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 6x6 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!