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How has your taste in stamped images changed over time?
Thought this *might* be an interesting discussion...I've been stamping for enough years now that I've come to realize I don't gravitate toward the same style of stamps that appealed to me in the first years. I was a scrapbooker first and did a lot of heritage pages, so I wanted the vintage images, the backgrounds, the swirls and flourishes. Loved Magenta, Stampers Anonymous, Paperbag Studio (still do, of course), but now I simply love the cute, whimsical, line art color-in images and have become addicted to Magnolia (must stop with those - so many), MFT PI, and even a few High Hopes and TGF. This change in direction amazes me in a way, but I think it has to do with my obsession with coloring with Copics and my growing away from wood-mount to clear and cling.
Anyway, the change for me has been a bit drastic. Would love to know how your tastes have changed - what you loved before and what you love now, and can you be specific?
I wish I could be more adventuresome in stamping, lol. And in other things, too. I really try to do something "different" from time to time, but usually come back to what I was drawn to, to start with.
I love whimsical (but not cutsey) images. Can't quite define the difference, but I know when I see it, I like it - or not.
I admire all the elegant, simple images and cards I see, but darn it, it's just not me. I've purchased flourishes, and trees, and flower and butterfly stamps, but they gather dust. I try them out when I first get them, and they just don't speak to me. I struggle to make cards with them. It sounds kind of bad, but the only time I use them is when I need to make a sympathy or maybe a wedding card.
I occasionally try to make cards in more subdued colors, but don't ever really like them. Brighter, more vibrant colors do it for me.
I'm the same way about food. If I visit a new restaurant and order something I like, I tend to order it the next time I go there. If it works, don't fix it, right?
I read a lot, and periodically will pick up an author I've tried and rejected in the past. Especially if there are good reviews. Maybe I missed something the first time around. All "these people" love this new book. Maybe it's good. So I buy the book. Usually it turns out I was right the first time, and don't like it.
I'm not so set in my ways that I'm not willing to venture off my path from time to time, but I usually come right back.
So the answer to your question "How has your taste in stamped images changed over time" is: Not very much.
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
sure has, before I did, I was noticing the other day when I was purging, how my style has changed so much from where I started.
I gave my sis a lot of stamps that I know i wont use anymore.
I don't think my tastes have changed much either. Bugga, I have to say that just about everything you have a hard time with is just what I always seem to use, yet I love your work.
When a new SU catalog comes out, I always like the flowers, trees, butterflys, and swirls. I like vintage and it shows in my house decor too. I struggle with bright bold colors but have been forcing myself to use them because I have a lot of bold paper. I like solid stamps because I don't like to color. As far as sayings, I just want basic tell me what the card is about greetings. I want to say thank you not thanks a latte, that kind of thing.
So the only thing that has really changed in my cards is using rubber stamps now and more layers and embellishments instead of the stencils I used to use.
I like this topic --it's making me think! My taste in stamps hasn't changed, but the way I use them has. For example, I have the old Anna Griffin clear stamp set "The Language of Flowers." They're outline floral focal cling stamps I cling to (!) because I like the artwork. But now my focals tend to be conglomerations of clip art and stamped images, chipboard shapes, clip art and stamps, or fabric and stamped images, etc. Stamps I bought on impulse that I ended up not liking I gave away or sold. But the stamps I liked seven years ago when I started, I still like and use in different ways. The Anna Griffin "Language of Flower" stamps I use now as elements within larger designs.
Well... I just took a gander at my gallery and compared my cards from when I started (4 years ago) to today, and I don't think my STYLE has changed that much (besides getting a lot better) but I do have a lot more "line-art" images/images I can colour with Copics..
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When I first started, nearly 20 years ago, it seems like we didn't have the range of art available to us that we do now. Back then it was a "cute" vs. "weird" (mainstream vs. avant garde) world. LOL!
I think as the art itself has evolved, so, too, has the style of things that appeal to me.
I recently cleaned out my studio and purged some items from back when I first started doing this. I seemed to enjoy dabbling in both styles way back in those early days. At any rate, some of the imagery was quite obviously dated, but some were very classic and timeless. I held onto more of those, and sold off the ones I knew just didn't fit my tastes any more.
It was kinda fun to walk down memory lane AND get my studio cleaned up and ready for another decade of whatever is to come that'll tickle my fancy. LOL!
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
Yes, my style has gone from stamp, cut, glue with a few embellishments to now getting art stamps, messing with various colouring mediums and making arty type cards, pictures etc. I still use my older style stamps on things like kids cards and boxes etc. I am trying to find different ways to use stamping as well.
