the solid red

2. With Green

Works well – the green is the right hue and blends nicely

3. With Blue

Another unexpected combination that kind of works because there is some blue in the rooster’s tail, so it really does have a nice ‘Provence’ feel to it

4. With Yellow

The safe choice but always appropriate

Our verdict

In this pattern, all the combinations work, because of the colors in the rooster. Yellow is a safe choice but do not be afraid to pick another color if it works better with your color scheme. There are no clashes (like some of the Gallo patterns have for example) so all 4 work.