Can This Paper Be Saved

Family Circle Magazine has a series called can this marriage be saved that I go to first whenever I pick up an issue to read.  Even though I don't read this mag regularly anymore, this series sticks with me and I find myself applying the question of saving to just about everything.  

For the longest time Basic Grey was a favorite manufacturer and I would by everything that they put out.  Their papers are out there!  Bright.  Bold.  Colorful.  Sometimes that is just too much and looking at the paper know, I often find myself not able to use it.  Even though I love the style, colors and boldness.  Looking at them and using them are two completely different animals.  

That's a whole lotta color up there!  The old Shere just looked at her papers and then either donated or slipped them back into the stash.  The non-hoarding Shere decided to do something about these beautiful patterns and get them on a page!  How?  By toning them down.  There are so many ways to do this that I played for awhile.  

with vellum, with gesso, with acrylic paint and with watered down versions of both gesso and acrylic paint......

  
In the end, I decided that I loved how the both the watered down acrylic paint and the vellum looked.  Together they created just the look I wanted but couldn't achieve with them on their own.  This lo was the colorful end result and not soft at all with the exception of the vellum topped papers:)......

But if I hadn't want to tone the paper down I could have also cut a big shape, backed it with a complementary cardstock and let it take over the page!  A nice big, black and white photo would have been stunning on this type of background.  Most times I find that a black & white photo is better suited to bold and bright pages like this.  Oh and using minimal embellishments in tight clusters works here too.  

Some other examples of pages on which I used bright, multi-colored patterned papers include this one of my youngest daughter.  I love the way she was smiling:).  The colors in the photo were so neutral and toned down that they would work with any color pallette....

Same with this photo of my nephew.  Although his trunks have a bright pop of red, everything else is neutral.  The paper pieced border running around the entire page has enough red in it to balance out the red in the photo and the embellishments are very minimal.....

I didn't show much restraint here except to use night photos:) My papers are super bright and busy but I limited the bright mostly to the outer edges of the page and the busy has just 2 colors and a simple pattern.  The design inspiration for the page came from Nicole Nowosads' scrapbook.com class "5 Products, 5 Ways".......

I toned down the colors here with a dose of cool white cardstock.  Keeping the colors framed and in small chunks help to control it and prevent it from taking over.  Love how this came out.....

Whew, I seem to have talked myself out.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you had a great weekend everyone!