I have a fair few SU stamps that I do not use often, and some I may sell. I have not found any word stamps that really appeal to me, so I tend to print things off the computer and use those instead. I have never been into cutesy stuff or girly girly stuff, and I don't intend to get to them any time soon. I find the arty stuff challenging enough.
It is weird, but when I first started stamping, I really didn't know what I liked, LOL. If that makes sense. I would go into a stamp store, and be totally overwhelmed with choices. It would be so hard for me to choose something. I guess maybe since I was just starting out, I couldn't say "Oh, that would go perfectly with this other stamp or patterned paper I have at home", since I really had hardly nothing, LOL.
Now I have a bunch of favorite stamp companies, and artists. I know which kind of drawings I like, and which I should not waste my money on. I pretty much know EXACTLY what I want now-- Just a quick glance makes my decision of yes or no. (Subject to change occasionally, LOL!) So I guess I used to be pretty clueless on building a stamp collection.
I also never bought sentiments, just thought I would print them out. I still do that sometimes, but I really like to buy all kinds of sentiments now, since I can use them with metallic inks, do resist techniques, heat emboss, etc. -- all the things I can do with image stamps. You can't do most of that stuff on a printer. Or, maybe I want to make the sentiment my main image, and use a really cool technique with it, instead of just printing it as an afterthought. Basically, I have learned so much since I first started, and grown in my techniques.
I don't think my tastes have changed much either. Bugga, I have to say that just about everything you have a hard time with is just what I always seem to use, yet I love your work.
When a new SU catalog comes out, I always like the flowers, trees, butterflys, and swirls. I like vintage and it shows in my house decor too. I struggle with bright bold colors but have been forcing myself to use them because I have a lot of bold paper. I like solid stamps because I don't like to color. As far as sayings, I just want basic tell me what the card is about greetings. I want to say thank you not thanks a latte, that kind of thing.
So the only thing that has really changed in my cards is using rubber stamps now and more layers and embellishments instead of the stencils I used to use.
Thanks for the kind words, Kilroy. I'm sure I would admire your cards, and your vintage decor, too. I have friends with your same taste, and we get along famously. It's so interesting that we each can appreciate and admire something, but not want for it ourselves. And wouldn't the world be a boring place if we all wanted the same things?
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
My first stamp was a unicorn, bought over 40 years ago.
I gravitated to magical things (unicorns, fairies, dragons, etc.) and still do.
I used to use mostly solid stamps and had moved away from them to open-line images. Now I use both.
I had gotten a ton of Outlines Stamps and tons of CTMH. I've sold both. My Exacto skills are sub-par so Outlines, doesn't work for me. The CTMH stamps were a bit too country-cute for me.
I have several sets of SU stamps that haven't even been cut and more that haven't been inked. I should either use them or sell them.
I think I only have 2 stamps left that I started with, both by PSX. And my heat gun. Either I don't use it enough, or I got a really good one!
I love the Outlines stamps, especially the ornament toppers.
I used to love Magenta stamps, but now not so much. The same with Hero Arts.
I've recently discovered Memory Box stamps and love those. And adore the PTI sets.
I didn't buy sentiment stamps in the past, using the computer and looking for the perfect font. But that got to be a hassle, so now I own tons of sentiment stamps.
I love shabby chic cards, but am never happy with the ones I try to do. My style leans more toward clean and simple.
__________________ Linda E
Caution: You are entering an artistic zone. This is not clutter - this is creating. These are not pajamas - it's my work uniform.
Like Jill, I started out liking very different things than I do now. Now I love the Magnolia and Hanglar Stanglar images, they are so fun to colour! Back then, I would never have imagined being willing to spend so much on copics to colour with, too! LOL
I too started as a scrapbooker and graduated to stamping in a big way. I am the type of person when I do something I don't dabble I jump in with both feet. I love to color with my Copics but I don't like those stamps that the kids have big heads. My style is simple and elegant. Some times lol! There is a thread in this same forum to make cards for a 4 yr old with cancer. I don't have cutsey stamps either. I colored a truck from Loads of Love. I colored it grey. I stamped a strip of black and put white lines down it like it was a road. I put a spider web in the top corner with spiders. Inside I did a haunted house. I never make cutsey cards but this occasion calls for cutsey. I like vintage, flowers, butterflies. One of my favorite stamp set is a pot of pansies with a watering can and a spade. It is beautiful when you color it up. I like twoille ( not sure about my spelling) i like Bella toille. I love nature stamps. Trees are my weakness.I really like most of them on the mark. Interesting chat.
