Yellow Roses to brighten your day

The other day in the grocery store there was a bunch of yellow roses discounted at the floral counter... couldn't resist them. They brighten up these dreary days of January. So here are some to share with you! (Freebie!)

New Digital Collage Sheets

Some new digital collage sheets today! One called Garden Girls, which features images of little girls adapted from Victorian postcards, all posing with flowers. The top row represents the four seasons... Spring Summer Autumn Winter! Below that I've included some more "flower girls."

Also I've listed two pretty sheets featuring butterfly wings along with some backgrounds and tinted photos and other lovely odds and ends...  Find all these new digital collage sheets ready to purchase and download at LUNAGIRL.COM.

 

Challenge Winner for March: Rene CTgirl

Time to find out which of the beautiful Spring Flowers & Birds entries won the challenge this month. And the lucky winner of the random drawing JUST got her entries in today shortly before the deadline! The winning entry is the next to last one, #26 by Rene CTgirl. Proof of the saying, "Better late than never"... Rene wins $15 store credit to buy digital images and/or digital collage sheets at Lunagirl.com!

Congratulations, Rene. I know you'll find something new to play with at Lunagirl Images. Email me when you get a chance, to claim your prize!

And congratulations to everyone who entered for some beautiful work to celebrate Springtime. Come back tomorrow for my April challenge ~ Cowgirls Cowboys and Horses.

Two More Tags: Spring Flowers & Birds

The beautiful flowers and birds keep coming in for my Spring Flowers and Birds challenge! I hope you will link up your entry by the end of March, so we can see your wonderful creations and also so you will have a chance to win the random drawing for $15 credit to buy images/collage sheets at Lunagirl.com!

In the meantime, here are two sweet tags by Michele Storms , featuring fairies and flowers, to help inspire you and brighten your day.

Flowers & Birds One More Week

March has 31 days... There's still plenty of time to enter our March challenge!

Spring Flowers & Birds is our theme ~ a celebration of life and rebirth and hope, and warmth and sunshine and rain showers, and just general joy and happiness!

Flower blossoms and birds always bring me joy and make me smile... And bird's eggs have always been a symbol of rebirth and renewal in Springtime.

Here Michele Storms has including some tiny colorful eggs in a nest on this tag celebrating life. :-)

Show your interpretations and inspirations from the theme SPRING FLOWERS & BIRDS!  The challenge continues until the 31st, which is Thursday, and a winning entry chosen by random drawing will receive $15 credit to spend at Lunagirl.com!

March Challenge: Week Four

VICKI ROMAINE Cheerful Stamp Pad

You still have plenty of time to enter my "Spring Flowers and Birds" challenge for March!

For inspiration, see the charming entries so far and these beautiful creations by the Design Team... and look out your window for any signs of Spring!

MANDY CHILVERS
MandysMagicalWorldofArt

MICHELE STORMS of Art from the Well

March Challenge SPRING FLOWERS & BIRDS: Week 3

"Answer Feather" by
SHELBY PIZZARRO Sisterhood of the Muse

MICHELE STORMS of Art from the Well

 How can it be Week Three already of my March challenge... We started on a Tuesday, maybe that's why it seems such a short time!

Anyway... My March challenge theme is "Spring Flowers and Birds." I hope maybe you're seeing some signs of Spring wherever you are, in the Northern Hemisphere at least.

I live in the Southern US where the winters are fairly mild and Springtime comes pretty early, before the "official" date. We already have daffodils, crocuses, violets, pansies, even some fruit trees blooming and little red buds on the maple trees... and plenty of birds that make a wonderful racket every day. There was a hard rain this morning, and I saw a wet robin hopping around the backyard like 'no big deal.' Then the sun came out, making sparkles on all the wet grass and warming up the floor in front of my glass door.

Maybe it's still cold and frozen where you are, but I hope you see some signs of Spring coming soon. What are the earliest signs of Spring where you are?

Here is some more lovely inspiration for the challenge from members of the Lunagirl Design Team. Their pieces are beautiful and imaginative as always! I hope they help to get your creativity flowing.

The way the days/weeks work out in March this year, this challenge will actually have five weeks. I hope you will enter... Any kind of flowers or birds, the messengers of Spring... any kind of craft project is welcome. You can see the guidelines and the entries so far here!

Enter up to three times, for your chance to win some store credit at Lunagirl.com!

