Nursery Reveal Part 6 – Mixing the Perfect Shade

I have a confession to make. I am a huge fan of Annie’s palette…BUT I rarely use her colors straight out of the can…eek! I guess that’s what happens when you stare at this gorgeous wall of color every day for 6 years…hehe.

Of course, when I found the perfect pink, not too baby pink, not too bubblegum pink silk for the drapes in Madison’s room, I had to get the right color match with Annie’s palette for the other pieces in the room. Over time, and with practice you too can become a pro at finding the right shade. I promise!

Here’s a shot of one of the 3 pieces in the room done in the custom color mix I’ll be talking about below. If you want to check out the other pieces in the room, you can read about them HERE. And don’t forget to check out the other posts in this series HERE.

We love to use our Annie Sloan workbook to try out different mixes before we start on a piece. Have you ever found yourself with a giant mixed bowl of some color you don’t love?? Yea, so have I…that’s why I had to figure out an easier way.

Check out my video on color mixing to see how simple it is to create tons of different shades without wasting more than a finger dip of paint. PS…I’m totally preggo in this video so this is before little Madison joined the world!

I also talk about mixing whites into each one of Annie’s colors to create an amazing range. We’ve done all that work for you and if you’re lucky enough to live close by, come visit one of the shops to see these tone charts in person to pick your perfect shade. We have them all pinned on our Color, Stain & Wax Swatches Pinterest board as well. Here are a few…

So how do you find the right shade when matching a color?

First, you’ll need to determine the undertone of the color you’re trying to match. Annie’s color card gives us a great start in what each of her colors lean toward. You can see she has them arranged like the color wheel. So you see Burgundy is on the red & blue side, where Primer Red & Scandinavian Pink are on the Red & Orange side. It’s all quite scientific and Annie’s got you covered! These aren’t just random colors she’s chosen for her line, it’s very much rooted in history, art & color theory.

I could tell that my pink silk had some coral & mauve-y undertones. So, I knew that using Burgundy, shown above, wouldn’t work because that has more of a purple undertone.

Here is Scandinavian Pink on our tone chart. And when this is brought down with white, you can see that it does have a coral tone to it. I started with that.

And then, when I looked at Primer Red, I see this has a bit of a mauve-y tone to it. So…I started mixing playing around with the 2 of them and also a lot of Old White. Not Pure White though, because can you see how that makes the color much brighter? I needed that warmer version of the color. Pure White will give you a bit cooler of a color…which is also great for a modern color palette.

In case you’re wondering, the mix I decided on for the pink in Madison’s room, it was 1 Part Scandinavian Pink, 1 Part Primer Red & 20 Parts Old White.

In my first video on mixing color, the one I posted above, I only talked about mixing 2 colors and how to figure out “parts”. Here’s another quick video on how to mix more than 2 colors and figure out the parts. And no, you don’t have to be a math whiz to figure out how to do this. I promise!!

Here’s a little measurement guide for some common mixes with 2 colors.

And if you’re mixing more than 2 colors, here’s a simple run down on how to combine parts.

Let’s say you have 3 colors and you’ve decided on 10 parts Old White, 2 parts Scandinavian Pink & 1/2 part Primer Red. That seems a little scary, right? Wrong! Super simple!

So first, think about how much you need to mix. Do you need about a cup? Or more like a quart? That will help you determine what your “Part” is. If you need a cup, you’re not going to use 1/2 cup as your part…because you have 10 parts Old White. That would be way more than a cup…make sense?

So let’s say you need a small amount, like a cup, approximately. Let’s use a tablespoon as our part.

For this example, you’ll need 10 tablespoons of Old White, 2 tablespoons of Scandinavian Pink & 1/2 tablespoon of Primer Red. Easy peasy!

You can basically use anything as your “Part”. It could be 1/4 cup, it could be a teaspoon, 1/2 cup, an ounce, etc. It could even be a random line on a water bottle. As long as you measure all your parts the same, you’ll get the same color mix, no matter what size the batch. Am I making sense?

So there you have it. How to get the right shade for your project! If you need some more help, feel free to stop by one of the shops with a swatch of the item you’re trying to match and we’ll whip out our Annie Sloan workbook and our paint cans and help you find that right shade! We won’t mix it for you, but we can guide you on your ratios. And we also have these handy dandy mixing containers to make the job a little easier.

Join me next week for the last part in our Nursery Reveal series…when I talk all about the little details. The pictures, banners, hardware, trim & all the other goodies that went into making the space special. Would you like us to do another series?? What else do you want to hear about?? Leave us a comment and let us know! Chat soon peeps! Thanks for stopping by!