Color Throwdown #284

Here I am again, like a bad penny, with another Color Throwdown project! I am having such fun as the March Guest Designer! I love color challenges, almost as much as I love sketch challenges. The colors this week are so deep and saturated! Just my cup of tea!

I searched through my stash of papers and found a bunch of prints from Echo Park that worked well with the color scheme. Some of these papers have been around here awhile! I was happy to cut into the 12x12 sheets and use them!

I  love to pull papers from various collections, even various manufacturers, and use them on a project. It feeds my inner artist, I guess. 

People are always asking me to tell them my "trick" to using so many prints at once. I have a few main tips. First, make sure your colors are all the same tone (for example my colors here are all in the jewel tone family). You usually don't want to mix primary colors with pastels with jewel tones. Try to stay within the same "saturation" value. I pull out lots of prints and place them on the work surface and see which ones look the best together. For this project, I had about 12 different prints fanned out on my table, but in the end, I picked these six. (Yes, there is a fair amount of just "eyeballing" the papers!)

My second tip is to mix subtle and bold prints together for visual interest. Make sure the various prints are not fighting each other for dominance. And my best tip is to mat all prints with a neutral. You can see here that I used black, which makes the various prints pop.

I "grounded" the prints with a ribbon and some gems that were in the same color family. You can see that the purple striped paper does not match exactly, but placed with the other prints, and with black and white to offset the colors, it still works. 

This ribbon has been in my stash for who knows how long. Someone gave me a bunch of little ribbon spools and I dumped them in a drawer. Imagine my joy when this ribbon was a perfect match for the plum papers! Woot!

I also used a very "busy" layout (based on a sketch I found on an international blog, see link below). The various shapes and layers help move your eye around the page, rather than causing your eye to "stick" on the many prints. Plus, the white block containing the sentiment is the logical place to rest your eyes.

The sentiment stamp has been here for years. I have so many stamps that it is hard to give them the love they deserve. {grin}

The inside is plain, with space to write a  note, but it still matches the front of the card. I love the style of the "innie" stamp. It is another in a long line of stamp sets that I don't use often enough!

I am also linking this up to Craft Hoarders Anonymous as they are asking for bling. (Ok, this is just to see if my DT is paying attention..hee hee hee)

I hope you learned something about prints and colors from my project. Have fun creating!

Make sure you go to the Color Throwdown blog to see what the DT has made. Here is the list of Color Throwdown bloggers. Make sure you check them out!

Barbara Anders
Broni Holcombe

Joan Ervin

Lori Tecler

Melody Rupple
Tammy Hershberger

Vickie Zimmer

Wanda Cullen

Monika Davis
Gloria Stengel – March Guest Designer - that's me!
Amy White, Guest Star Stamper - Whitehouse Stamping

Scrap Club ArtUgolok

Cardstock: WorldWin Papers Treasures Pitch Black; Stampin' Up Whisper White

Printed paper: Echo Park Sweet Girl, For the Record 2, Little Girl, Springtime

Ribbon: American Crafts

Bling: Prima, Want2Scrap

Ink: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Stamps:Papertrey Ink Birthday Bash Sentiments, Stylish Sentiments: Birthday

Dies: My Favorite Things Fishtail Flag; Spellbinders Standard Circles Large and Small, Lacey Circles
Adhesive: Scotch 3M ATG tape; Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L 3D Foam Squares; Beacon Fabri-tac; Aleene's Tacky Glue