August 2013 I love vintage

I love making vintage-style cards.  Sometimes I purposely start out with something else and it just becomes vintage all by itself.  There are heaps of vintage images out there, lots of embellishments and it's always an opportunity to use found objects or make your own.

Men's cards have plenty of scope and with the steampunk images you can make an interesting card that every time the person looks they will find something else.  This one has plan drawings for a vintage bicycle.  They didn't have staples or adhesive tape but used other means to hold things in place, like string, ribbons, brads and gum.

I love to make ladies cards and use laces and ribbons.  I think I was born with an old soul - I love the dresses, the hair, the different look of people from two hundred years ago.  This lace is vintage which I picked up at a village market in UK.  The image has a lovely feeling of grace and beauty that is typical of photos from this era.

I always try to use shapes and trims that would have been around then, or something similar that may be a modern version.

Flowers are a well used motif in vintage images. Ladies used to carry posies with them not just to look pretty, but to counteract the smells of the environment.  To some degree, gardening was also an acceptable pursuit of gentlewomen.  Think of images of people strolling in gardens, gathering baskets of flowers and leaves, and ladies adorning themselves with flowers in the hair or as a corsage, maybe at their waist or on their hat.

Vintage cars, extravagant moustaches, canes and top hats were very much a gentlemanly image.  Some stamp companies specialise in vintage images and produce very good quality stamps.  Sepia inks enhance the vintage look and there are sprays and distress inks available to 'age' images.  This card with the three gentlemen has old postmarks and punched photo-corners to help the vintage feel.  What we know as baker's twine, was really Bakers Twine, used to tie up paper-wrapped goodies to be safely carried home from the bakery.

For any printed words, I am careful to get fonts or script that has a vintage feel.  Modern writing and fonts look just that - modern.  There are plenty of old script sentiments and background stamps, as well as the printed letters.  It's so very easy these days with plenty of computer fonts to choose from.

 

Modern Vintage: Sometimes using vintage images in a modern way is fun.  the newsprint background stamp is modern depending what it's put with; the washi tape is modern, however the script on it suggests older writing.  The colours are more modern ... but are they? 









We see old stuff, clothes and other items, in museums that have lost their original colour and we assume that is what they were like.  The truth is that some of the gowns were vivid colours - yellows, purples, reds. Over time, because the dyes were not colour-fast, they have faded and as the fabric starts to degrade, they often look dull.  Crockery had bold, bright patterns.  Leather was dyed bright colours for shoes, or should I say pumps?  Carpets were bright colours, as were drapes, bedcovers and many other household items.
What a shame we only see them in an aged and faded state in museums.   I can only imagine what a ballroom must have looked like with all the beautiful coloured dresses, and flowers.  Men dressed like peacocks as well.    And they had live music, and colourful food.   They were captured in a sepia world by the early photographers, but certainly did not exist in a sepia world.

Maybe ... I should be making vintage cards that are more realistic and colourful?