When most of us decorate we don't want to rip everything out and start again. For most people, decorating is about working around some existing pieces such as bed linen and items of furniture. First find the closest colour to your object on the stripe cards.

If you had a sofa in this colour you would look down the peachy oranges and find that Gipsy Bloom is the closest match.

By using the one card which holds your colour you can create some great colour schemes. A good tip for your room if you're choosing two or more colours from the colour card is to miss a colour out so that you have a higher contrast on your walls. This way you can really see the difference in the tones.

So from this card I could use the matching colour to my sofa as a feature wall with a lighter tone from the card for the other walls.

Or I might choose two lighter tones for the walls painting two in each colour and again the palest for the skirting.

Or I could select one colour for the walls and use a lighter or darker shade for the wood work.

If I was colour scheming around a patterned fabric then I would find the closest match to each colour and decide which one I like the most. So with this cushion the closest colour here is going to sit within the calm family.

The closest colour to our leaf here is Caramel Blush 2.

The closest colour to the background is Labrador Sands.

And then for the other rose pattern the closest colour is Gipsy Bloom. Then I would choose the colour card that worked best with the cushion. And I think that is Caramel Blush 2, so I would use this card and chose colours in the same way that I did before.

Colour scheming with one colour card can be really effective but for a more varied scheme start with the colour card closest to your item and then count three cards from either side of it and select different tones from these cards.

A good tip when looking at several colour cards together is to turn one upside down, to compare contrasting colours.