MANDY CHILVERS
MandysMagicalWorldofArt

Spring Flowers & Birds: Week Two

Starting the second week of my March challenge. The theme is Spring Flowers & Birds, and the Design Team has some beautiful birds to inspire you this week!

Spring comes early here in the Southern U.S. ~ There are yellow daffodils blooming all over my town, so cheerful and hopeful, and brilliant purple crocuses my front doorstep. The birds know that Spring is coming ~ the yard is full of robins, sparrows, finches, chickadees, every day!

If you don't yet have the early signs of Springtime where you are... I hope this challenge will fill you with anticipation that it's just around the corner! (For everyone in the Northern hemisphere... not for our friends Down Under who are looking forward to Autumn, I suppose.)

Enjoy, and join in the challenge by linking up your flowers and birds!

MICHELE STORMS created this amazing little altered tin! Love!
Art from the Well

And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

The daffodils are blooming here in Tennessee, and I thought I would share some with you. :-)  Use these for my March challenge ~ Spring Flowers & Birds!

I tried to find the etymology (word origin) of the name Daffodil, but all I could find is that they were originally called Asphodels, from their Greek name. I've seen that name before, in some old stories I guess, and now I know what asphodels are!

In the Language of Flowers, Daffodils stand for "Regard" or respect. In Chinese lore they are a sign of Good Fortune, in Japan a symbol of Joy and Mirth.

Daffodils are the birthday flower for March! Their strong association with the arrival of Spring (and Easter) has made them a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings...


Here's a famous and beautiful daffodils poem, by William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

March Challenge: Spring Flowers & Birds

Welcome to my March challenge! 

The first daffodil is about to bloom outside my front door, and there have been hints of springtime in the last few days, so this theme is just in time: Spring Flowers & Birds.

I couldn't resist using one of the images from my new "Garden Catalogues" collage sheet ~ adding some birds and changing the text of course. I think those are hollyhocks, which are probably summer flowers (and wonderfully old-fashioned) but I also added some yellow daffodils, which are definitely the messengers of early Spring!

I hope you have fun with this theme. It makes me smile.

You'll find lots of inspiration at Lunagirl.com to help get you started... image collections by download or CD, and hundreds of digital collage sheets ... Flowers, Birds, Woodland, Garden... Green, Easter, Spring!

CHALLENGE GUIDELINES

Challenge ends at 3:00 pm CST on March 31

Any craft or medium is welcome.

ENTER UP TO THREE PIECES!

Vintage style is encouraged but not required.

Use a Lunagirl image and your entry will count twice in the drawing!

Link to this blog and to Lunagirl.com on your site if you have one.

Prize: $15 credit at Lunagirl.com! Winner will be selected by random drawing.

An InLinkz Link-up

LUNAGIRL DESIGN TEAM (more DT pieces coming soon)

I'm loving this domino pendant created by
MICHELE STORMS of Art from the Well !

New: Vintage Garden Catalogues Download

New digital collage sheet I just added to the site today... created with covers and pages from vintage gardening catalogs for flowers and fruit!

Find this printable, and all my most recent digital collage sheets at Lunagirl.com.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

A sweet vintage Valentine greeting to you and yours... Enjoy the day with your loved ones.
And help spread the love by joining in my LOVE challenge which continues all through February!

Enjoy this lovely pop-up card by VICKI ROMAINE Cheerful Stamp Pad
(On the left is the outside of the card, on the right you can see the inside!)

Winner of Fruit & Flowers Challenge: Nicie Ibarra

The lucky winner of the drawing for the Fruit & Flowers challenge is #8 by Nicie Ibarra! Congratulations to everyone who played on their beautiful work. I truly appreciate your contributions to my challenges!

The next theme will be FLAPPERS ... who doesn't love flapper girls with their sassy and sultry styles? 

I'll get the new challenge ready to start tomorrow, so be sure to come back and play for a chance to win the random drawing and $15 credit to spend at Lunagirl.com.

Another Freebie for Inspiration

Here's another freebie for you to use in the Fruit and Flowers challenge, inspired by the cheerful yellow daffodils in my yard!

See the challenge details here, along with plenty of creative inspiration from some talented folks... and find more botanical fruits and flowers at Lunagirl!

Second Week: Fruit & Flowers Theme

As the FRUIT & FLOWERS creative challenge goes into its second week, here is more inspiration from the Design Team! Get inspired by dreams of spring, and enter the challenge!

VICKI ROMAINE:
"I am using my all-time favorite flower image from Lunagirl.  This is perfect for Spring or Sympathy."

