It's February!

More Valentine sweetness from Michele Storms of Artfromthe Well.blogspot.com... Vintage couple from Lunagirl Victorian Romance.

This lovely little creation is a traditional "moo" (approximately 1.1 x 2.8 inches).

LOVE Challenge Week Four (Late!)

MICHELE STORMS
Art from the Well

Sorry I'm late in posting inspiration for the fourth week of my Love challenge. I forgot to write a reminder on my planner ~ and if I don't write something down, it most likely will not get done! Seriously.

I'm glad I remembered because the DT has sent me a gorgeous collection of pieces for this last week of the challenge. Apologies, ladies, for the delay ~ these are all beautiful!

The response to this challenge theme has been great. Be sure to see the entries so far, and don't miss your chance to link up your own creation! You still have a few more days (extra day because of Leap Year, too.) Show us your LOVE!

MANDY CHILVERS
MandysMagicalWorldofArt

VICKI ROMAINE Cheerful Stamp Pad

VICKI ROMAINE Cheerful Stamp Pad

Week Three: LOVE

VICKI ROMAINE Cheerful Stamp Pad

Here's wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day ~ with inspiration from the Design Team, and a reminder that our theme of Love in all its wonderful forms continues throughout the month of February.

I hope to see what you create! See the entries so far, and link up your own. 

MICHELE STORMS
Art from the Well 

MANDY CHILVERS
MandysMagicalWorldofArt

Play in the DigitallySweetChallenges Blog Challenge This Week!

Can't get enough vintage red romance?  Lunagirl is sponsoring another fabulous challenge over at DigitallySweetChallenges!  The inspiration is a valentine image of course, with plenty of red roses and hearts and swirls (see below)... and their Design Team has created some absolutely gorgeous pieces with Lunagirl images I provided.  Be sure to go visit DigitallySweetChallenges.blogspot.com to see them, and enter the challenge for a chance to win the Lunagirl images they used!

Hot Deals for Cold Weather Crafting!

I guess everyone in the Eastern U.S. is enduring some super-cold weather!  Bundle up ~ or better yet, stay inside with hot cocoa if you can!

The Lunagirl Moonbeams DT has been sending me more lovely Vintage Winter creations, and I will get those posted to inspire you tomorrow.  When it's too cold and icy to go out, isn't that a great time for crafting?  Enter our Vintage Winter blog challenge! 

My customers are snapping up the Valentines images already, as they always do in January.  If you want an instant download, I have plenty of Valentine and romance-themed digital collage sheets, plus my new download packs of Victorian roses in various colors!

If you're in the mood for hundreds of gorgeous vintage style images, check out my craft CDs on sale almost 35% off this week. Lunagirl Victorian Romance CD and Vintage Lovers CD offer gorgeous, high-quality photos and art from my collection, restored and embellished, most not available anywhere else.  And Lunagirl Victorian Holidays Volume 2 features hundreds of Valentines plus hundreds of images for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day and more ~ some are exclusive to me, some you've seen before but never like this!  I'm pretty proud of our Holidays collections. :-)   And just for good measure, Lunagirl Angels Fairies & Fairy Tale Art CD is on sale too.  So stop in and "get 'em while they're hot"! 

Reverie: Art for an Autumn Day

Today it certainly feels like Autumn -- the air is cool, and a light rain falls from a grey sky.  Trees are turning orange and red and gold.  The rain is welcome for my fading garden, and it's a perfect day for curling up with a book or just getting lost in reverie.  I'll steal a few moments with a cup of tea, then it's back online to work!  Here is a suitable freebie image I'd like to share, entitled "Reverie." (more like this on Lunagirl Pre-Raphaelite Art printable digital images on CD):

Vintage Garden Romance from Michele

Here is another beautiful card by Michele Storms  using one of the French flower seed packs.  I really adore the soft colors in this card.  The white flowers and the soft aqua and ivory in the ladies wrap, and the soft greens in the background, and the sepia postcard and seed pack, and little pale moth, all just complement each other so well.  So lovely and romantic.  This could even be for a wedding. 

Here's Michele's description:
i matched up a sweet couple from the lunagirl vintage couples CD with some gorgeous flowers from the “french flowers seed pack #1” and layered them on various designer papers to make this romantic card.   nothing like flowers to give one a lovey dovey feeling!

Thank you, Michele! Beautiful inspiration as always.

