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I was searching through my gallery this morning, looking for samples with Canvas for another thread. As I went back to my early efforts, I was amazed at how much my technique and subjects had changed!
When I first started out, I was all about the BB family. Bright colors and whimsical images were my m.o. I used markers scribbled on a plastic Cool Whip lid and picked up with blender pens as my coloring method. I started to get into embellishing with ribbon and eyelets. Layouts were spare and Canvas wasn't yet out, so I didn't layer any bg's.
Then I think that my next change came when SU expanded their vintage section. I started trying torn layers and I believe that this is when the Watercolor Wonder Crayons came out and I started experimenting with the aqua painter. I also fell in love with my Tearing Edge.
Then I walked on the wild side with different layouts and fell in love with SU's scissors to make cool edges. I got into a whole bunch of pastel color schemes offset by black layering.
Now I'm in my next iteration, loving the EE and RR families. I got through tons of Chocolate Chip because I use it almost everywhere for layers. I layer everything from bg's to stamps from multiple sets. I'm a distress-a-holic and love multiple embellishments and textures.
Anyone want to go next and tell us about your journey?
I have made cards for about 4 years, but they were VERY basic...I actually just got into getting new tools and branching out from SU in the past year and a half maybe...
I have kept my very first card that I made with SU stuff...it was a chicken colored with pencils, torn out and tied with a ribbon to a base. It reminds my of my favorite shirt that says: Remember where you came from...
If you forget, you will never be good enough, as long as you know where you came from...you will be proud of how far you have come.
It's fun to look back!!
__________________ Cher No longer stamping...on to bigger things.
I've been stamping since 2000-ish. I was taken to an SU workshop, bought a set, the four season one, and didn't do anything with it. I think I bought another stamp a year later, did a card, and then 2002 I went to another SU workshop, and again, that was it. I then became a mom and it seems more important that I scrapbook her memories, ours too, and thought, "Wow, look at all my leftovers. Oh, I should make more cards." So I did. I bought more stuff and regularly went to my demo's workshops. That's pretty much the extent of it... just at workshops but more often.
November 2007 I joined the stamping blog sisters and felt obligated to post at least once a week. It then became more of a fun thing than an obligation and since then I've been creating everyday.
What a great thread! I found a box of really old stuff (about 7 to 9 years ago, I think) and had a blast looking through it. I used mainly bright colors and my main themes were coffee, celestial, florals, bugs and butterflies. Rarely was there a greeting on the front, only on the inside. There were lots of different sizes of cards and many unusual materials such as cork, metals, seaglass and wood. Somewhere along the way I turned into a paper-only gal! I must have had more time to just play and stamp for fun as some of them looked quite time-consuming, with way more coloring than I do now.
One thing that has changed for sure -- most of the old cards had fairly predictable color combinations and many were quite monochromatic. Not like the off-the-wall combos I do now, playing with all my lovely inks and papers!
Mary Beth
Wow! Everyone sure has grown. Its great to see where you came from and from what I saw you all came a long way.
__________________ Design Team Member: Digital Tuesday Challenge, The Cutting Cafe, The Townscrapper, Pixie Dust Studio, Some Odd Girl, Fred She Said
My blog: Jaspere's Little Corner , Fred She Said
I love to the see the growth that many stampers have gone through. I've been stamping for about 7 years and I feel that I've grown as well. I too have been using Chocolate for everything. I love dark brown better than black (even for my wardrobe). And I tend to sponge ink on the edges of everything. I like the word distress-a-holic. That would be me!! I wonder if that says something about our personality?? Oh, and I even pay more attention to taking good photographs for uploads. Something I never cared about when I first started.
I've been making cards for a couple of years but could only find this early image from April last year.
My favourite more recent one is this Christmas one.
I definately think that taking part in the sketch challenges has improved my cards - I look back on the older ones with maybe just the image and a bit of ribbon and think "how boring"!!!
Hmm.. I started stamping/card-making in the summer of 2006, and i've grown a lot in those two years... Back then I wasn't able to make a card without casing someone's idea and changing very few details... Now, i sit down, and make a card from beginning to end all from my little head (except when i play a challenge...)
here's my first upload:
and here's one of my recent fav's:
Man oh Man, how I've grown.... lol
__________________
{Gallery}{Blog}
I design for: Stampendous!, There She Goes, Technique Tuesday,
SRM Stickers and Deconstructed Sketches.
I think it's amazing how not only we ourselves change...but styles change...you know what would be a fun challenge?? To go re-make one of our first cards. Like the basic stamp and layout...and see what happens now!!!
__________________ Cher No longer stamping...on to bigger things.
I started posting here in early May 2007. I love SCS and I have grown as a stamper ever since my first upload - mostly because of the amount of cards I have made.
I thought I was being SO clever with this - having a little "hanging sign."