Grape Goddess tag by MICHELE STORMS

Set of ATCs by MANDY CHILVERS

Inspiration!

Join the challenge! The theme is Fruit and Flowers ~ I challenge you to create something featuring or inspired by fruit, flowers, blossoms, gardens... and share it with us here!

My choice of this theme was inspired by the beautiful old Victorian botanical prints that I love, and as usual the Design Team has come up with some wonderfully inspiring work.

Above is digital art by CorinneMarie, featuring vintage grapes and related ephemera.
Below is another piece by CorinneMarie, this one a darling altered matchbox! She has incorporated the botanical prints in shade of pink and red with some charming ladies in red, a vintage pink background, and accents in red as well.

I know this will get your creative juices flowing and inspire you to join in!

The Fruit & Flowers challenge continues until next Thursday, March 19, 

so you have plenty of time to link up. Get the details and see more inspiration!

Oh, and you can shop for some images at Lunagirl:

Some botanical images and a whole garden of flowers, fruit, and butterflies

G

Craft Challenge Theme: Fruit and Flowers

New challenge theme: Inspired by beautiful antique botanical prints, my next theme is
FRUIT & FLOWERS

Let dreams of gardens and orchards, bouquets and blossoms and colorful sweet fruit inspire you... any craft medium is OK, from cards and paper crafts to fabric arts and jewelry to assemblage and mixed media and of course digital art too!

Your entry just needs to feature fruit and/or flowers in some way. The Design Team will be working with some of the Victorian botanical prints and other vintage ephemera from Lunagirl... we love vintage but your entry can be any style, just so it's fruit and flowers themed!

Any craft or medium is OK.

Vintage style is encouraged but not required.

Use a Lunagirl image or element and your entry will count twice in the drawing!

Remember to link to this blog and to Lunagirl.com on your site if you have one.

Prize:  Winner will be selected randomly to receive a $15 credit at Lunagirl.com!

Challenge ends at noon CST on Thursday, March 19.

I love it when you use Lunagirl images, and I hope you'll go take a look at my collections... but that's not a requirement!  But do remember that if you use a Lunagirl image, you will be entered TWICE in the drawing! I welcome everyone and every style but also want to give a little something extra to my wonderful customers! Most important is have fun, get creative, enjoy vintage. 

DON'T MISS THE INSPIRATION FROM THE DESIGN TEAM BELOW!
There will be more from the DT later during this challenge, and you'll want to check back to see all the entries as well. We hope you'll share yours!

An InLinkz Link-up

LUNAGIRL DESIGN TEAM

CORINNE MARIE Digital by Corinne

Botanical Life by SHELBY PIZZARRO Sisterhood of the Muse

Cherry Goddess tag by MICHELE STORMS  Art from the Well

3D Flower by VICKI ROMAINE  The Cheerful Stamppad

"The Lunagirl image was printed three times the exact same size and cut apart and then put back into layers with dimensionals to give it a 3D appearance. 
The 3D effect really doesn't show up on the scanning."
I can see the 3D effect ~ it is stunning.

MANDY CHILVERS Journal Page!  TagAlongChallenge.blogspot.com

Come to Fairyland

It's looking pretty magical and fanciful over at my Fairyland challenge! Come see and join in!

To inspire you, here's another pretty fairy tag by Mandy Chilvers of my fabulous DT.  She has used a charming Victorian garden flower fairy and the simple word "IF" which I think is perfect to evoke a feeling of fantasy and wonder and imagination.

Join in the challenge until Sunday, and please don't miss all the other lovely creations that have been submitted to our Fairyland so far.

Thanks for visiting!

Paris Botanical Tags Set: Ephemera, Flowers & Fruit

Still working on Paris Botanical tags today... I made another sheet with yellow flowers and golden fruit. Very pretty! While I was at it I realized I should make a sheet of matching tags that are mostly blank and have a place to write -- to use as backs or just to complete the set. So here is the whole set so far... expect more tags in different themes because I'm having fun with these!

More French Botanical Tags... and a Surprise Just for You

Here's another new printable tag sheet ... 

more beautiful botanical prints of flowers and fruit, in gorgeous shabby purple and green, plus lovely vintage aged pages from the French journal Horticole. 

I had so much fun with these, and I hope you will too! I love these colors and the French text.

Here's another little something fun: a discount code just for my blog readers! Use discount code PURPLEPARIS at checkout at Lunagirl.com for 25% off every item until Monday ... just for you!  

Really I just want to see who is listening :-)