My challenge blog for Lunagirl Vintage Images, featuring fun creative challenges with prizes, projects, freebies, holiday and seasonal info, and more!
A place for mixed media artists, card makers, scrapbooking enthusiasts, fabric artists, creators of jewelry, altered art and crafts of all kinds.
Would you like Lunagirl to sponsor a challenge on your blog? Email me at INFO@LUNAGIRL.COM. :-) I'll provide images for your DT!

Friday, August 30, 2013

Cool Green Watermelon Card by Vicki

Wow, so bright and cool and summery!  I just love the bright green and watermelon red, and the contrast with the black.  This card makes me feel cooler just looking at it!  Cute sentiment!

Thanks to Vicki Romaine of The Cheerful Stamppad for this pretty card:

"My seed pack card uses a watermelon Lunagirl image.  The green mat, sentiment, and watermelon embellishment are leftovers from a SEI pack."

And isn't watermelon appropriate for this picnic / cookout weekend?  Hope everybody here in the States has a great Labor Day weekend. 

See our Seed Pack Vintage Garden challenge...

Back to School: Thank You Teachers!

It's back-to-school time.  We started three weeks ago ~ seems way too early to me! When I was a child I don't think we went back until the beginning of September. I remember how summer vacation seemed to last for months, endless days of play and sunshine and daydreaming.

Since summer vacation is kind of an anachronism anyway, a leftover from the days when children had to help their parents on the farm in the summer, I've a feeling it's on its way to extinction as more and more schools go to full-year schedules. From an academic standpoint I know that's probably for the best, but nostalgia gets the best of me. To those of us who remember fondly those long, long, lazy summer vacations of our childhood, it feels sad to see the tradition go!

As we start a new school year, we should all express appreciation to our children's teachers.  I am married to a high school teacher, and I have known many teachers at all levels, and I know that teaching is a very demanding job.  For even the average teacher, it's hard work, lots of time spent working outside of school hours, and IMHO not enough pay!  For really excellent, dedicated teachers (which is many of them)  ~ even more so.  They are treasures, often underappreciated. 

Most of us had at least one teacher that really helped or influenced us along the way.  So, thank a teacher today!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Garden Fairies are Back!

The colors in this are so perfect and cool ~ I love the soft greens in the background and the watermelon pink dress of the fairy Michele chose to complement the seed pack image.  So pretty!

"it takes a garden fairy to make our gardens grow and this watermelon seed pack from the lunagirl “summertime seed packs” collage sheet is getting help from a fairy from the lunagirl “fly away home” collage sheet."

This is by Michele Storms.  Check out her blog!
http://artfromthewell.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Free Image: Flower Seed Packet

As promised I've scanned a freebie in honor of my seed packs / vintage garden blog challenge.

This is an antique flower seed packet featuring some lovely old-fashioned yellow and pink flowers.  They were labelled Digitalis before I altered the image.  They resemble foxglove as well.  Either way, they remind me of my Great Aunt Bessie's garden which was way out in the country. 

I hope you will enter the Seed Packs Vintage Garden blog challenge, inspired by this image or another!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Vintage Gardening Inspiration from the Moonbeams DT!

I forgot to add the Design Team pieces to my challenge announcement yesterday!  I'm so sorry about that, I know that everyone enjoys them.

So, here are some beautiful works from Michele, Petra, and Vicki created with Lunagirl summer vegetable seed packs and French flower seed packs and other images and elements.

Enjoy, and link up your own!  And do follow my blog to see more from the Lunagirl Moonbeams Design Team.

A pretty tag from Michele Storms with lots of cool green and some cute little ladies!  I love this color of green, and the "rays" motif on the tag.

" i think we all know what makes children grow – eating peas!this tag shows how peas make little girls grow big and strong.the seed pack is from “summertime seed packs” collage sheet and the little girls are from the “littlegirls” collage sheet, both from lunagirl of course!the rest are goodies of my own.eat your peas! "


Petra Berendsen created some fab garden themed art using our collage sheets: Summertime Seed Packs and Vintage adverts: Seeds and Plants.  These are nice for saving seeds or marking your garden, or just as art/cards!



