Friday, March 12, 2010

Cracking the Code: CAS-ifying Vintage Style

What a coincidence y'all asked for more CASification and make-over cards because I'd planned a few days of them after picking up the latest Take Ten. It has my CASification mojo hoppin'!


When I first started stamping eight-ish years ago, I read Rubber Stamp Madness, Rubber Stamper Magazine, and a few others. Most of the magazines back then were full of what I call "artsy" stamping: collage or mixed media cards with lots of brown. A lot of the stamp images were vintage, such as men in bowler hats with the letter D on their foreheads, Mona Lisa, court jesters, paper dolls, and such. There were also a lot of natural leaves, trees, and scenes.

Now way back then, I didn't know about a clean-and-simple card style (didn't seem like anyone was doing CAS except maybe StampinUp, but I hadn't heard of them yet, and I'm not creative enough to come up with it on my own). But I'd worked with a graphic design artist named Liz who DID do clean and simple, and I wanted to BE Liz.

Since all I saw in the magazines were vintage-style stamps, I bought a bunch of them, though I'm happy to say I never bought the man in a bowler hat with a D on his head. (No offense to anyone who did; I'm sure someone who isn't I could make a lovely card with him.) Then, armed with these vintage stamps, I set about trying to make cards like Liz's graphic designs and failed spectacularly.

As I learned about CAS stamping from SU and Julie Ebersole and other talented stampers at SCS, I started buying stamps that lent themselves to a cleaner look and miracle of miracles, I liked what I made with them.

But now I have drawers full of stamps that I bought years ago (though I did give a lot of them away), and they sit, unused, like the lost boys languishing in Never-Never Land, just awaiting the day I dump them in a box and take them to Goodwill.

Isn't that just the saddest thing you ever heard?

Then, a few days ago, I saw this card by Teresa Abajo in the Spring issue of Take Ten (which still publishes cards made with the man in a bowler hat with the letter D on his forehead):




This card, which is both balanced and interesting visually, has soooo much going on, including a lot of brown. There are seven different patterns and at least three different scripts. Never in a million years could I pull this card off like Teresa has. But I decided, what the hey!, I'll see what I can do with it as a springboard to CAS.

GO, ME! I'm cracking the code, folks.


How did this happen? Well, it started with a color scheme. Of course there's brown, but the original card has (if you squint sideways and use your imagination) hints of pink and blue. So I punched Martha Stewart butterflies in blush blossom, bordering blue, and close to cocoa. Then I stamped the text stamp on white with close to cocoa ink and cut out the panel. It looked better to work light to dark from top to bottom.

The original three butterflies are all linked by a reverse-printed word under each. I ditched that design element in the interest of CAS but still needed to unify the butterflies somehow. I tried coloring white pearls with Bic Mark-It markers in matches to blush, bordering and cocoa, but couldn't get a good cocoa. Then I figured all-white pearls would unify them better anyway.

The cocoa matte grounds it nicely, but the white card base keeps the whole thing from being too dark.

So what do you think of my vintage CAS card? It totally works for me, but does it work for YOU? What vintage-style stamps do you have lying around that you could make into a CAS card? If you take up this challenge, let us know by posting a link to your card.

Up tomorrow, more artsy-inspired CAS in cards suitable for kids!

32 comments:

  1. totally works for me :)
    no vintage stamps in my collection but plenty of cutesy ones purchased 10+ years ago...luckily I have a daughter who loves to use them!

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  2. your card is great - i still alternate between cas and those with more "stuff" but really don't like those that are over the top with so much going on that your eye never has a place to rest. i think my style is somewhere in between but leaning toward the cas and the butterfly card you did. thanks for the inspiration - i'm putting it in my file.

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  3. Wow, wow, wow Susan.....my story is so similiar to yours. I have a couple of drawers filled with 'vintage styled' stamps. Now I don't own the one of the man but I have many others I love. I don't do the browns that well either. You won't believe it!!!...just the other day I was looking at them and was trying to think of ways to use them again but with a cas style. Too bad we don't live closer so we could have a stamping blitz and put out heads together LOL....I would love to see all that you come up with. So wonderful.
    Thanks for continuing to inspire.

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  4. Hey Susan -
    I think we must've started stamping at the same time -- I remember bowler-hat man very well! I do still have some stamps in similar styles, many of which languish, unloved. I think I even have the text bg you used! I also remember all the sort-of-scathing letters folks wrote to those publications, complaining about all the brown!
    What's kinda funny is that I love Tim Holtz's stamp designs for Stampers' Anonymous, even though they aren't too far from bowler-hat man! Some things never change....

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  5. Love it. Beautiful, just like everything else you create. I'm clueless about the meaning of the man in the bowler hat with a D on it, though.

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  6. So am I, Susie. So am I. D for dunce, dogma, doodle-bug, doofus, darling, doctor, doormat, dream, Daedalus, digestion? I just don't know!

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  7. Yes, your card does totally work for me. I will never try to make an "artsy" card, I would probably have an anxiety attack if I did. haha

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  8. Susan, this card is wonderful!
    Absolutely something I would try. I have the French Script BG stamp, that's about it. Love the colors youn chose as well.
    Happy Friday (the sun is out this morning here in Northern Illinois),
    Petra

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  9. That's a beauty, Susan. And thank you for refraining from making the butterflies poop or fart!

