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!
