Let's talk about color

I am very matchy-match.

It's not just with scrapbook paper, it's the same with lipstick.

Personally. I think red is the worst. So many different shades of red. 100 different pieces of red cardstock, but none of them match the red in one sheet of patterned paper. 

I try not to let finding the exact perfect shade of a color stop me or slow me down. Otherwise scrapping becomes like work!

I will share that when I got married 4 years ago, I had 8 bridesmaids and I wanted mismatched shades of purple. That was a heck of a journey, because some purples are more bluey, some more reddish, some more pink, etc!! I ended up choosing 3 shades from the same company and let the girls pick which one they wanted. It turned out really nice in the end.

I am not very matchy-matchy, I prefer complimentary colors. But I have done some monochromatic pages and pages where the color separates the page in quadrants or 3 rows.

As far as cardstock...I still have a variety of Bazzill that's probably like 20 years old - back in the QVC jumbo pack sale days.

I love neutrals, greens, and turquoise and orange combo. I tend towards more "boy pages" and I never really liked girly colors, so I have very little pinks/purples.

I tend to like cooler colors, but will use what is appropriate for the photo (I also tend to like cooler tone photos).

There was a time where I was only using a base of white/black, which I still do a lot, but I've been challenging myself to use more colors since I have them.

I also love navy and it is hard to find the right tone! I am very picky about coral and can never really find the right shade.

I do like the solids that Simple Stories has now, but they have a bit of distressing or subtle dots - they aren't textured, but I use them a lot for a base.

I am with you artbabe . I'm a color purist. Navy and a good royal blue are the colors I feel it is impossible to find. I also stopped ever using ivory/cream cardstock because they are always too yellow. I used to use Bazill's Walnut Cream and it was perfect, but I can't find it in stores anymore.

I learned from Shimelle that purple is hard to come by in papercrafting because it's a tricky color that tends to fade very quickly, it's not stable, and I think it's hard to get a good color match when making it. And if I believe Tim Holtz there's not much complexity to be had in yellows and that's why the next Distress color is/was never going to be a yellow no matter how hard you beg.

Red is probably my biggest frustration - making Christmas cards I want my reds to be rich and bold and true. Often they are muddy and dull, closer to browns than reds, which just doesn't work on a Christmas card. The last time I shopped in Joann I was so frustrated with their lighting - I was trying to find 4th July and Christmas reds but the cast of their lights made everything look dull, I couldn't tell the shades apart.

I prefer to buy matching cardstock when I can. Close enough is sometimes close enough for cards, or I just fall back on white. But it makes me much happier when I can get that exact shade of watermelon-pink-red that Doodlebug uses in their patterned paper.

I get frustrated by the narrow options for shades of green (and other colors) in clothing more often than papercrafts. Of all the beautiful colors in the world I can't understand why so many companies limit themselves to the ugly shades they do.

HaHa artbabe! I try not to be obsessive about matching colors but sometimes you need what you need! I probably use more blues & greens (both of which contain teal ) and I find myself rifling through all those colors to find a "better" one.
And I totally understand the Buckeye frustration. IU's colors are cream & crimson but you don't often find those colors in their sportswear.

ACOT carries Bazzill walnut cream.

I prefer neutrals (e.g. black, whites, charcoal, greys, navy) & dislike yellow (my least favorite color) &, by extension, gold. Like Linda, I find true red (not tomato/brick/coral) & blue (not teal/aqua/turquoise) are scarce. I only purchase what I like & will use...eventually, so I never buy "too much" of any color.

Ah, the disappearance of colour is such a touchy and vast subject of study of these past 15-ish years. There's a variety of reasons but for car colours, it's mostly down to two simple factors:

1. Current economy + cost-saving measures // There's a significant enough cost linked to mixing paint colours that they're mostly sticking to the traditional neutral car colours these days and offer a very limited colour palette the customer has to pay extra for. Customers are also being more careful these days with expressing themselves through vibrant colours that would make them stand out and would prefer the cheaper neutral shade that makes it easier for second-hand resale.

2. Saturated market + tight competition // These days, most Western households have at least one car. The market is tight in a tight economy. You'll notice that the loss of colour and rise of neutrals went significantly up as the effects of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were felt. Car manufacturers don't need to stand out with unique, funky colours on the road. Gone are the days of the 1990s insouciance where uniqueness was celebrated. It's now all about looking sleek and coming across as a safe investment. Hence why not only the colours of cars have been reduced to a very limited palette but also the general look of the car. Chassis design is very similar across the board for the middle class car offer, too. 

We had considered getting a green Element back in the day. Such cool cars. Mazda has some really nice teals, blues and greens from what I've seen on the road. Most of the cars on the road here seem to be grey. Like our weather. ugh. I gather that car colors can be cultural/location influenced (Hawaii is big on white cars for temperature coolness and for luck) but I guess a lot of people like to play it safe or consider resale more than their own enjoyment. 

When working on my daughter's baby album there were so many shades of PINK. Simple Stories pink had gray tone to it, Echo Park pink was more coral, Doodlebug was mostly their Bubblegum or Cupcake colors, while Authentique pink was a purply mauve pink, etc. etc. etc.

Red - must be a cool red never a warm red (hard no to a lot of Christmas collections based solely on this!)
Grey - must be a cool grey, no yellow vibes at all
White - only stark, burns your retina white for me with no yellow at all
Black - cool blacks only, no brown or reddish tinges for me. And yes, I agree that black has many tones and I am not a fan of a lot of them!
Blues - yeah, only cool toned blues for me

Basically cool toned everything or I super struggle to use it.