How To Choose Patterns For Your Scrapbook Pages

Hi Everyone! Jana Eubank here. I am so happy to be sharing my first project with you using the Graceful Season collection. I love this collection! I especially love the variety of colors and patterns included in the paper pad! One of my favorite things to do is to play with color and pattern and combine several of them together on one project. Let me show you how!

TUTORIAL | HOW TO CHOOSE PATTERNS FOR YOUR SCRAPBOOK PAGES

First, decide on what colors you would like to work with. Paper collections make this an easy task these days because they do all of the work of choosing coordinating colors for you. The Graceful Season Premium Paper Pad includes three color schemes that will coordinate with a variety of your memories. Each scheme includes a few multi-colored and several coordinating papers that pull out one or two colors from the multi-colored patterns. They are amazing!

I like to fan out several of the papers together and then place my photos on top to see how they look together. For this photo of my son, I decided to work off the colors in the background of the photo and pulled out the golden yellow, green, aqua, and black color scheme from the paper pad.



The first paper I like to choose is my background paper. I usually choose something with a subtle pattern, something that the rest of the patterns look great against. A lot of times, I will choose a tone-on-tone pattern that is “almost” a solid color. Here, I chose to work with the golden yellow polka dot paper. The dots on this paper are small, so it works! You can test a pattern out by looking at it with your eyes squinted. If the paper registers as a solid while squinting, you know that it will work.



Once I have my background paper selected, the next pattern I like to choose is the paper layer that my photos will be placed against. Here is where I let my pictures “do the talking.” I audition the photos on several different patterns and select the one that compliments them the best. Like the background paper, this is almost always a subtle pattern that registers as a “solid” with the squinting test. Most of the time, but not always, I will also mat my photos with a solid colored paper. Here I liked the way the black paper with the small leaf pattern looked with its classic feel.



Now, it’s time for the fun part … the middle layers between your photo and the background paper. This is a great time to play with patterns in different sized scales. I already have small-scale prints on this page with the page background and photo mat. Now it’s time to add in some large-scale and medium-scale prints.

The first paper that caught my eye was the white paper with the large floral accent in the corner. I used a pair of small, detail scissors to cut around the flowers. I placed them to the left of my photo so that the straight edge of the paper edge was flush with the left side of the photo mat.

I wanted my photo and the flowers to be anchored on a horizontal line in my page design. Again, the large scale of the diagonal black and white stripe caught my eye and I cut a strip of it to go across my page.

Next, I decided to add a layer to go behind the photo and flower cut out. I chose to use the medium-scaled green and white chevron pattern.

My page felt great so I decided to start adding in some embellishments. I matted the black/white striped chipboard border with black paper and adhered it to the top of the bold stripe paper strip. I love the way the two sizes of stripes look with each other.



I created a floral cluster in the lower right corner of my photo using elements from both the Sticky Sparkly Glitter & Foil Set and also the 3D Embellishment Kit.

In the upper left corner of the chevron paper I created another embellishment cluster with three different pennant stickers and a flower cluster sticker from the Sticky Sparkly Glitter & Foil Set.



I added a title at the bottom of the large floral element with the silver foil letters.



I now had patterns in three different scales, but thought it might be fun to add in even more. I pulled out the 6x6 Premium Paper Pad and found two sheets with coordinating tiny prints. I added the tiny golden yellow and white triangle print to either side of the green chevron layer. Next, I added a strip of the small green flower print above the photo.

Here is what the page looked like before I added the 6x6 papers.



And here is a look at the completed project again. You can see how adding a few small paper layers here-and-there in the tiny prints added more depth to the overall page design.



SPECIAL DAY  by Jana Eubank

SUPPLIES | Graceful Season 12 x 12 Premium Paper Pad, Graceful Season 6 x 6 Premium Paper Pad, Graceful Season Sticky Sparkly Glitter & Foil Set, Graceful Season 3D Embellishment Kit

I hope you have enjoyed taking a look at patterns on this little tour of my page and that it has inspired you to try mixing different patterns on your next project.

Thanks for coming by!

Jana Eubank