What colors do you use?

[Maple]

Now that I am breaking out a little form Creative Memories and not just having a white background. I am having a bit of a hard time knowing what colors to use. I use many pictures in a layout from different years. I am starting on DD growing up and she is a teen now. So I can't just pick out a color from the picture. Do you have favorite colors that you tend to use in layouts or how do you decide what to use? I am not doing Disney pics right now or I think I could figure tht out much easier.

 

[Timon]

Maple,

That's the great thing about scrapping! You can do whatever you want For me, the color choice all depends on my mood and the photos. But you can choose whichever colors you want, be creative and let the juices flow! I tend to use a lot of blues and purples just because they are my faves

I have tons of layouts posted on my cassworld website below if you'd like to peruse them for some color inspiration

 

[JudithM]

C O L O R S!

When I first began scrapbooking, I thought if I was doing Christmas pages, then my colors should be Christmas colors like red and green. Then I watched a friend find a dominate color - teal in a Christmas photo & use that color to mat the photo. I would not have thought of doing that im my "early days."

If I am doing several pages of the same event like a wedding, I try to find some colors that go together (I bought a color wheel) to use throughout the pages. Sometimes it depends on what colors are in the photos. It is amazing how creative one can get when scrapbooking! Have fun & go for it!

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

Theme, feel, dominant colors and the quality of the photos.

Let me expand. I've found that there tends to be some dominant colors that run through a series of pages. For instance, DS plays football so obviously the dark blue and white that are the school colors is pretty consistently present in those photos. At the moment I am working on DD's Honor Scout pages from last summer - the traditional dark Girl Scout Green...well when you have to do lots of pages where the photos have the same color...it could easily get tedious.

So while that is the starting point I look at what is going on in the picture. That can become a theme. I just finished several pages on the flag ceremonies the girls do up on Mackinac Island. The first two page layout the photos were decent quality, but the day was overcast so not striking and of course that lovely green was the dominant color. But there was also a LOT of red, white and blue with the US, British, French, and Canadian flags. So I used some background papers that had a colonial America print and feel to them. This went along with the era of Fort Mackinac where these events were going on. I then matted the pics in the medium blue that was in the paper and placed them so that some of the colonial era flags that were on the paper showed.

The next two pages were of photos taken on a different day and the lighting was perfect so the colors were really striking and intense. For those pages I simply did a plain red boarder on the outside edges - about 1" wide and a wavy edge. Then I matted the photos in navy blue. Very simple but it worked wonderfully.

Last year I did a book on a production of Oz! LOTS of green. I tended to use a variety of green tone papers, often with subtle patterns.

So as we're all saying it depends...but most importantly it depends on what looks right to YOU!

Deb

 

[chessie]

I love my rainbow color wheel. It really helps me get creative especially when there are so many colors in the photo competing with each other. Often time I don't even use any of the colors in the photos.

Once I had a photo of my friend and her daughter. One had on a bright red sweater and the other a bright purple. If I had used any of those colors it would have emphasized one person or the other. I decided to use the contrasting color to each of them which is green and yellow. I used a forest green and a nice yellow. It is the photo you see right away and both person have equal value.

I had a photo of a group of friends by the water with a big brown boat in the background. Everyone had on a different color so I didn't want any one person to stand out. I spun my color wheel around until I had an arrow pointing to both brown and blue. The third color the arrows were pointing to was purple. I used a deep purple and wow!

I found a link to the color wheel I use.

http://store.scrapbook.com/ek-rcs43550.html

 

[Maple]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I felt so free this week to just let things play out without being such a worry. I got so many pages done and even though still simple, I love them. I saw your color wheel chessie at my LSS the other day. It was $5.99. I am going to get it next trip there.

 

[FantasticDisFamily]

And just when you think you've got it figured out...something hits you! Isn't that the wonderful thing about scrapping, there is always something new!

I laid out several pages for DD's Girl Scout book - starting with just blank white card stock page and the photos. Then when I went to add the paper, I ran across this really fun funky stripe. Well it just "worked" with the feel of the event - it was a Mystery Tour where the girls get on a bus with no idea where they are going. I matted the photos in a wide array of the colors in the background paper that picked up on something, ie: a seafoam green where there was a green in the photo. It looked cool. Another set of pages for this event I am using a wallpaper that has giant dots in primary colors - the photos are all black & white and I'm just backing them with a little mat of primary colored velum so the pattern of the background paper peers through.

Guess I was in a playful mood this weekend!

Deb

 

[Maple]

Sounds very cool Deb.

 

[MrsJackSparrow]

If the photos are strong enough, I like to mount them with clear corners on solid black paper. I have a great shot of the flamingos that used to be at Epcot and the colors are so striking that it looks terrific on black.

I also use frames or mats in colors or prints and mount on black.