Like many of you, I started off buying lots of different stuff in a search for my style. Now, I focus on products that lend themselves to CAS projects. While I don't do much vintage/shabby chic, I do love the soft look and am experimenting with ways to make it CAS. It will give me a use for all the vintage stamps I have that are collecting dust!
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My style has changed some yes! A few years ago I HATED most anything vintage...well now I can't get enough! Not sure why, maybe just because it's a lot more prevalent now so I don't have much of a choice not to like it:-) I started out with a lot of Hero Arts stamps with some others thrown in there now and then. Now, I find those old stamps too cutesy or country for me. I try to stay SU only (mainly as to not go bankrupt from buying from all kind of places....I love some shopping, lol) plus I like the SU style for the most part. I've looked at the CTMH catty and it seems a bit too "country" for my tastes. I hadn't been able to put my finger on it but another poster said that above and I was like "that's it"!
I like a lot of layers and embellishments now and I used to like more simple. I said I don't like cutesy but every once and a while there will be a set I like. I just had to have Fang Tastic from the holiday mini....not my usual style but I really liked it. I also finally decided I needed the one with all the little animals too, Merry Crittermas. A lot of times things grow on me after I see what people do with them...some styles just take time for me to come around to I guess. I'm sure I'll look back in a few years at the stamps I just bought and go "what was I thinking?" :-)
Thought this *might* be an interesting discussion...I've been stamping for enough years now that I've come to realize I don't gravitate toward the same style of stamps that appealed to me in the first years. I was a scrapbooker first and did a lot of heritage pages, so I wanted the vintage images, the backgrounds, the swirls and flourishes. Loved Magenta, Stampers Anonymous, Paperbag Studio (still do, of course), but now I simply love the cute, whimsical, line art color-in images and have become addicted to Magnolia (must stop with those - so many), MFT PI, and even a few High Hopes and TGF. This change in direction amazes me in a way, but I think it has to do with my obsession with coloring with Copics and my growing away from wood-mount to clear and cling.
Anyway, the change for me has been a bit drastic. Would love to know how your tastes have changed - what you loved before and what you love now, and can you be specific?
Molly
Molly, that is quite funny because my change over the years has been the exact opposite of yours. I started out liking the cute, whimsical stamps but now I am more into the vintage, swirls, etc. I guess changing is what keeps us growing as stampers. (and it also keeps our supplies growing too) Like fashion, I keep my older stamps as my style may change back anyday. Plus my daughter just got into stamping and she likes the cutesy stuff. Fun topic.
Seems like when I first started stamping, there was a LOT of country and cutesy going on, and I loved it. I'm not into either of those anymore! I now gravitate toward either clean and contemporary (PTI!) or elegant/feminine (Gina K, Our Daily Bread, Flourishes).
I am like a lot of people on here, when I first started stamping I didn't know what my style was so I bought whatever caught my eye. Now I know what I will use and what I like and only buy that. I have a tough time with cutsey images and seem to have a block when it comes to doing masculine cards (how many trees can you stamp?).
So I would say that my style hasn't so much changed dramatically since I started but as I have gotten more tools (or toys) and gotten more skilled that I have found my style.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Curly Chick
I am like a lot of people on here, when I first started stamping I didn't know what my style was so I bought whatever caught my eye. Now I know what I will use and what I like and only buy that. I have a tough time with cutsey images and seem to have a block when it comes to doing masculine cards (how many trees can you stamp?).
So I would say that my style hasn't so much changed dramatically since I started but as I have gotten more tools (or toys) and gotten more skilled that I have found my style.
Pamela
I KNOW! I don't know what's going to happen if I have BOYS when we have kids:-) I mean, why not make cards with pink....it's so pretty:-)
Gosh has my stamping style changed dramatically...when I started stamping 10 years ago and it was for scrapbooks so everything revolved around travel stamps and embossing.. I didn't know anything about dye ink back then... Along the way I would buy any whimsical stamps I could find with unicorns, fairies...etc. then I became an SU! demo 8 years later and experimented with all kinds of techniques...now two years later and everything I do is about simplicity. I almost only use line art images so I can color with my copics and now with working full time I usually just use digistamps.
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This has been a great thread - it's causing me to think more about what my stamping style and I'm trying to remember what, if any, style I had when I first started. I think when I started, I bought lots of floral stamps. Then, I had 2 boys, and grew away from all the floral stuff. I've also really gone into using sentiments as the main focus on the card instead of an image all the time, and it seems like I never have enough sentiment stamps. I think I also moved away from cutesy. I think I would define my style as CAS.
How has your taste in stamped images changed over time?