Vicki Romaine used a French flower seed pack as a focus for this lovely summery card:

"I used a cream-colored base card on which I placed burnish-looking designer paper.  On top of that I used a Cheery Lynn Design die out of cream cardstock.  On top of that is a brown embossed piece of embossed cardstock from my stash.  Topping the card layers is a beautiful digital sunflower seed pack image from Lunagirl.  As an added touch a flower embellishment is placed in the corner opposite the sentiment."

Monday, August 26, 2013

Blog Challenge: Seed Packs Vintage Gardening

Ready for the next blog challenge?  This time I'm featuring something a little different, one of my favorite types of vintage ephemera: antique Seed Packs for flowers and vegetables.  Actually I have so many favorites, but I just love the overgrown, lazy look of my garden this time of year, and the bright colors of zinnias and sunflowers and summer veggies, and I've just recently scanned some beautiful French flower seed packets, so this theme caught my fancy.

Since not everyone has seed packs in their collection, I'm going to do some things to help!
  
First, let's expand the theme to VINTAGE GARDEN which could include our pretty seed packs, antique seed catalogs, summer flowers, botanical prints, or whatever else seems to fit for you.

Second, I'm putting a whole bunch of garden-related items on sale at Lunagirl.com, including my newly created French Flower Seed Packs and Vegetable Garden collage sheets, plenty of flowers, a few butterflies, plus several CDs such as Vintage Can and Crate Labels, Victorian Flowers, Fruit Botanical Prints and Flower Botanical Prints, and even my Victorian Children Photos just for good measure!  It's a really good chance to grab some images at a great price, especially on the CDs.

And last but not least, I think I'll share a couple of freebies soon!

And as always the Lunagirl Moonbeams Design Team will be sharing their inspiring creations...

So browse around the garden, get inspired by the colors and forms of flowers and veggies and Victorian typography, and link up your creation!

This challenge (#9) will end at 11:55 pm on September 8 ~  The winner will be selected randomly (random number generator) to win two free Lunagirl digital collage sheets of your choice!

Be creative but stick to the theme,
Any craft or medium is OK,
No more than 3 entries from one person in each challenge, and
Please link back to my blog & Lunagirl.com on your site if you have one.
 

Of course I love if you use at least one Lunagirl product, but that's not a requirement!  Most important is have fun, get creative, enjoy vintage.

Lucky Winner of the Alice Blog Challenge

Alright y'all... I just went to my magic random number generator and for our Alice in Wonderland blog challenge the winning number is #4!   

2amscrapper you're our lucky winner! 
Email me at info@lunagirl.com to claim your prize of two Lunagirl digital collage sheets of your choice.

Thank you so much to everyone who played... I hope you'll be back... in just a little while I'll be opening up the next Lunagirl Blog Challenge, on the theme of Seed Packs and Vintage Gardening!  Stay tuned...

Sunday, August 25, 2013

It's Not Too Late! Share your Alice creation

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It's not too late!  Link up your Alice in Wonderland creation in our blog challenge, which doesn't end until 11:55 pm CST tonight.

I have lots of charming alice-themed images available, all on sale today, and just so everyone has something to work with here is yet another Alice freebie!  Just a simple black and white Alice drawing, very versatile.  I'm posting it as both a jpg and a png.

I hope you'll link up whatever you create, but either way, enjoy! ~ Karen (Lunagirl)  Alice in Wonderland Blog Challenge



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Friday, August 23, 2013

Alice Charm Bracelet! by Petra

This is just gorgeous! Don't you love charm bracelets?  I have, since childhood, and I still have a couple that belonged to my mother (plus some of my own).  Petra Berendsen created this beautiful piece, using some of the Alice & Friends 1910 collage sheet images for the little jewellery trays.  She added some cute little charms (very appropriate!) and lovely red beads.

You have until Sunday night to enter YOUR creation in the Alice blog challenge and win free Lunagirl digital collage sheets!

 Don't forget to visit Petra's blog PetraB's Allsorts to see more of her work!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mid-Week Alice by Michele

Here is a lovely little tag created by Michele Storms for the Alice in Wonderland blog challenge.  Hope it inspires you to play along!  


Also be sure to visit Michele's blog Art From the Well for more of her work.



New: Garden Vegetable & French Flowers Seed Packs Collage Sheets


I've spent the last couple of days creating some brand new seed packs collage sheets (just in time for my next blog challenge).   First of all I have three new collage sheets featuring images from my collection of wonderful old Card Seed Company vegetable seed packets.  One of them is 1x2 domino/tile size.

