Mixing it Up!

One of the initial draws for me to scrapbooking was all the wonderful colours and patterns of paper available to mix and match together. Although the manufacturers make it super easy for us to pick well-matched papers by providing coordinating ranges and lines, my favourite part of scrapbooking is sometimes breaking loose from this and playing around by mixing papers from different companies on the same page. And with a few simple things to look out for, which I'll share with you today and tomorrow, I find it an easy and enjoyable approach to creating my pages.

Here's the completed page I'm sharing today, documenting a recent new hobby of ours - cycling! This particular trip was a grueling (for us two-wheel newbies) up hill country trek to a beautiful reservoir during that recent lovely spate of October sunshine.

please click on any picture to see a larger, detailed image

I took the cue for my colour scheme from my photos, the red bike stuck out vividly, and due to the vintage Polaroid app I used to snap the pics on my phone, the photos had a warm red tone to them too. So my priority for matching papers together for this page became a red colour scheme.
 
Here are the papers I mixed from three different manufacturers, and why I picked them:

(from left to right):
1. "Measure Up" from Fancy Pants Off To School range -
I'm always drawn to using grid paper as a background for my pages as they give just the right balance of pattern without becoming overwhelming, and this particular sheet had the ideal brownish tones to compliment my pictures. I also spritzed it with a quick burst of Studio Calico's white Mister Huey.

2. "Numbers Grid" from My Minds Eye's Love Me range -
Undeterred by the fact that this is intended to be a valentines range (Pah! If it matches my page, it matches my page!), I loved the fact that the number "2" was printed in red every time it occurs in the pattern - matching the themes of two wheels and the red bike, as well as representing my boyfriend and I and our love for our new activity together. The greyish-brown print of the grid and numbers also matched my first piece of paper nicely.

3. "Hearts" from  My Minds Eye's Love Me range -
The hexagonal pattern on the back of the hearts paper gave a fantastic shot of bold red colour for my page, and the blocky heagons have a masculine feel.

4. "Scarf" from Studio Calico's Autumn Press range - 
A bit of a curve ball this one, as not only is it polka-dotty, but some of those polka dots are pink -  however
overall it fits: the strong red colour is consistant with the rest of the page, and the cream polka dots link to the cream background on the Numbers Grid paper. The circular dots compliment my round embellishment theme (more about that later).

And so by concentrating mainly on colour, I mixed three manufacturors papers on one page.

I personally find the easiest starting point is to flick through my (vast!) paper collection and just pull out pieces that I think may match and put them in a pile, for instance with this layout I went through my stash looking for red and neutral papers. I usually stop when I have got about six or eight pieces, and then spend a few minutes narrowing them down by moving them about next to each other and matching them up to my photos.

Selecting paper in this way is often useful for using up older paper that you might have forgotten about  - there is nothing more satisfying for me than mixing an older piece of paper in with my latest purchases for a really unique look. Plus if I've used an old piece of stash, surely I have earned the right to go purchase a new piece of paper to take its place, right?!

To embellish my page, I chose a few bike-inspired items, such as the mix tape from Amy Tangerine,

and the bicycle stamp in this gorgeous pack from My Minds Eye,

I continued the idea of wheels by using circular embellishment such as buttons and a printed chipboard circle (seen above) from My Minds Eye Funday collection.

For my title, I combined some fab new super-skinny Thickers with some round Jenni Bowlin mini alphas.

My final embellishment was the bunting banner, which was made using a combination of one of the stamps from the My Minds Eye set mentioned earlier, and some Jenni Bowlin flag stickers. To add interest to the stickers, I spaced them out on a piece of scrap card:

 Stamped the bicycle on to them (using Stazon so that the ink would not smudge on the shiny sticker surface),

 Before peeling them off the scrap card and alternating them on my page with the stamped banner shape. Some doodled stitching and a couple of buttons completed it.

Make sure you stop by tomorrow, as I'll be sharing a more girly layout combining papers from four different manufacturers....See you then!