Papaya Stationery
I heard about Papaya via Yvonne and fell in love with the imagery and colors used in this stationery line. Some of these cards would be so pretty framed, others to give (of course), and still others to incorporate into your collage art, decoupage projects, or simply to tack on your inspiration board. I say this all the time, but use things like fabrics and greeting cards to create a palette for a room you want to redux. Why stress out over pulling together the perfect colors when you can look at your favorite pattern and pull the colors from there?
For instance, if you love a card, take it with you to the paint store and match paint chips to the colors in the card. Match them as perfectly as you can. Then bring them home and lay them out on a pure white surface next to the card. Having the colors in solid squares helps you determine where you'd like the color in your room and how much of it. Look at the card design to determine how much of each color was used in the design.
Let's say you like this card. Here you see vibrant turquoise and pinks, tempered by gray (the card border), black (in her hat), brown (in the wings), olive and other tones of green, etc. Then there's this tiny hint of mustard. So I'm thinking that if you build a room around this card, you can either use mustard as gold (hardware), or mustard can be part of a textile you find. The brown can be your wood tones. You may even decide that you'd like to translate the colors a little differently, maybe less pink and more mustard. Bring pink in with flowers or a ceramic bowl for your keys.
Get inside the mind of a graphic designer for a minute as you lay out your colors and inspiration before you. If you have magazine clippings of the sofa you want, the chair you've been drooling over, pull these in too. Determine where you want your colors. Do you want color on the wall? Or just the soft furnishings? Do you want to paint your walls white and paint only the moldings in color, perhaps in a pale turquoise? There are so many options when it comes to decorating, and for those who find themselves color confused, taking inspiration from textiles, cards, etc. is a great way to get your creative wheels turning. You can start by looking for your inspiration right here.
(images from papaya)