This is one of my favorite more recent cards - mostly because I like what I did with the paper piecing. MFT Oh Fudge
There are techniques I need to improve on and there are some cards in the beginning of my gallery here that just make me cringe, but I don't think I'll remove them.
I have to say that completing the weekly challenges definitely helps.
__________________ Design Team Member: Digital Tuesday Challenge, The Cutting Cafe, The Townscrapper, Pixie Dust Studio, Some Odd Girl, Fred She Said
My blog: Jaspere's Little Corner , Fred She Said
So in a year, I went from that pitiful, ugly card I first did to being on a design team! Oh wait...THREE! LOL! I was just a baby stamper and now I'm like a tweenager. :cool: :cool:
I started making cards in 1994 and they were just flat plain large embossed images colored with markers. About 2000 I began scrapbooking and in very little time was only making scrapbook pages for the most part. I began to feel guilty about all the stamps not being used and started stamping on scrapbook pages. Around 2005 I begain creating altered items and general paper craft items and doing very little scrapbooking or card making. Since 2007 I have been balancing my time between all my paper passions. When I look at old cards I can tell when they were made by what tool was really popular at the time. I am proud of how far my cards and scrapbook pages have come over the years but will never be done learning and expanding.
__________________ My Blog╰⊰⊹✿ Doris ╰⊰⊹✿:Mommy to one teenage girl, a water turtle and 3 meow babies Go grab a Hot Potato!MS: You don't get it till you get it! G= 100 LT= +13
This is great, it has really made me think back, and that's a long way (I've been stamping for 20 years). I don't have any of my first card's (for obvious reasons) and because I donate my cards to charity I don't have many to show the changes I've gone through. But things certainly have changed a lot in 20 years. We finally have Stampin Up in Australia, there are lots of scrapbooking shops and we still don't have a lot of choice with shops for stamping supplies.
My first cards were simple line art stamps from PSX which were either coloured with Derwent pencils or left plain. Now, my style is so different, it can change depending on my mood, the day or who I'm doing the card for. The only cards I don't seem to be able to do are the altered/collage style of cards other than that, I will give anything a go.
Thanks to everyone for sharing thier journey. It's been a great trip down memory lane.
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The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us. - Amen! Fan Club Member
I've grown a LOT as a scrapbooker and feel much more confident and happier with each scrapbook page I put together. Since those aren't posted on line, you'll have to take my word for it, LOL!
As for cardmaking, I've been trying for seven years to make a card like JulieHRR's second card posted above. I don't see as much change or growth in my cards as a result of such a focused goal. I started clean and simple and have stayed clean and simple.
Julie's online class in card design helped me a lot, but what I realize is that clean and simple is HARD (for AR/OCD me, at least), and I'm still plugging away at it. What just tickles me about it is how much fun plugging away is for me. I'm ever so happy with what I'm doing (or trying to do!) and don't feel motivated to get "fancy" with it and start making cards layered into the gorgeous confections I see all the time on SCS and blogs. Those cards are FAB in every way and are very inspiring to me--I actually crave looking at them, just like I crave eating chocolate!--but they are not "me," KWIM?
What a great thread, and one that got me thinking.... Love that!
So in a year, I went from that pitiful, ugly card I first did to being on a design team! Oh wait...THREE! LOL! I was just a baby stamper and now I'm like a tweenager. :cool: :cool:
__________________ Design Team Member: Digital Tuesday Challenge, The Cutting Cafe, The Townscrapper, Pixie Dust Studio, Some Odd Girl, Fred She Said
My blog: Jaspere's Little Corner , Fred She Said
I love seeing threads like this! I don't feel I've grown as much as a lot of you have, probably because I am a CASEr at heart, and I don't make all that many cards.
I'm noticing a trend, though - seems like everyone went from simple to more complicated as they went along... except Julie!!
__________________ -Shelby- I can, I will, I DO. -Verna C. Powers Okay, I haven't yet, but I still can, right??
:oops: Ooh, this is almost painful for me to share, but here goes. It isn't one of my very first cards (I've been stamping since around 2001, and I didn't even think to take pictures of my cards back then), but it's definitely from the early years - just a layer of cardstock, stamped and crumpled, then attached to a plain cardfront: http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i2...n/DSCN1708.jpg
This is such a wonderful thread. I've enjoyed looking at everyones early work as well as their recent favs.
It's amazing how this craft keeps changing, and the tools we use keep changing for the better as well. Coloring options, layering options (nesties and die cuts) and embellishments have come such a long way!
this is the first card that I uploaded. I was in love with making my own backgrounds! frolicking frog
Then I discovered prisma color pencils and the cuttlebug! buzzzzzzzzzzz
and the following is my personal favorite toile bunny
and I would like to think I continue to get better! And I really don't have that much time to devote to crafting as I have a full time job, two small children and a husband that works 4- midnight!
How have you grown?
