One thing that I find myself doing over and over is using a patterned paper as my background. It’s not always easy to do, and I’ve had to try a lot of different things to get it right. Today, I wanted to share with you 4 super tips I have learned about using patterned papers as the background.
Blend, blend, blend – Sometimes when I want to use a patterned paper as a background, I tone the pattern down a little bit. I do this by layering a coordinating solid over the patterned paper, and then lower the opacity of the solid to the point where I like it. On my layout “Universe,” I took the blue star paper and toned it down by layering the blue solid over it and lowering the opacity until I was happy with it.
Pick a larger pattern (or a smaller one) – One of the keys to using patterned paper as a background is to pay attention to the scale of the pattern. I usually try to use one that is over-sized or one that is really small scale. If I don’t think the scale of the paper works, I can try to enlarge it, as I did on the layout “Lemons.” I took the triangle paper and re-sized and re-position it so that it drew attention directly to the photo.
Split it in half – another trick I use when I want to use an especially bold paper as the background, is that I split the background and use the paper for half of it. On the layout “Right Now” you can see that I used the bold butterfly paper on half of the background and balanced it with a more subtle patterned paper.
Surround your photo with a solid – If I want to use a bold patterned paper as the background, I sometimes try to balance it by using a solid around my photo. This gives the eye a place to rest and keeps the focus on the photo. On my layout “So Lucky” I used the horseshoe paper, but balanced it by using the plain yellow paper around the photo.
I hope some of these tips help you to use more patterned papers as backgrounds on your layouts!
Kate W says
Great tips, I love using patterned papers. I will definitely be trying out your ideas on my next LO. Thanks, Aaron.