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  10. oooooh, I like!! Is that the HA text stamp?? I love vintage cards made by others (I struggle desperately to make them), That is part of my problem, I can't land on a "me" style because I like them all!! I love CAS, vintage, chic, graphic ... you name it, I love it. So, yes I have vintage stamps laying around - even a few Anna Griffin stamps which I adore. I love how you added the text but kept the main card base clean!!

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  11. LOVE this card - and thanks for sharing your "process" from inspiration to completion. My style is all over the place, but I'm really being drawn to cleaner designs lately...

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  12. Go you! Yours is much prettier, the other one is way too busy, which is often the case with vintage and collage designs, imho. YOu did an excellent job adapting it to your style, and improving it!

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  13. I love it! I am missing the collage gene, and can never pull off the vintage-y thing. But this - THIS - I might be able to do. You are a genius! Thanks!

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  14. There's a time and a place for CAS as well as artsy-fartsy. I'm glad we have so many artistic options to meet our needs. Keep up the good work; I love your style!

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  15. I love the transformation of the design from fairly busy to CAS. I like them both, but would really prefer the CAS. It's difficult for me to do. I usually put one thing too may on a card. Please keep showing me the way!

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  16. This sounds way too familiar. I'm slowly weeding out those old stamps for the simpler ones. Still like nature though. You do inspire!

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  17. This totally works for me - I love what you did here!

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  18. Oh, this is making my eyes so happy! I love what you have done here {the colors are a nice nod vintage}

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  19. What a great makeover! The colors are lovely, and I LOVE that MS butterfly punch --- you just can't make a bad card using it --- and you used it perfectly. Lovely card, and great CAS job! I too have plenty of stamp sets I bought early in my card "career," and I do NOT know what I was thinking!

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  20. FREE at last!!!!!!!!! I no longer have to beat myself to death for not figuring out how to turn all my Asian category stamps or Music category stamps into brilliant collages. I've spent at least a few hundred hours trying to produce those complex over-worked week-to-make cards that only have in common vintage female half-faces. In the end, they fuss my mind something fierce....BUT then I read the Comments on them, in the SCS Gallery, and I think "Bad Bahb! THOSE folks are the REAL artists and you are obviously a failure!"
    Then I came here and got let out of the prison of my failure! I can throw away the Walnut stain, the bits of string lace, the Distresser and my Grandma's 1876 hymnal I wrecked by trying to use the pages in collages? YIPEEEEEE! FREE at last!

    Really now, what shall I do with the tiny stick-figure-girl holding an umbrella sitting on the edge of a martini glass? That's really a stamp from my "early career". What was I thinking? indeed.

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  21. thanks susan. i am always impressed with how you can see (or find) the simple, peaceful version when looking at the busy, collage version. it love your card. thanks for sharing and helping those of us with less insight to understand your process. enjoy your weekend. snuggle with hoover!
    marty ferraro

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  22. You have done a wonderful take on Teresa's card, keeping some of her key elements but simplifying without loosing the eyecatching layout. I love both cards but I think yours is more striking, hers softer and subtler.

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  23. Men in bowler hats with the letter D on their foreheads... This is a mental image (I've never seen the actual stamp) that I'll be mulling over this evening... :)
    When I saw your inspiration card, I liked it a lot, but then I saw yours! As to vintage stamps, so far the only ones I have are freebie digis, that I have yet to be inspired to actually use. (I haven't completely wrapped my head around the concept of "digital" stamps yet, either, to be honest...)

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  24. Love what you did!!! While I don't have many vintage stamps, I do have (literally) tons of vintage shabby-chic paper. I love CAS and I love what I call "vintage country" paper...lots of tiny floral patterns in distressed dusty colors. I still love them but struggle with how to use them in CAS cards....any ideas for that???? I can't seem to marry these two things that appeal to me.

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  25. Love this card!!

    Fortunately, I don't have any vintage stamps since I've only been stamping for a year ... very glad I haven't even seen the man in the bowler hat with the letter *D* :o)

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  26. This works for me! It took me years to figure out that I don't (can't?) do scenes, collage, extremely time-consuming techniques, etc. Unfortunately, I have many drawers and containers full of the stamps and accessories for all of the above.

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  27. I am amazed you were not scarred for life by the bowler hatted man LOL
    I am always drawn to vintage and shabby chic (mainly the colours I think) but I just cannot do it and always end up with a mess.
    I totally love what you have created here just enough vintage to assuage the artistic soul but CAS enough to please the eye. You have this wonderful, enviable knack to look through the busy to achieve the clean and simple.
    Pure genius .... thank you for continuing to show us the way Oh Great One ;)
    PS. I share your pain Bahb

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  28. Lauren...You may have noticed that dp and I don't get along on cards. Vintage dp scares me silly. Now, on scrapbook pages, yes. But cards? Two totally different animals...*wink*

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  29. As a new card maker I find both cards amazing. I am going to try yours out today. Do they call that card lifting (as in scrap lifting)?

    I also love your writting.

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  30. You inspired me to make this card using one of my vintage stamps that has been collecting dust....
    http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1662629?&cat=500&ppuser=6575
    thanks.....

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!