It’s May, and that means it’s one of our very favorite times of the year—National Scrapbooking Month! To celebrate, we’ve created a very special paper packet and coordinating stamp set called Happy Times. We’ve got all sorts of beautiful artwork lined up for you featuring these wonderful papers, so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all month long!

In honor of this very special month, we’ll be sharing tips and tricks from our Art Studio about how to create amazing scrapbook pages. Today we’ll start with how to achieve good color balance.

This first page shows an example of color overload:

This can happen so easily when we want to focus on a given color—pink in this instance. With a pink page base, pink flowers galore, pink gold foil floral paper, a pink title, pink photo mats, and pink stamping, we have officially ended up with too much of a good thing! 🙂 Besides that, by going with so many patterned papers, the page also looks super busy, so that the details of the page get lost.

Take a look at what happens on a more balanced page:

Your initial impression might be that there is no pink at all, but then a handful of pink features pop right out at you, don’t they? This is because the color pink is now in contrast with the background of the page, which is a super neutral woodgrain and a duo of minty papers, all from the Happy Times paper packet. Thanks to this contrast, you can even see the beautiful pink flowers the little girl is holding in the photo, which were almost completely lost in the previous example. You can also see the stamped flowers much better. Here are the two pages side by side so you can really see the difference:

The page on the right really lets the photos take the spotlight, which is what this scrapbook page is really all about.

So here’s today’s tip in a nutshell: When you want to highlight a specific color, start with a neutral background, limit your favorite color so it really pops, and add a complementing color for contrast. As the artwork above shows, the Happy Times paper packet includes a wide variety of colors and patterns so you have everything you need to create balanced scrapbook pages right at your fingertips.

Tell us your favorite color in the comments below, and then stay tuned for more inspirational artwork as well as more scrapbooking tips and tricks throughout the month!

Recipe

12″ x 12″ Hello World Page (more balanced)
Make It from Your Heart™ Vol. 2: Pattern 14
CC1064 My Acrylix® Happy Times, CC1063 Happy Times Paper Packet, 1385 White Daisy Cardstock, X5760 Cotton Candy Cardstock, Z2193 Cotton Candy Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2128 Hollyhock Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2650 Fern Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad, Z2012 Sequins Gold Assortment, Z1979 Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen, Z3169 Cricut® Artbooking Collection

Cricut® Shape:
Artbooking
2 ½” <HeloWrld> (p. 84)

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