First, the walls. I like colorful, yet plain-colored walls because they give a good foundation for everything else to build on. Same thing with a scrapbooking page. Starting with a solid- colored paper (or one with a little texture) is easiest.
Next, the couch or bed or whatever – the largest piece of furniture in the room. On a scrapbooking page, this would be the biggest piece of paper that you layer under your pictures. Again, I wouldn’t go too crazy because it is such a big piece, and I don’t want to overwhelm any visitors. Maybe a light or small pattern.
Now comes the fun part. Curtains, accent pillows, rugs, etc. These small elements are where all of the color and patterns and fun come in. For scrapbooking, these could be squares of paper, paper ribbons, strips, circles, layered pieces – remember that you usually only need a little piece of the pattern, not the whole sheet. There are four things to keep in mind when picking accent patterns.
Type
In general, using several different types on the same page looks best. Pairing a floral with a stripe or a polka-dot will look better than using two similar floral patterns together.
Contrast is the key. A large floral next to a pinstripe looks great because they contrast. Mixing up the sizes keeps it visually interesting.
Pairing a more visually dense pattern with one that has more white space also makes it more interesting to look at.
The balance between white (or neutral/solid/empty) space and pattern on a page is important. White space gives our eye some place to rest while processing all of the busy elements on the page. If you are using several busy patterns, make sure there is some empty space around them.
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