A whole new craft!

[pamcook]

Do you color swatch? It’s like a whole new craft! I could only watch half because I felt overwhelmed (and she’s a bit wordy and I wanted to ignore all the not-so-subliminal advertising) but she did show some good ideas.
Who else does this? Obviously not me!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vAOmJcdFY ... ploademail

[Keitha]

I do, I do. I didn't used to, but finally realized when every time I wanted to colour something that I'd pull out all my ink pads to audition them for just the right colour that it really is a time saver. I've got all my ink pads swatched, pigment powders (Brushos, etc) and most of my Ranger mediums (distress stains, Stickles, markers, Alcohol inks, Dylusions sprays, etc). The big one I have yet to do is my watercolour paints, and that's because I'm still deciding how I want to do it. While I may do each brand separately I'll probably group them by colours as well, so I can compare sap greens, for example. Watercolours vary quite a big between manufacturers, even with the same name. I keep them in a disc ring binder system that works really well.

It's actually quite fun to pull out a specific type of supply and just play with it making swatches, and I feel very accomplished when I get one done.

Thanks for that link Pam; I'll zoom through it to see if she does something different that I like better.

[nchoney]

I went through a phase of color searching everything on little white tags and sorting them on a big binder ring. And there it hangs. LOL

I also did the same with bigger tags for all my embossing folders. And then I never look at it either.

Ok, I watched a little of it. Way too chatty and I'm just not that organized. And can't see myself spending the extra money for more things to organize with. Holy cow. LOL☺

[Keitha]

Apparently I had nothing better to do while having my coffee, as I watched a good bit of that color swatching video. She does make it into a whole other craft; kind of over the top IMHO. Had to laugh at her suggestion to set up a 'color swatching station' with all the tools you need; if your supplies are organized, it's not hard to find a couple of punches and a binder ring or whatever. She's even got a corner rounder, hole punch, some dies and small stamps in her kit; does that mean she has duplicates of those things for when she needs them elsewhere? She did cop to making multiple copies of the colour swatch sets so she can put one in her craft room, one in her swatch kit, one in her purse, etc. She also swatches papers which I'd never bother with as they are consumable. To each their own.
One thing she did that I thought was a good idea: the ink pads that come in color sets (Altenew, etc) she swatches using layering stamps, so you can see how the colours look layered together. If I had any of those sets of ink pads I'd adopt that idea, too.
There are certainly no shortage of YT videos on color-swatching; if it's something you want to do you can probably find one or several specific to the product you're interested it, from ink pads to watercolours to Copics, etc. I got the idea initially for the disc-bound system from Diana Trout a couple years ago, and have since watched how Irit Landgraff does hers. And of course many companies provide downloadable color charts to make it easy to swatch their products, so you can see at a glance what you've got and how it looks.

[pbp908]

I thought part of the fun is to go through all of your supplies looking for the "right" color?? How else would we know what we have?!

[jmp1022]

I thought about it but didn't get it done

[Monica]

When I first starting stamping in the mid to late 90s I actually did color swatch all my inks, embossing powders, and paper punches, as well as have a binder indexing all my stamp images. It didn't take long with minimal supplies, and as long as I kept up with it I had an easily viewable reference book. then I got lazy and stopped doing it for the most part, although I did create a swatch page the other day for those gilding flakes. I wish I'd been more diligent in keeping up with it all, to be honest.

[paddlegal]

I thought part of the fun is to go through all of your supplies looking for the "right" color?? How else would we know what we have?!

Exactly! When I start a project and need colors I love to pull out the pens or inkpads or whatever and start putting color together to decide what I want to use. I’ve been doing that a lot lately for my bullet journals as I decide on the month’s theme and colors.

[Keitha]

When I first starting stamping in the mid to late 90s I actually did color swatch all my inks, embossing powders, and paper punches, as well as have a binder indexing all my stamp images. It didn't take long with minimal supplies, and as long as I kept up with it I had an easily viewable reference book. then I got lazy and stopped doing it for the most part, although I did create a swatch page the other day for those gilding flakes. I wish I'd been more diligent in keeping up with it all, to be honest.

Embossing powders! I should swatch those; I find one advantage is that when I look at swatches I consider colours/options I wouldn't have otherwise considered without seeing how they look. While auditioning colours at the start of a project, which I used to always do, serves that purpose, I sure don't test embossing powders when picking one.

[Monica]

I picked a small solid stamp and used that for swatching EP, along with Versamark or another clear embossing ink. And it really helped a lot when I was keeping it current, as sometimes I'd have an idea and the swatches were a lot faster than trying it with half a dozen EP before finding the right one!

[Debbie J]

I did this with embossing folders and put them on a big ring, I even referenced the paper swatch by putting a corresponding number on the embossing folder. It looked real pretty but I never ever used them. Had fun doing it though!

[Monica]

I never did it with embossing folders but I did with punches... and never looked at them after that. I would simply pull open the drawer and dig through!

[paddlegal]

I did this with embossing folders and put them on a big ring, I even referenced the paper swatch by putting a corresponding number on the embossing folder. It looked real pretty but I never ever used them. Had fun doing it though!

It’s the one time I went to the effort of embossing all my folders using large Manila shipping tags. And yes, I never looked at them after that. Really, I should just use them instead.

[Debbie J]

I did this with embossing folders and put them on a big ring, I even referenced the paper swatch by putting a corresponding number on the embossing folder. It looked real pretty but I never ever used them. Had fun doing it though!

It’s the one time I went to the effort of embossing all my folders using large Manila shipping tags. And yes, I never looked at them after that. Really, I should just use them instead.

That’s a great idea, smoosh some ink or spray on them and use them up.