I love paper!

Seriously, I think I could be classified as a Paper Hoarder!

Don't tell my husband, but just last night, even though I have a 4ft tall tower of papers in my craftroom, I was online and purchased some papers for a project I am working on.

(it's a sickness . . . I know . . . I need a intervention)

Here are some pictures of papers I saw at the Craft and Hobby Trade Association show 2012.

I just love looking at all of the different colors and patterns!  I also love to look at how people are using patterned papers.  For some people, patterned papers are an accent to the solid colors they use . . . like in some of the cards in the photo above.  Making the main part of the card a solid color makes it easier to combine several smaller elements that have patterns on them.

I really like how they took a bandanna print and turned it into an American flag in the photo above.  Sometimes you need to step back and look at some of your patterned papers, like the bandanna print, and use them like a solid.  What makes this work is that they balanced it with another less dominate print and solid colors for the background.

These tone on tone papers are another great way to start to look at patterns as a solid.  I know when I first started to look at combining patterns I was always worried that it would be "too much" or too busy looking, but when you use a tone on tone paper the pattern on the paper is not the prominent element of the project.