I love color, but I also love the contrast of black, white and neutral colors in the company of one single hue, in this case … blue. The more you play with colors, the more confident you will be using them in your paper crafting.
Challenge:Pull a sheet of white, off-white, taupe, and gray cardstock. Introduce a muted blue, or perhaps two shades of blue. Play with black pattern paper. How does the pattern you choose affect the feel of your cardstock palette? Try a bold stripe, a small gingham check, or even a traditional toile.
Even Better: Remove the moody blues and swap it for a cranberry red, avocado green or even a sunflower yellow.
I’ve been burning a candle this week called Pure Linen. It smells like this bedroom feels — fresh, clean, warm and familiar. There are four different patterns in this mix of comforting colors–two delicate floral designs (large and small scale) that are grounded by two tone-on-tone designs, in the decorative pillows.
Challenge:Practice mixing patterns on your own. Select a any sheet of pattern paper with a large scale motif and pair it with a smaller scale pattern. Now pull two of the colors common in both patterns and select two solid or tone-on-tone papers to add to your mix. Create a card or quickie layout that combines all of the papers you’ve chosen.
Even Better: Let these colors inspire a page about a place that is familiar and welcoming in your life.
I’m not quite ready to give up all the colorful decorations of Christmas. At the same time I’m enjoying the sparse and clean feeling of having everything packed away. How about we all set a colorful table this week and enjoy a pot of hearty soup and some really yummy, chewy bread. I love this palette, it is warm, intense and wholesome — like a delicious winter meal.
Challenge:Use these vibrant colors to scrapbook people eating and/or food.
Even Better: Include a label from some food or drink product that frequents your home.
Don’t forget you can post your creation in our I LoveColor Flickr group.
Change things up a bit as you combine colors for holiday layouts or cards. A traditional color palette such as red and green can be changed by skewing one of the colors a little. Here the traditional green is skewed towards blue. This teal blue + a touch of yellow green results in a whimsical feel.
Challenge:Create a layout that closely mimics the use of color in this combination. In other words, use teal blues as a background, red and red-orange to draw attention to photos and yellow-green for your title.
Even Better: Add texture with glitter, jewels or flocking — tis the season for lots of extra-special touches!
And … don’t forget you can post your creation in our I LoveColor Flickr group.
I love and use bright, saturated colors in my home and holiday decor, but my friend Nancy’s house is a gorgeous mix of muted tones stemming from traditional reds and greens. She uses LOTS of white and there are but a few touches of darker, richer tones that punctuate her Christmas decor. Whenever I visit I want to curl up on her sofa and let it all soak in.
This subtle pastel palette feels restful, like Nancy’s house because although it features two neutrals, two reds and a green, there is very little contrast between these colors. Each is toned way down and muted with a cast of gray.
Challenge:Pull out some older Christmas photos that are faded. Use just cardstock in these colors and then add only one embellishment to keep your page clean, simple and focused on the photo(s).
Even Better: Use ink or paint on edges of paper strips and photo mats to add a vintage feel that will harmonize with older photos.
Don’t forget you can post your creation in our I LoveColor Flickr group.
Doesn’t a light lunch and a long walk sound good on the day (and week) after Thanksgiving? Here is a great example of using a pattern (think patterned papers) to dictate your color scheme. Choose one color to use as dominant color, one or two as secondary colors and smaller portions of other colors as accents in your pallette. Don’t worry too much about the colors matching your inspiration exactly. Close is good enough!
Challenge:Chocolate brown is a such wonderful neutral for scrapbooking. Start with chocolate brown and create a card or page with supporting colors pulled from your favorite polka dots.
Even Better: Try using one of the pop colors (red or violet) to create emphasis for a focal point photo or your title — whichever element you most want to pop!
Don’t forget you can post your creation in our I LoveColor Flickr group.
Seriously, is there anything better than pretty ribbon? Take few minutes this week to sift through your collection. Find something with at least 3 colors in it and let it inspire an entire page or project. If you love the colors in your ribbon, you will love the colors on your layout as well!
Challenge: Start with some ribbon, then pull one sheet of cardstock for each color in the ribbon. Pay attention to the proportion of color and keep it simple.
Even Better: Frame your focal point photo with your ribbon!
As a purely-for-FUN gift-giving BONUS, I thought I’d share these over-the-top adorable mini cupcake liners. A colorful stack of these with a box of cake mix all wrapped up cute would make a memorable teacher or neighbor gift.
Can you imagine the sheer cuteness of it all? See these and much more at Bake It Pretty.
Remember Mother Goose’s ditty, To market to market to buy a fat hog. Home again, home again jiggety jog? These colors speak of coming home to warmth, comfort and the safety of loved ones.
You know what makes really GREAT color combinations? In my opinion it is an element of surprise — one color that jumps out at you and makes you go, really? Without the turquoise, this bedspread would not have caught my attention. Not that I don’t like the other colors, but that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing them together. They are warm, earthy, fall colors — add the blue and it becomes a WOW!
Challenge:Use this color combination or one of your own making and reserve the WOW color to use in drawing attention to your focal point. Whether it is your title, your story or one special photo — the WOW color will make it pop.
Even Better: mimic the design of this bedspread and create a grid-like pattern on your page.
Remember, you can SHARE your color-inspired pages in our Flickr group.
I’m not really sure why I named this combination Urban Fall — it just seems to fit. Mixed colors tend to feel sophisticated and I like the two-tone Chartreuse together with the gray (which I think would translate nicely into touches of metallic) I can imagine these colors in a Nordstrom display window, can’t you?
Challenge: Sophisticated colors call for a sophisticated design. Create a card or scrapbook page with single elements (one photo, one word, one decorative element.) In other words, keep it simple.
Even Better:If you are going to use a photo in your design, consider converting it to black and white, so the subtlety of the contrast here is not disturbed by additional colors in your photo.
Ahh … orange + black. Typical Halloween colors! Let’s do something atypical, shall we? Close your eyes for 30 seconds and summon happy memories of Halloween as a child. Now, go find a (one) photo that you could use to represent these memories and take my challenge below.
Challenge: I challenge you to create a layout titled “Five Little Halloween Memories”. Use any colors you want, except orange + black, but include five little pumpkins (think punches or stickers) as bullet points on your page — list the recollections that came to mind. These can be moments from specific occasions, traditions or family rituals or just general feelings associated with Halloween.
Even Better:Of course there’s more … to further FREE yourself from typical color associations. I hereby challenge you to use the combination below on a layout that is NOT about Halloween, or even fall.
As a BONUS this week, I’ve created a Flickr group and gallery for pages and projects inspired by the color combinations I post here each Friday. If you create anything inspired by colors on the I Love Color page –OR– you take any of the challenges I issue here, please consider posting your efforts in the I Love ColorFlickr group for all to see!
p.s. The “five little pumpkins” song is one of my happy Halloween recollections. I think I probably learned this little ditty in the 3rd grade. I have never forgotten it and I always sing it with my kids.
You can learn more about my Scrap By Color approach to organization and scrapbooking by listening to my Scrap By Color podcasts and watching video clips right here!
Color combinations are lovingly collected & beautifully shared with the help of Dani Frederick & Allison Barnes. Thanks girls!
