Inspiration from the Moonbeams

"from the pages of a book, 

secrets emerge"

by Lunagirl Moonbeams DT Member Michele Storms

a little something to inspire your own interpretation of "Secrets and Hidden Things" for our blog challenge!

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 :)

Enjoy, and enter the Alice blog challenge!

More Alice Images Here

New Collage Sheet: Maps!

Yet another brand new Lunagirl collage sheet design!  This one is created with fabulous fascinating maps adapted from antique books.  There are maps of the Eastern and Western hemispheres with illustrations of the signs of the zodiac and angels in the corners, a map of the ancient Mediterranean world, an ancient map of the ocean currents with Latin text, an 18th-century map of Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence River with lovely calligraphic writing, plus "London and the Suburbs, Seventeenth Century". These are carefully restored and enhanced to be just right. Fascinating images and aged paper make beautiful backgrounds for altered art projects of all kinds!  Click on this link to be taken to a page to purchase and download: http://www.summertownsun.com/lunagirl/W-Lunagirl-Collage-Sheets-NEW.htm

Banned Books Week

We're in the midst of banned books week, sponsored each year by the American Library Association. Read a "banned" book this week! You can choose from many authors -- including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, DH Lawrence, James Joyce, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Salinger, Shaw, Twain, Marquez, Faulkner, Hemingway, James Joyce, Jack London, Zora Neale Hurston, Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Anne Rice, Anne Frank, Thomas Paine, Stephen King, Shakespeare -- the list goes on and on. Most religious texts have been banned somewhere by somebody. Even dictionaries have been banned for containing "dirty" words!

Here are a few well-known titles that have been often banned or "challenged" (in no particular order): To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, The Color Purple, The Bridge to Terabithia, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Lolita, The Call of the Wild, As I Lay Dying, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Invisible Man, Native Son, Slaughterhouse Five, Heart of Darkness, All Quiet on the Western Front, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, All the King's Men, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, In Cold Blood, Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1984, Heart of Darkness, Naked Lunch, Tropic of Cancer, Women in Love, The Decameron (written in the 14th century), Lysistrata (written in ancient Greece), Portnoy's Complaint, Rabbit Run, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, James and the Giant Peach, In the Night Kitchen, A Wrinkle in Time, The Handmaid's Tale, Henry and June, Ulysses, The Satanic Verses, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Song of Solomon, Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451. If you've never read Fahrenheit 451, it's about burning books. The author, Ray Bradbury, said his novel wasn't about censorship but rather about how television destroys interest in literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as factoids without context or critical thought. So get off the internet and go read a book!

NEW! Victorian ABC Nursery Books on CD

Recently released: Lunagirl PictureBooks! This first collection contains 24 beautiful complete alphabet books from the mid to late 1800s. Alphabet picture books were among the favorites of the day, and these brightly colored and exquisitely illustrated ABC books make it easy to see why.

One of the most enduring traditions of books for children is the ABC book. Aside from nursery rhymes, no other genre was so extensively produced. The late 1800s produced scores of these books in English, and some of the best are presented in this collection of alphabet books. Most of this collection were first published in England, where these books were enjoyed by children and adults alike. Some include "early reader" lessons in addition to the alphabet. CLICK HERE TO SEE DETAILS & SAMPLES.

Browse the books page by page or scan through always visible scrolling thumbnail images. The focus is on the illustrations themselves, so that the reader can easily print out any and all of the pictures. You can of course print out the pages of text as well if you want to create facsimiles of the original books. More to come!

Beautiful New Collage Sheet Designs!

Antique children's books have some beautiful illustrations. We know you'll enjoy these brand new Lunagirl collage sheets featuring Little Red Riding Hood, Nursery Rhymes Characters, and Storybook Animals and Birds! Click any of the pictures to see them (and more new digital collage sheets) on Lunagirl.com ... ready to purchase with instant download!

Cool New Book to Share...

Lunagirl came across this fascinating new book with unusual ideas:
Altered Curiosities: Assemblage Techniques and Projects by Jane Ann Wynn

"Featuring techniques for assemblage and surface alterations never before seen in a mixed-media art book (kit-bashing, wiring, egg-shell texture, casting and more) ... A fresh variety of projects (such as hair barrettes, jewelry, a drawer pull and a bird feeder) ... Readers will learn a new storytelling approach to their mixed-media art. Altered Curiosities goes beyond construction techniques to help readers discover how to create a personal narrative with objects and visually tell a story, not just infuse a piece with meaning or symbolism." on Amazon.com

What Fun: Retro Children's Illustrations

This one is great: created with children's illustrations from 1930s postcards and children's book illustrations.

It is fun to offer these charming boys and girls for your projects after they've been living in a shoebox for decades!