Good morning everyone! Today I am sharing a tutorial on something I really haven’t seen posted before but yet is so important to making a nice card and that is mixing papers. I am basing my tutorial on some design lessons I took years ago but I think the foundation of the information is still sound.
There are three things I keep in mind when mixing my papers. Scale, design and color. Now the easiest way to start of course is with one of the thousands of 6×6 pads out there as they have started the process for you. The first thing you want to focus on is scale. Basically you should have one large pattern, one medium and then the rest should be small, solids or monochromatic so very little pattern to them. This produces a nice contrast between the papers as shown below.
If I use several of a large pattern they are too busy…
And several of a small pattern can tend to be kinda blah if you aren’t careful…
The next process is to change up your patterns. I try to go with a floral, a geometric and again a solid or monochromatic. Again, we are striving for contrast in our design so try to avoid all geometrics or all florals etc as in this photo.
Lastly is color. Now I normally try to pick one of my patterned papers that has multiple colors in it and pull my other shades from that for coloring my image, adding my matting and embellishments. This will tie everything together nicely for you. Here is another example of three different size patterns, three different type of designs and colors all pulled from one sheet.
Ok, hope this little tutorial helps you the next time you go to pick out papers and if you are mixing and matching from different paper lines this will make it easier to make sure they coordinate!
This is FANTASTIC Amanda! Somthing I seriously struggle with time and time again and I am defintiely going to be using this on my next card!!
This is a wonderful tutorial and so helpful!
Amanda, this is fabulous. Love the simple explanation of mixing both the size of the patterns and the colours.
Cheers,
Kasey
Thank you for this. I ‘sort of’ know when my choices are wrong but have never seen an explanation or possible solution. Hopefully things will now improve!
Some really good advise, that I´m sure, we can all use, as I truely believe we all have had some problems with this from time to time, so it´s really good to get a few but great guidelines to follow to help us in the process. I´m definitely noting me these things for future projects that´s forsure. Thanks so very much for sharing this with all of us here, it´s a really great gift to get.
Have a wonderful day and a fun and crafty week-end ahead now.
Fantastic tutorial!! As an interior designer, I can say that you are absolutely correct with your information, and you presented it so well with your examples!!
Thank you so much for this tutorial, I’ve never seen one on this subject before. I hope it makes me a better scrapper.
Hugs,
That is great information Amanda! I struggle with those choices and never knew why. That explains it. Thanks for sharing!
Hugs,
Julie
Wonderful tutorial. I struggle with this too.
Thanks so much for this, I bought a bunch of the 6×6 pads so I wouldnt have to think about it. I messed up way to much trying to coordinate papers. I will try your technique now.
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I never know how to chose and feel that my miximg is not good enough…
Thanks a lot!!!
I’d love to know who makes those beautiful papers!
Elaine the papers are MME Howdy Doody from a couple of years ago.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I spend HOURS trying to figure out the papers. This will certainly help take the guesswork out of it!
Hugs~