I’m very picky when it comes to color, and I’m always amazed by how different colors look when you change the lighting, background, or surrounding colors. This week I’ve been busy moving and dealing with changing paint colors. Has this ever happened to you: You look at the paint on the card (or the beads in the tube) in the store and it looks perfect, but when you get home and put it on the wall (or start stringing or stitching) it’s all wrong?

I chose a nice springy green for my room. I loved it at the store, but at home on the wall it was way too bright for my entire bedroom. I tried going back to the store and having the paint retinted a shade darker, but even with my new custom color, the beige carpeting and golden-brown wood trim brought out the yellow in the green, and the effect was somewhere between chartreuse and sage — still much brighter than I’d like.

In the end, I bought new paint, and the room is now a calming green/blue/gray color. I love how the wood brings out the blue in the paint, but my fabrics and furniture bring out the green. It’s easy to see the same principle at work when you bead: The beads you buy may look very different paired with one color than they would beside another. It’s especially fun to play with AB, vitrail, and iridescent beads to see what effects you’ll get.