During the Paperclipping Live, some of you have commented that I combine interesting and unusual colors and patterns. It’s true that I find a lot of pleasure combining the unexpected, and not just with scrapbooking. If you want help venturing into unknown color and patterned territory, I have four tips to make it easier.
1. Keep your scraps of patterned paper together in one container.
When you let your patterned pieces mix together, the shuffle of paper will show you combinations you would never have paired on your own.
2. Trust Your Gut
If you like the pieces together, it probably works. Personally, I don’t think through technicalities of whether something matches or not (although I will share them with you in the next two tips). I just look for colors and patterns that remind me of the emotions and tone I want for my page, and then I lay the choices together to see what I like.
If the pattners feel right together, I use them. Most often when scrapbooking, I need multiple colors and patterns before I feel I’ve expressed all the dimensions of emotion that I have for my topic.
3. Look for one common color among two different patterns.
If you just can’t trust your gut, this is a little “rule” that isn’t a real rule, to help you decide whether your patterned picks work together. If you notice the orange flowered pattern in the layout above, it shares a color with every other paper on the layout except white and red. The leaves match the green numbered K.I. paper. There are tiny light green dots that match the green and cream polka dotted paper. The background is cream, also matching the polka dots. And the orange works with the little bit of orange flowers in the turquoise paper (some of the flowers are pink and some are orange).
When it came down to that last turquoise paper, which is the riskiest choice, I just needed to add another color to for my palette to feel complete, and turquoise was it.
4. Vary your patterns.
If you’re still unsure about patterned mixing, it helps to get a variety of patterns types, for example, one polka dot, one floral, and one stripe.
Notice I deliberately chose not to do that. I have two florals. The “rule” of mixing two of the same type is to vary the scale; one large floral and one small floral. I used two florals of the same size. I just liked it together, so it’s okay. But I also recognize that the two florals together don’t give me the same “matched” that the floral with the polka dots give me when side-by-side. The varied patterned rule helps for a more universal taste. It helps you feel comfortable when you’re unpracticed at mixing florals.
But ultimately, it’s your art and it’s your choice. If you’re a bit quirky like me, you might choose two floral patterns of the same size that don’t totally go together because they just make the layout feel complete to you.
Do what you like. Be brave. Use your head for important things, but trust your gut when it comes to combining patterns.
was so easy to read.
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