Here is a color palette based on the material design base colors. Each of these colors is defined with a base color class and an optional lighten or darken class.
To apply a background color, just add the color name and light/darkness as a class to the element.
<div class="card-panel red lighten-1">This is a card panel with a red lighten-1 class</div>
To apply a text color, just append -text to the color class like this:
<div class="card-panel">
<span class="red-text text-darken-2">This is a card panel with dark red text</span>
</div>