So, the holidays happened, and I fell a bit behind on sharing my Sketch Starter projects here. No time like the present to share some more inspiration though, right?

As you might know, as a Design Team Member for Altenew, I create monthly inspiration projects that feature two distinctly different projects using the same sketch. I encourage you to give the sketch a try and share your results on social media — tag me @nicolewattcreates.

sketch #18

Feel free to pin this image on Pinterest for future reference! 

let’s talk color!

Crafters tend to stick with the same color combos – mostly because they’ve found something that they like and it’s easy to use it over and over. But, that can get a bit boring, right? But how do you go about finding new combos that will work well? Look no further than the color wheel!

We’ll look at two different color combos today – analogous and complimentary. An analogous combo is a grouping of 3 or 4 colors that are found next to each other on the color wheel, like green, green-blue, and blue. Or, red-orange, red, and violet-red. Complimentary colors are opposite from each other on the color wheel, like green and red or orange-yellow and blue-violet.

analogous scraps

I raided the scraps bin for the background pieces, so, not only did I come up with great color combos, I added in visual texture with various patterns and used up some great pieces from my stash! I used the color wheel to look at a pile of scraps and group them into piles of colors that would look good together. So, when I ended up with a pile of blue-greens, knew I could do this first project in an analogous scheme.

Adding in the sketch kept me from adding in too much pattern, and creating simple, gold embossed outline florals gave me tons of white space to keep everything balanced.

complimentary scraps

One of my most favorite complimentary combos is pink and green! This look is like a yellow-green and violet-red look – just one off from the traditional red & green of the Christmas holiday.

This is the same layout, just turned 90-degrees. And, to soften it up a little, I added a bit of a pink haze behind the squares with some soft ink blending.

sketch starters with nicole

Here’s the companion video that will walk you through creating both designs!

your turn!

Feeling inspired or challenged? Now, it’s your turn to give the sketch a try and share your results on social media — tag me @nicolewattcreates.