Color Theory

Color is an important part of making cards. You can have a fantastic layout, and if you don't pick the right colors the card will just never give you that "ahhhh" feeling. I usually go by my own gut feeling, but when I have a certain color I want to use and get stumped I will either use a color wheel or one of the many online color tools.

Tonight I am going to give you links to all things color: color theory, color inspiration, color combination generators and, well a few other things thrown in for good luck.

First, if you are stumped on what colors to use, look around you! Look outside (see what Mother Nature has put together), look in your kitchen for packaging, see what colors have been used in the packaging, pull out a magazine or two and look at the ads and study the combinations that are used, if you really like some of the combinations, save the page in a binder for inspiration later.

Check out "Kris's Color Stripes" to see how someone has taken the color around them and created some great color themes that you can use in your rubber stamping, card making or scrap booking. I love her site, always some wonderful combinations, and I love how she "sees" the colors in the world around her.

Here is another "unique" way to find some color combinations, from art! The site is called "Color and Design Blog," and you are sure to find some inspiration for a color scheme you might not have thought of before.

I also found a couple of sites that will teach you color theory. "Art of the Possible" has a short, but very informative, article on color theory. If you want something a bit more detailed, try "Design Notes" which is actually design notes for a college class, and "should be useful to anyone who wants to know the fundamental concepts for designing two-dimensional artwork. " I clicked around the site and thought it was easy to navigate and there was some very good color information as well.

Now, maybe you just want to see what colors go with the colors you are working with. In that case you can go to the SU Color Generator, or you can try a web color scheme generator (I liked this generator because you can also see pastel versions of the colors you want to use), or try this color generator at Colors On The Web.

And don't forget that using the same color in different ways on a card can have amazing effects as well.

Do you have favorite color combinations that you use? Post a comment and let us know what your all time favorites are. My favorites? I have too many! I do like black with red or pink, love a bright color with white, love black on white, and really like fall colors.

Have a great night, see you tomorrow.

Update: Kevin just left a great link in the comments Create Your Color Scheme, really neat tool to pick over all schemes in any color you can imagine. Thanks Kevin.

Update II: Lindy posted a great link as well, check it out, on Hobby Lobby's website Thanks Lindy!