October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and in honor of the cause, many sites across the web have gone Pink for October. At last check, 674 sites have registered at the Pink for October site this year - declaring their pinkness. I took some time earlier this week to check out a fair number of them and found 13 in particular that I love.

5ThirtyOne is very pink and created a special WordPress theme for the occasion.

WordPress Theme master, Brian Gardner, is sporting a very sophisticated shade of mauve.

I just love the combination of the black and pink on the Calla Mae site (and check out the beautiful bracelet, too)

I created a custom header and changed up the CSS at my Casual Keystrokes site to make it really pink.

Conserving Made Chic is one of my new favorites for so many reasons!

Charity at Design Adaptations gave me the final push I needed to get my pink site live when I saw that she had released her Pink Adaptations theme.

Geek with Style created this gift-like Pink for October theme.

Kiss My Code’s very creative theme at I’m Blogging That just might be my favorite.

Not only did Randa Clay give her own site a beautiful pink makeover, she also release one of her themes in a pink version, Pink Bird.

Scribblescratch also contributed two themes - I really like this snappy plaid one.

Natalie Jost contributed some beautiful themes and color schemes to help inspire us to go pink. This one is her personal design.

This is another one of Natalie Jost’s Pink for October themes - just gorgeous.

How can you resist pink sunglasses? Surrounded by Girls did a great job going pink - something tells me they have had a bit of practice with the pink palette.

If you have a favorite Pink for October design, please take a minute and share it with us. Or let us know which of these designs you happen to love. Thanks to all the designers for taking time to support a great cause by sharing your creativity and voice with all of us.

PS - This is a Thursday Thirteen post.

Patterned backgrounds are a very popular finishing touch for many websites. While it seems that diagonal stripes are in this season (especially for Web 2.0 sites), there are so many other options from elegant to whimsy, preppy to proper. The following sites have some really fabulous patterns to choose from:

1. Squidfingers - 158 absolutely stunning background patterns by Travis Beckham.

2. DinPattern - about 50 patterns (and it looks like more will be added) that are beautiful eye candy. There is even a live preview option to test out the backgrounds as you browse.

3. Kaliber10000 - currently there are 927 pixellated patterns on their site, many of which are user submitted.

4. 44Suburbia - 61 very sophisticated patterns

5. Pattern4u - another site jam packed with unique backgrounds and patterns - there are well over 100 different patterns to choose from.

6. Pootato - many of these patterns are more simplistic and can be used in Photoshop and other graphics programs. Looking for some cool Photoshop brushes? Pootato has them too.

7. iStockPhoto - clearly one of the best resources for fresh, new backgrounds of every kind.

8. One Pattern - while their patterns are not free, you purchase them in collections for less than $20 a set.

9. 3Quarks - very subtle paper like backgrounds

10. CitrusMoon - the CitrusMoon site hasn’t been updated in years, but the backgrounds are free and many of them are still beautiful

11. TartanMaker - want to have fun and design your own tartan plaid background? Tartan Maker is an interactive tartan plaid maker.

12. StripeGenerator - craving the current Web 2.0 trend? Make your own stripes background with Stripe Generator.

13. Background Maker - this was addictively FUN - click on pixels and watch your background come to life before you very eyes

Just a tip - you might want to set aside a nice block of time to browse these sites - there is so much to look at that it becomes a giant time vacuum. Have fun!!

This post is part of Thursday Thirteen. You can find more TT entries at the TT hub.

Related posts:

• 13 Sites for Unique Textures
• 13 Steps to a Blog Redesign
  
• My 13 Favorite WordPress Resources
• 13 Things Every Website Needs

Over the past six months I have discovered so many great resources for WordPress support. As part of Thursday Thirteen this week, I am sharing them with you.

1. Lorelle on Wordpress -  If I need anything related to WP, I go to Lorelle’s site first. It is such a comprehensive resource. (Bookmark it NOW)
2. WordPress Codex - The second place I go when I need a question answered.
3. Problogger’s WordPress Resources
4. Alex King - I’m loving the Most Popular plugin (I have it running at CasualKeystrokes and it will be here soon)
5. cre8d design
6. Lisa Sabin-Wilson - her upcoming book Wordpress for Dummies is sure to be a must have resource
7. WASABI WP Plugins
8. Themes.wordpress.net - the huge sortable database of free WP themes
9. WP Designer - themes and support forums
10. Brian Gardner - more beautiful themes
11. Kaushel Sheth - and more great themes
12. ThemesBase - more themes and support forum
13. WordPress Station - a WP blog about WP

I know there are more. Many more. Please share some of your favorites by leaving a comment!