If you don’t have the time or skills to create a full background for your Twitter profile, there’s an easy alternative: a tiling pattern. Let me show you how to make one.

Choose your colors

1. Head over to COLOURlovers. If you’re not familiar with this site, it’s a community that’s built around colors and patterns—the perfect place for our task!
2. If you don’t have an account with COLOURlovers yet, create one. You’ll need it to save your pattern, and it will allow you to save your favorite color palettes, too. Get logged in before going to the next step.
3. Wander around and find a color palette you like. You can do this from the “Top” palettes link on the front page, or search to find palettes featuring a specific color, for instance. You can also create your own palette if you like.
4. Once you’ve found a palette you like, make sure you’re on the page that shows just that palette. For the examples in this tutorial, I’m going to use the Come September palette.

Find the perfect pattern

1. In the palette details, click the button that says “Create a pattern with this palette”:
   
2. Use the drop-down boxes to look at different patterns.Click a pattern to see it with your color palette applied:
   
3. Have fun! You might find it hard to choose.

Save your work

1. Give your pattern a name and fill out any of the other form fields you feel like (only the name is required). Click the “Add Pattern” button at the bottom of the form.
2. On the next page, click the “Download This Pattern” button (in the “About This Pattern” section on the right-hand side:
   
3. Right-click and save the image that comes up. It doesn’t really matter where on your computer you save it, as long as you remember where you save it.
   
4. Close the window or tab with the image and return to the window or tab that has the pattern information. You’ll want to keep this open for the next few steps.

Update your Twitter profile

1. In a new window or tab, go to your Twitter settings—specifically the Design tab.
2. Click the “Change background image »” tab to add your background. Check the “tile background” box. Click the “Choose File” or “Browse” button (the wording depends on what browser you’re using) and find the pattern image file you saved on your computer.
3. Switch to the “Change design colors »” tab to update the colors that make up the rest of your profile.
4. For each of the different text/link/sidebar colors:
   1. Go back to the pattern info. Scroll down to find your the color you want to try.
   2. Select and copy the six-digit “HEX” code. Leave off the # sign; just get the letters and numbers:
      
   3. Switch back to the Twitter profile options, and click on the box of the item you want to edit. Delete the hex code that’s there and replace it with the code you copied. Click somewhere else and you’ll see your change in the insta-preview.
      
5. You’ll probably want to try a few different combinations; just copy/paste, preview (rinse, repeat!).

Let me know if these steps worked for you. If you had trouble, tell me where and I’ll do my best to clarify.

If you just want to download a pattern (as opposed to creating one), you should take a look at HipandTwendy.com. They have loads of fun pre-made patterns. I’ll be adding some similar posts here in the new future, too. You can also just browse the patterns at COLOURlovers.