Mixing & Matching

I do colors ... or word arts ... or similar elements and go from there. I find pieces of kits I like .. say a word art from one..I want to use or a bunch of elements but I want backgrounds from another So I will mix them. Or I need a striped background so I will find a kit with one if a challenge calls for something a kit doesn't have also sometimes you have to mix kits...
I love mixing kits.. sometimes your credits get huge.. but it's fun.. I just open note pad to keep track as I go along.. and Scrap away

 

I am kind of an one kit girl. However, there are times I want a certain object that the kit might not have. So then I have to go looking for one. Otherwise, I don't mix and match much at all.

 

I agree with Kari - word art ties things together beautifully!

 

Like Bev I'm a one kit scrapper. However, I will do some mix and match but only with the same designer. For example, I was doing some wedding layouts but the wedding kits I had just didn't work with the colors of the wedding, however, a different kit did. Some of the wedding kit elements were generic enough that I could use them on the wedding layouts and since they were the same designer, the style worked.

I've also done mix and match on 2 kits from Kristin Aagard that worked for Animal Kingdom layouts. Neither alone were quite right but when combining they worked and the colors were very close in both kits.

 

When I mix and match (outside of BYOC), I usually use one of these options:

1) one kit as the main kit, and supplement the page with word art or paint from the other kit.
Example: Colors from the Designed by Soco kit pieces, but I added word art from the NBK part.


2) MORE! If the colors are not a perfect match, then I just keep adding more.
Example: Designed by Soco and Lynn Grieveson
For this layout, I used two kits that both had a water theme. They both have blues and a red color, but the reds are not the same. Neither are the yellows or blues. Let's take the yellow: instead of just using the yellow paint on the background from Lynn's kit, and then the elements from Soco, I added some of both yellows in the elements, and some of the Soco yellow in the paint. Because I have both shades, neither one stands out. If you look at the blues, I have lots of different color blues. This makes them meld better than if I had the aqua blue paper, and just the navy blue paint. That would make the shades not too happy with each other. But with all the different blues, it doesn't matter if there's only 1 shade of a certain blue. All the other blue shades pull them together and your eye is fine with it.


3) Sometimes, like Disney theme kits, the colors are close enough that I just treat it all as 1 kit. That works for multiple kits from the same designer too because designers tend to stick to similar shades and tones in their kits.
Like this one is two kits from Allison Pennington, but because the colors are similar, the papers mesh well together.

 

I rarely mix kits -- usually only if I have to for a challenge. Or sometimes, if a kit doesn't have an alpha or, say, white paper that I like, I'll specifically go looking for those. I do tag pretty thoroughly in ACDSee, so I can usually find stuff easily.

 

Another thing for me is that I almost always use a plain paper for my background. However, I have kits from both Bella Gypsy and Kristin Aagard (mostly mini kits) that don't have any plain papers. I have used Bridge to tag the plain papers for both designers (BG_Solid and KA_Solid). Then when scrapping with that kit I use my eye dropper and pick a color from one of the patterned papers then find a paper of similar color using Bridge from that specific designer. That way the textures of the papers are very close since I have found they have their own favorite textures to use on papers.

 

Mostly I am a one kit scrapper, especially being on CT. You want to make the product "shine"

When I am mixing though, I go for wordarts or titles to grab. I go for similar color schemes of elements/papers. Or you could always re-color things like this page

 

Also using a color wheel so you can see color families would help mixing.

 

Here a few more examples
grabbing elements in the rainbow from different products



monochromatic elements and/or recolors

 

The only times I mix/match is when I'm doing a challenge that makes me!

IF I happen to do it otherwise, usually it's adding an alpha or word art that is pretty generic or a specific style I'm looking for (wood, chipboard, etc.) I also do a lot of recoloring if I'm looking for a theme that has colors that don't match/compliment.

 

I usually just scrap with one or 2 things at most since I CT and its usually with a specific product but if I miss something from that product for my page, Windows search is my friend. Bridge hasn't been very cooperating lately and doesn't show all that is in my HD but Windows search do and if designers do their job properly (the one that I CT for do lol) I can search for a wordart or word bit or stitch that fits my page easily.
It's really about color more than it is about theme. And I try to change the layer name in PS to the name of the kit so that I don't forget from where I grabbed it.

 

If a kit doesn't have everything I need, then I go for neutral basics (kraft, black and white). Things like papers, flowers, fasteners, messy strings, stamps, word art that I can mix in.

1. Here I used the crumpled white paper from Paula Kesselring with a word art from one little bird/paislee press and kit from Elif.


2. This one mixes kits of similar colors with neutral basics from Valorie Wibbens and messy strings from Rachel Jefferies mixed in.