For ideas about color, I thought this was an excellent book: Scrappy Duos, Color Recipes for Quilt Blocks, by Donna Lynn Thomas. She gives a few ideas about how to combine colors (calls them recipes), and there are lots of pictures to illustrate what she is talking about. She gives line drawings of quilt block patterns that you can color to get an idea of what you want to make. She also suggests photocopying the line drawings, enough blocks to lay out your whole quilt pattern idea, which is very helpful if you are a person who has trouble visualizing what something will look like after being sewn. She gives the block patterns, all for 12" blocks, and they are easy blocks to make if you are a beginner.