Designing the background for my GDD

It is now time I begin my GDD, I want it to be feature both Victorian themes and my characters in, I first started out with some initial sketches of what I wanted my background to look like.

(insert image here)

I then went into photoshop and chose two images I really liked. The first I thought would go with my theme of animals but it didn't really match my original idea, I just really like the birds! Plus it didn't have the space for the portraits I wanted in the corners, think they would have looked weird next to the plain birds.

This one however was perfect for what I needed it was from http://frame123.net/tag/victorian-word-borders, it had the Victorian look and it had space for my portraits .... I coloured it gold to look more like a painting frame.

Now I had my border I needed a background. I searched for Victorian backgrounds and found this one from https://img1.etsystatic.com/025/0/5251483/il_340x270.547950945_d5bn.jpg its a Victorian Damask pattern that looks super nice! I repeated the pattern and created an A4 sized block.

Now combining the two! I am so happy with how it turned out, it looks almost exactly how I wanted it too, I wasnt sure about the mint green and the gold as I thought they clashed a bit, I took the designs to Facebook to see which was best. I used colours that I got from my research into Victorian colour palettes.

The general consensus was that the gold one looked best, I agree with this as it blends in better and also doesn't take away attention from the border which I think the green did. My GDD is now ready for font and images, if it comes to it I may bring the colour of the Background down if it interferes with the font.