I was quite excited when the good people at S•E•I asked me to be a guest blogger. I was even more excited when they told me they encourage people to create layouts mixing paper lines on the same page.
Nothing makes me happier!
Like everyone else, I sometimes only use paper from the same line for a project. It’s like a safety net – you know up front everything’s going to coordinate.
However, I’ll admit to getting a bit of a thrill when I find designs from two different lines that can be used in the same layout. Even better – finding two different pieces of patterned paper from two different lines AND two different companies. Talk about euphoria!
Here are some tips I follow for finding pieces of cardstock from different lines that can be used together.
1. Find one color that brings the two designs together. In this layout, I noticed the lime-greenish elephants in the S•E•I Playday Tag were very close to the green polka dots on the Bridgeport Tennis Court design.
2. Stripes – stripes almost ALWAYS work. Since there’s usually an array of colors on a piece of striped paper…it’s pretty easy to find another design that will coordinate. The stripes on SEI’s Playday pattern Tickles were another easy match for the Bridgeport polka dots.
3. Use muted, monochromatic patterns. For the Imagination Amok layout, I used the faded yellow stripes from the Bridgeport Oceanfront paper – they didn’t exactly match the lime green of the Playday paper, but they accented it just perfectly. I used By Air from the En Route line for the top half of the design…it works so well because it almost looks like a sold piece of grayish blue cardstock.
4. Bring two pieces together with solid cardstock. The red background of the Arrows from the En Route By Land paper on the right side of the layout doesn’t exactly match the red hues from the Playday line. So, I framed the photos with a reddish piece of Bazzill cardstock that seemed to match them both, tying the entire design together.
5. Be Bold! Have confidence in your choices. Sometimes I put together two pieces of patterned papers and people comment that they never would have thought to match those two particular designs. Perhaps they actually like my choices…or perhaps it’s just a clever back-handed compliment. Either way, people admire a healthy dose of crafting chutzpah.
Nothing makes me happier!
Like everyone else, I sometimes only use paper from the same line for a project. It’s like a safety net – you know up front everything’s going to coordinate.
However, I’ll admit to getting a bit of a thrill when I find designs from two different lines that can be used in the same layout. Even better – finding two different pieces of patterned paper from two different lines AND two different companies. Talk about euphoria!
Here are some tips I follow for finding pieces of cardstock from different lines that can be used together.
1. Find one color that brings the two designs together. In this layout, I noticed the lime-greenish elephants in the S•E•I Playday Tag were very close to the green polka dots on the Bridgeport Tennis Court design.
2. Stripes – stripes almost ALWAYS work. Since there’s usually an array of colors on a piece of striped paper…it’s pretty easy to find another design that will coordinate. The stripes on SEI’s Playday pattern Tickles were another easy match for the Bridgeport polka dots.
3. Use muted, monochromatic patterns. For the Imagination Amok layout, I used the faded yellow stripes from the Bridgeport Oceanfront paper – they didn’t exactly match the lime green of the Playday paper, but they accented it just perfectly. I used By Air from the En Route line for the top half of the design…it works so well because it almost looks like a sold piece of grayish blue cardstock.
4. Bring two pieces together with solid cardstock. The red background of the Arrows from the En Route By Land paper on the right side of the layout doesn’t exactly match the red hues from the Playday line. So, I framed the photos with a reddish piece of Bazzill cardstock that seemed to match them both, tying the entire design together.
5. Be Bold! Have confidence in your choices. Sometimes I put together two pieces of patterned papers and people comment that they never would have thought to match those two particular designs. Perhaps they actually like my choices…or perhaps it’s just a clever back-handed compliment. Either way, people admire a healthy dose of crafting chutzpah.
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