fresh for SPRING

Well, it's been another gloomy day...The sunny weather just won't stay for more than a day, so I'm  flinging some spring here today.  I thought we'd talk about an unexpected color duo today- mint and neon yellow, so pucker up!  

Yellow and green are analogous colors, meaning they lay next to each other on the color wheel.  Instead of just mixing these two colors together, I decided to 'missmatch' pastel green, better known as mint, and neon yellow, better known as....well, neon yellow of course.

I've had a love affair with mint since I was a little girl.  The sea foam green crayon in my Crayola 96 set was one of my dear favorites. We parted ways for a while, but had a beautiful reunion for my wedding, a year and a half ago.  I'm sure you've noticed how mint has made it into every retail avenue during the last year- it's amazing...  When I was planning for my wedding in 2011-2012, it was impossible to find anything this tint.  I ordered samples and samples of paper online, had to special order bridesmaid dresses, it was so hard to find.  My family even tried to convince me that no one would notice if the invitations were moss green- what nerve!  They should know me better than that.  Luckily, my husband and I found perfectly minty mint paper just in time to make our invitations.  Now you can find it in every clothing display window, head phones, shoe store, blog layouts, and even my iPhone case.  

Another trend this year has been neon, you can't miss it!  With my fair skin I have shied away from this, but I wanted to participate so I do have one dress that is neon and taupe stripes, and it seems to be the perfect balance of colors.  Another inspiration for this pairing are our yoga mats, yes yoga mats!  Mine is mint, you guessed it, and my husbands is black with a neon yellow strap.  I stare at them every day, and I'm mesmerized by this atypical pairing. 

The best way to make these two opposite colors work together is pairing them with neutrals.  You can see the neon yellow and grey poufs topped together, and the neon dots on a taupe background pillow.  You also see the mint ombre throw paired with the grey chair and natural wood tones.  These colors work best as accents in a space.  Painting the whole room neon yellow with a mint duvet would make your eyes hurt, but using them as accents in a space let's them shine their best.  And of course, you can see proportion being used again in the white pillow with mint arrows, and just one neon arrow popping out.

Can you see the harmony in this 'missmatch' color duo of mint and neon yellow?