Design Decisions - Patterns, Colors, Paper

Good evening!  My card this evening is for the color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  Chris picked Granny Apple Green, Magenta Madness and Black.  Let me first say that green and pink are among my all-time favorite color combinations, however Magenta Madness is a pink that I don't particularly like.  It's a bit bright for me. So when I saw these colors I thought "YIKES!"  However, I am of the opinion that ANY two colors can look good together in the correct proportions and with the correct third color.

And Chris picked the perfect third color.  With the addition of the black, there was the opportunity to play down the magenta. I actually decided to make black and white my focus with the green and magenta as secondary players.

The layout for this card came from Spellbinders, the makers of the dies I used.  They had a card on the packaging for this die that was very close, at least in layout.  It was in red, green, gray and white.

The first thing I did was cut all my pieces from white, then I used blending brushes to color them.  I assembled the individual items - the bird, the house, the flowers.  From there I moved on to the paper.

This took some time but was very fun.  I had a pack of all black and white floral/basic patterns as well as other black and white patterned paper so I had a lot of choices.

When mixing patterns for cards (or really anything) it comes down to color, scale, similarity and contrast.  

Color: there should be some continuity of colors between patterns.  In this case it was easy - black and white.

Scale: the scale should vary.  If everything is large or small the patterns compete rather then letting the eye flow from one to another.  A small pattern will substitute for a solid in many cases when against a large pattern.

Similarity and contrast: this goes hand in hand with the other two.  Things should be similar, but not TOO similar.  And there should be contrast in scale, pattern, color, etc.  Here I chose a floral and contrasted it with the geometric dots and stripes.  The floral is large and the dots are small.  The stripes are large as is the floral, but one is organic, the other geometric - similar/contrast.

I had a choice to make on the dot pattern.  I chose the bottom dot because there was some "eye relief" in the smaller dot pattern. The top one didn't seem to have enough contrast in scale.  In retrospect, I think the top one may have worked just as well if I had finished the card differently.

I did not use the button/bow seen in these photos although I think it coordinated very well.   I used more flowers in the lower left and used some simple hearts dangling from my bow.  They mirror the heart in my birdhouse.

I really do like this card although I'm not sure it's quite what I envisioned.  But I wouldn't hesitate to give this as a birthday or thinking of you card.  And it certainly made me think about the decisions I was making and why.

Products used:

• Dies: Spellbinders Sweet Tweets, MFT RicRac Freebie die
  
• Paper: Stampin' Up! Petal Parade and very old DSP
• Ink: Stampin' Up! Magenta Madness, Granny Apple Green, Soft Suede, Distress Oxide Black Soot
• Accessories: 2020-2022 In-Colors Enamel Dots, Heart Charms, Baker's Twine

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