Sometimes it's hard to believe some things are possible

I've long been a fan of digital collage artists and designers such as Wendy Paula at Mulberry Muse (I've admired Wendy's French-inspired work for years), but I never had the courage to try my hand at it... until today.

Possessing the technical knowledge (and tools) necessary to build a collage piece hasn't really been my issue. The process of finding just the right vintage illustrations to combine together just always seemed daunting. I just didn't believe I could actually do it. I finally decided last night I should just try it--determining that if I failed, I could fail privately and no one would know the difference.

I really wanted to do something Christmas-y. I found a lovely antique fashion plate of a woman in gown trimmed in red. That was a good start.

Then I had to put in her a setting. I wanted something a bit on the whimsical and fanciful side. I thought it would be neat to have her walking through a snowy forest. I went over the Graphics Fairy blog to hunt around and see if she had anything I could use. She did! What I found was a bonus, because I had also envisioned incorporating a reindeer or moose image too.

As I set to work on the long process of digitally restoring, enhancing, and altering the antique images, a story began to form in my mind. Here's the story that unfolded as the digital collage came to fruition...

On Christmas Eve, the annual festive holiday ball was being held at the estate of one of the wealthiest families in the county. Close to midnight, the belle of the Christmas ball walked out onto the veranda for some air. 

Just off the veranda was a pretty-ish sort of wilderness. The newly fallen snow reflected the light of the full moon and glistened back at the twinkling lights of the ballroom.  

As the belle stood alone at the edge of the veranda, she thought she heard the soft jingle of sleigh bells coming from within the forest. Her ears must be deceiving her, she thought. The horses and sleighs that had carried all the guests to the ball were housed in the stables far away on the other side of the estate. 

The belle was flushed from dancing and the glowing fire in the hearth of the ballroom. She didn't feel the chilly nip in the air on her bare arms as she stepped off the veranda into the edge of the woods to investigate.  

Only a few steps into the snow-covered thicket, she was greeted by a timid yet curious reindeer. She should have been frightened, but she was not. Why she wasn't, she didn't know--she just knew she was enveloped by a calm serenity. The reindeer lowered its head and gently nuzzled the belle's outstretched gloved hand. 

Just then the belle heard a rustle and the faint jingle of sleigh bells again. From behind a tree not far away, she thought she heard a soft and jolly baritone chuckle. 

"Could he really be real?" she asked herself, "Can I really believe?" 

Free ecards or invites

Personalized Christmas cards

Fresh hot buttered popcorn

We have our favorite old movie theatre here in our area that has all the original elaborate architectural details of times gone by. I remember the first time I visited a similar movie theatre when I was a kid. I was enthralled with the ornate beauty and was a bit disappointed when the lights had to go down for the movie to start. I still have similar feelings when Hubby and I visit the vintage theatre we love.

When I was working on the above piece, I wanted to capture all those feelings somehow--the feelings of sitting and eating something fresh like the hot buttered popcorn while admiring the ambiance of the beautifully aged vintage theatre that surrounds us. It's a happy kind of paradox of emotions, and I think I captured a bit of it.

You can send this as a free customizable e-card or e-invite from pingg.com by clicking here

Working with paper

I am rediscovering that I love to work with my hands. That's probably why I'm taking a floral design class, a woodworking class, and teaching myself how to do handmade bookbinding. You'd think this would be a "no brainer" for me that I wouldn't have to rediscover, but for some reason I've forgotten this over time.

So yesterday, I decided to tackle the construction of a handmade booklet style portfolio to hold a set of 12 cards. All I had was something similar I'd picked up at the store. I pulled it apart to make a template, and then dove in to construct my own. It took me three tries, but I finally mastered it so that I like the result.

Now I can feature my notecards (like the Vintage Botanicals Collection) in nice neat little box that is pretty in its own right.

When I listed this on the Etsy store I decided to include a free set of 12 sheets of hand-cut and hand-embossed writing paper that are cut to fit into the notecards.

The story behind this paper is pretty cool. When we moved into Rosehaven Cottage, the previous owner had left reams of vintage paper, tablets, ledgers, and such in the attic. When I opened up the unopened reams of paper, I found a very high quality off-white paper that had a wonderful feel to it. But the size was an odd one that didn't fit current U.S. or European standards so it has sat without being used much except for the occasional visual aid in Sunday School class. Recently, I found some wonderful corner embossing tools and had the idea that I should cut down the vintage paper and make it into writing paper. Voila!

I told you I'm enjoying working with the my hands.

Creation of my "Rose Nostalgia Collection"

Since the majority of my roses in the garden were developed or introduced long after the era of the vintage botanical print, I thought it might be a fun idea to take some of the photographs I've shot of my roses in bloom into Photoshop and see if I could create images that looked like vintage botanical prints.

I started out with the "America Rose". It's the one I did all my experimenting with to find the right process for making this idea happen. Thankfully, a Flickr friend of mine (playingwithbrushes) has a wonderful set of free textures on Flickr that she's photographed and scanned from around her farm and home. Included are some old book pages that she's scanned. They're perfect for what I wanted!

After I completed the "America" rose, I really wanted to try my hand at some others. So the next one was the "Blue Ribbon" rose:


And then the "Janice Kellogg" rose:


The latest one I've completed is the "Montezuma" rose:


I'm calling these images my "Rose Nostalgia Collection" and I'm planning on doing one for every rose variety in my garden (except the mystery roses that I can't identify). It's a real treat to transform these photographs and watch them turn into vintage illustrations with the use of the modern technology of Photoshop and my Wacom Cintiq 12" digital tablet.

Because of the state of the world economy,
I have chosen to scale back my emphasis on selling my work
and, instead, to emphasize sharing it for free via the digital image online.
Click here to visit my Flickr page for more images for you to enjoy for free.

Signed fine art reproductions can be made available upon individual request
for the price of shipping to your location anywhere in the world.