I love the retro artwork on these, and there's a story behind them.  The company closed down long ago, but several sets of unused packets were found in an old barn years later.  From what I can tell I have one of the few complete sets in existence.  The full set of 80 stone lithographic prints, restored and color enhanced, is on my Antique Seed Pack Lithographs CD, in the best image quality available anywhere!

The other two new sheets are completely new. I created them using French flower seed packets I collected from France a few years ago.  I finally got around to scanning some of them!  I have several dozen more flower packets plus just as many French vegetable garden seed packets, so there may be more to come in this style.

Click the sample pics to see the full size collage sheets at Lunagirl.com.

The new blog challenge will start on Monday... in the meantime, it's everything Alice in our Alice in Wonderland blog challenge!  Hope you'll play!



Tuesday, August 20, 2013

New: Another Watercolour Alice Collage Sheet

I realized that I have enough watercolored Alice in Wonderland illustrations to create a second Watercolour Alice collage sheet.  The first one is one of my most popular Alice-themed designs.  So here it is (sample is watermarked but of course the original is not).  Click on the sample to see it on sale at Lunagirl.com.



Freebies! Some Alice Pages for You

It's time for some free images ~ here are some pages from Alice in Wonderland, featuring not only Alice but also cats (I featured dogs a few days ago ~ more kitties to come!) 

These are nice LARGE images, so you can use them large for backgrounds and scrapbooks and cards, but remember that you can easily resize them as needed after saving them, if you want them smaller for your project.

Click each image for full size, them download/save them.

Plus here is a picture of Mr. White Rabbit from the book cover.  I tried to clean him up a bit, but he is fashionably shabby :)







Monday, August 19, 2013

Alice's Adventures Continue!

The amazing Alice creations from the Design Team just keep coming!  At left, Michele Storms has created this really cute invitation featuring Alice in Wonderland illustrations.  What a great idea!

And below, a really beautiful card by Petra Berendsen.  I love love love the idea of showing what Alice finds behind the curtain ~ and the colors are lovely, perfect for late summer.

Thanks, ladies!  Great inspiration for the Alice challenge!
Alice discovers what is behind the curtain, maybe they even take her for a balloon ride (lol). Alice is a wonderful image from Lunagirl Moonbeams Alice Collage Sheet.
I only coloured the background to highlight the image and then layered it on patterend paper. Some flowers and a little key to the new world are the embellishments for this card.
~ Petra

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Alice Inspiration from Vicki Romaine of the DT

This is so pretty!  A new Alice card created by Vicki Romaine of The Cheerful Stamppad and the Lunagirl Design Team.

Using the three images in this way does add to the depth of the card, especially that particular image where it draws your eye down into the hidden doorway behind the curtain.

Here's what Vicki wrote:
I took three different colors and sizes of the same Lunagirl Alice image and put them together in various arrangements, but settled on this one.  Each is matted with a black piece of cardstock which gave the images depth.  Having so many layers on the card makes it very sturdy.


Check out my current blog challenge and link up your own Alice-themed creation! 


Below is yet another of Vicki's Alice creations.  Very creative!  Love the black diecut.

I treated  the Lunagirl image of Alice and the Dodo a little differently in this card.  I placed them in this lovely diecut by Cheery Lynn Designs.  I had to really shrink the Lunagirl image on this card to fit the diecut.   To carry out the colors in the designer paper, I used some twine and a flower enhanced with a flourish.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

The Dog Days of Summer

Why do people call the hottest days of the year the "Dog Days" of Summer? It makes me think of an old hound dog lying on the porch because it's too hot to move ~ but that's not it!  The ancient Egyptians and Romans noticed that during July and August, the "Dog Star" Sirius rose and set with the Sun. They believed that Sirius was adding its heat to that of the Sun, making the Earth hotter and drier than usual.

In the Northern Hemisphere our "dog days" are from about the second week of July to the third week in August. For centuries these could be difficult times, when the heat was stifling and insect and diseases would flourish in the heat. People who could afford it would vacate the cities and go "take the sea air."  Nowadays, this time of year just makes us feel lazy and runs up our air conditioning bills.

