Last week this article touched on the basics of creating color schemes for monochromatic layouts and how to use those color groupings to create simple background pages for layouts. This week we'll be taking those skills to a new level. The backgrounds I created were easy, simple and provided a clean and easy work area, but backgrounds can be created by utilizing more complex layering techniques. This layout was made by cutting strips of different purple papers and adhering them to a darker purple to create a striped background.
The stripes were easy to create using a 12 inch trimmer and a Sailor glue pen. This backdrop could be recreated with a number of colors, or with different shapes. If you have a square punch you could use three or four colors to create a monochromatic "checkerboard", or you could use a circle cutter to create another fun "bubbly" backdrop. The one seen here was made using the Sizzix personal die cut machine and the "Circles" die cut. To put it simply, the sky is the limit!!
Another technique is to combine the idea of a monochromatic color scheme with punches and shapes to create borders. Again using the Sizzix die cut machine and the "circles" die, I layered circles of different reds to create a border on dark red paper.
Using a Sizzix Square Die or a Square Punch, or by simply cutting squares, you can create the border seen here. Instead of leaving the layered squares free on the side, I mounted them on a darker teal and then mounted the strip on one of the lighter shades just to show that you can really play around with this technique.
The colors don't have to be arranged light to dark on a page, the entire page does not have to be a backdrop. One thing that I can't stress enough is that this can all bring continuity to an album or theme without everything looking exactly the same. Who would think that an entire album could be made using teal, but it can be done and each page can be original! We're not done yet. Next week we will explore using embellishments and extras to add a little something extra to our monochromatic page layouts.
