Purple for Christmas
We all have our go-to colours. The ones we know will lead us with a devout certainty to creating something beautiful. My colours are often blues and greens with soft neutrals and white to pull it all together. Those are my loyal colours. I trust them. I know what to expect from them. I know who they play nicely with.
But there are a few colours who aren’t trustworthy. They are the trouble-makers. They only want to play with very specific friends and become irritating when they are around any others. This is how I feel about purple. Not all purples wreak havoc, but most do. Currently, the worst of these hooligans is a colour called Gorgeous Grape. The purplest of all the purples. The worst of the worst.
You might want to defend purple in this moment, saying purple has been a comfort to you. Perhaps you would rather point your finger at orange instead. (how dare you! LOL!)
I think we all have an offending colour that we avoid using in our self-expression. We use what inspires us and makes us feel happy. It’s amazing how powerful a colour can be!
This brings me to announcing the fill in the blank challenge from the As You See It Challenge blog for which I have the pleasure of being a designer: The colour I avoid using most is _____.
Oof! This was a tough one. I really struggle with using purple in my card-making. It doesn’t inspire me and I only feel safe pairing it with gray and white. Well, I decided that this was my chance to play with it and give it a respectful effort. I would bring purple and “not gray” together. I didn’t really know what “not gray” was going to be, yet, but I was determined!
And you know what? I really like this card!
I started out with a piece of Feels Like Frost Designer Series Paper, which I sponged with Gorgeous Grape in an ombre from dark to light. I was off to a pretty safe start with purple and silver.
Next I stamped my little Christmas gnome from the Gnome for the Holidays stamp set on watercolor paper with Stazon Jet Black Ink and pulled out my set of Water Painters and got to water colouring my little bearded bearer of Christmas delight. I took my time and enjoyed the process of choosing my colours and waiting patiently for sections to dry so my colours wouldn’t bleed into one another. I even finished it off with some Wink of Stella to give my gnome image some holiday shimmer! Unfortunately, the Wink of Stella detail doesn’t show up well in these photos. You’ll have to take my word for it that it adds a an additional touch of whimsy.
I added even MORE purple to my design by using the dark Highland Heather Blends Marker to colour the Silver Metallic Edged Ribbon. I love how you can make any white ribbon coordinate with your paper using markers! You’ll notice where the ribbon is wrapped around the card, the lightly sponged designer series paper suddenly becomes a darkly sponged area. That was a simple chopping off the top of my sponged paper and moving it to the bottom. I did a lot of crazy thing to make this darn purple work for me, by golly!
I’m not going to get into all of the products and techniques I used to make this card. It’s pretty late and time to cozy up in my blankets and pillows. If you have any questions about products I used or how I did anything on this design, I’d be happy to have a conversation in the comments. Ask away!
I hope you’ll take on this challenge. I warn you, though. It’s not an easy challenge. Give yourself time to get to know the colour you’ve been avoiding. This is your opportunity to learn more about it, who it plays well with and who causes it to be nasty and miserable. Maybe, like me, you’ll be surprised what you’ve come up with.
I wonder if I’d like this card even more if I made it “not purple”