I have a large selection of dog images on my Vintage Animals CD. There are cute Victorian dog pictures as well as beautiful antique prints of many dog breeds.  In our our Cafepress shop many of them are available on t-shirts and gifts. Find your favorite ~ or email me to make a request! Of course we also have plenty of kitties for the cat lovers like me.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

New Collage Sheet -- Vintage Humorous Risque Ladies

I apologize in advance for this one, but I just could not resist!  Put your big girl panties on!

Fun Witch-y Labels Now Available


I really enjoyed creating these fun labels for witchy items like Mermaid Tears, Lover's Sighs, Bat Wings, Eye of Newt, and Ashes of Ex-Lovers (among other things!)  Perfect ingredients for all your potions and spells ~ add them to your apothecary!  Available in sepia tones as well.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Vintage Halloween Witches ~ New Collage Sheets!

I had to show off some of the new collage sheets I've been working on, just in time for Halloween crafts.  Yes, I know it's only August, but crafters tend to always be thinking one holiday ahead!  I'm crazy for Halloween witches and I hope you will enjoy these new vintage Halloween images I don't think you'll find anywhere else ~  including Art Nouveau Witches, some cool Witch Photos, unique Victorian Witches from vintage postcards and ads, Edwardian Witchery, and finally a 1920s Halloween Dance.

Check them out at Lunagirl.com.


Monday, August 12, 2013

Alice in Wonderland Blog Challenge!

I love Alice in Wonderland, and I bet you do, too.  I've collected quite a few antique Alice books and illustrations over the years, and used them to create a still-growing collection of Alice in Wonderland digital collage sheets!

I hope you'll join in my Alice blog challenge.  This challenge (#8) will end at 11:55 pm on August 25 ~  The winner will be selected randomly (random number generator) to win two free Lunagirl digital collage sheets of your choice!

Be creative but stick to the theme,
Any craft or medium is OK,
No more than 3 entries from one person in each challenge, and
Please link back to my blog and/or Lunagirl.com on your site if you have one.
 

Of course I love if you use at least one Lunagirl product, but that's not a requirement!  Most important is have fun, get creative, enjoy vintage.


For your convenience, all of my Alice in Wonderland collage sheets will be ON SALE for the duration of this challenge.

For your inspiration,
below are some beautiful creations by the Lunagirl Moonbeams Design Team



 By Petra Berendsen, a little tag with Mr Rabbit.

Isn't he handsome in his robe with glittery heart? He certainly has to be the focal point of any project. I coloured Mr Rabbit (from Lunagirl Moonbeams Alice Collage Sheet) with colouring pencils and some Stickles for his hearts and combined him with patterend paper, a clock charm and some pearls.

By Vicki Romaine, a colorful collage card with an Alice page and book cover image:

The mat of my card is actually a page from an old paperback book of Alice in Wonderland.  I made some color blocking behind the  Lunagirl image with scraps of cardstock from my stash and finished off the card with parts of the Queen of Hearts playing card.
  

By Michele Storms, a beautiful collage piece:


this week i chose to make a gothic arch with a collage of several images from the watercolor alice and alice book covers collage sheets.  love alice!

Steampunk Challenge Winner

Time for the winner of our Steampunk Girls blog challenge!  Congratulations to .... Electra, Entry #1!

Electra, please email me at info@lunagirl.com to claim your $5 coupon for Lunagirl.com!

Everyone please check in later day for the next challenge announcement: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Friday, August 9, 2013

Hey! Join Our Steampunk Girls Blog Challenge

Three more days to link up your Steampunk Girls projects!  The blog challenge ends Sunday night.  And please don't miss the fabulous creations linked already and the beautiful works by the Design Team!

<<< Here is yet another Steampunk Girls creation to inspire you, this one a very cool tag by Petra Berendsen.  I love the papers and embellishments she chose, and this is one of my favorite steampunk ladies.

"For my tag I used another image from the Lunagirl's Steampunk Girl collage sheet. A Lady Sherlock Holmes keeping an eye on everything ... I combined the image with patterned papers, some stamping and used various embellishments to complete the tag."  -- Petra


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

More New Collage Sheets: Retro Kitsch


Here are two brand new Lunagirl digital collage sheets featuring retro images.  What could be more retro kitschy than pulp romance magazines and pink flamingos?  The actual collage sheets are not watermarked, and can be found here on my Digital Collage Sheets Retro 30s 40s 50s and Pin Ups page.






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