We have our first entry in the blog challenge, from Mandy.  Link yours up, you still have a week!

Gatsby Cards by Michele!

Thank you to Michele Storms of my Design Team for two more gorgeous cards inspired by The Great Gatsby and The Roaring Twenties. 

I like how she has enhanced the black and white theme of the photo in the first card.  Just shades of black and grey enhanced by a little pink and burgundy.  Very pretty and classic.  I love the aqua blue in the 1920s image in the second card, and Michele has picked that up beautifully in the papers she chose -- plus added a little bling and some musical notes that go so nicely with the flying birds.

Don't forget you have until Sunday night to enter your project in our Lunagirl Moonbeams blog challenge!

Image CDs on Sale! Free Shipping too!

Just FYI for my blog followers, I have the two Lunagirl image CDs used by my Design Team for this challenge --   Vintage Lovers and Vintage Women & Men -- on sale for almost 35% off at Lunagirl.com.  Also my Ladies Photos Volume Four CD, which includes lots of photos and postcards of flappers. 

Other website news is that I now offer free shipping to anywhere in the United States on ALL orders!

Vintage Valentines Feature Article

As Valentine's Day approaches, we invite you to visit our special feature article on Victorian Edwardian romance to see a variety of vintage valentines and romantic photos and learn a little bit about the Roman god Eros (also known as Cupid).

You'll find it all here: Lunagirl Feature: Vintage Romance

In Ancient Rome February 14 was a festival in honor of Juno, the queen of heaven and goddess of marriage. Did you know it was once believed that February 14 is the day the birds begin to find mates?

So Romantic: Vintage Lovers Edwardian era & 1920s, Victorian Romance

Lunagirl Vintage Lovers collection: 450 photos and postcards on CD features romantic couples taken from cards from the 1920s and Edwardian era.

You'll find romantic couples and wedding photos, plenty of passionate kisses, sassy flappers in fabulous fashions, Edwardian girls, dapper men, soldiers and sailors departing or returning to the women they love, even children playing at love.


"Vintage Lovers" is the companion CD to our "Victorian Romance" CD which features couples of the Victorian era in 550 images. If you want a more traditionally Victorian look in romantic photos and cards, click the picture to see!

New Year's collage sheets... because 2010 is coming to an end and it's time to greet 2011!

Digital collage sheets available for instant downloading at Lunagirl.com and CollageSheet.com

New: Rossetti Charms collage sheet ... and Jane Morris

I can't believe it's March already! Here is a new collage sheet featuring women from paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the best-loved Pre-Raphaelite artists. These gorgeous, richly colored images are already sized in 1-inch circles and squares and 1x3" microscope slides, perfect for charms, pendants and other jewelry. Also nice if you just like some small images to embellish your altered art cards and crafts. Purchase and download "Rossetti Charms" and other Lunagirl collage sheets here: http://www.lunagirl.com/W-Lunagirl-Collage-Sheets-MINIS-microslides.htm

The face in most of these paintings is that of Jane Burden Morris. Jane was the daughter of an English stableman and a housemaid, and grew up in poverty with very little education. Rossetti and fellow PreRaphaelite Burne-Jones "discovered" her while she was attending a theater performance.

She was model and muse for Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris (whom she married). After her engagement to William Morris, Jane obtained a private classical education and basically reinvented herself. She was highly intelligent, a voracious reader and accomplished student of languages and music, and moved with ease and grace among artists, philosophers, political activists, and the upper classes. She and Morris lived an artistic, bohemian lifestyle at Kelmscott Manor in the Cotswolds. She may have been Rossetti's lover as well.

You'll find some interesting information about Rossetti and his work at this website by the Walker Art Gallery: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/rossetti/works/

Featured Artist: Katies Rose Cottage

I've discovered a beautiful website and blog to share!

Lori Avery of Katie's Rose Cottage offers all kinds of lovely romantic and cottage chic treasures. (I love tags, you can use them for so many things, and these are so pretty.)


There are charming vintage flea market finds as well as lovely handmade tags, ribbon roses, sweet pendants and charms, and romantic items for your home, bed and bath, most created by Lori herself using vintage and/or reproduction vintage items and other beautiful embellishments.

Lori is a very nice lady, and if you love a vintage romantic, shabby chic look, her site is a great place to find the perfect gift for a friend or for yourself!



Her embellished vintage bottles featuring birds and roses are especially unusual and pretty, and there is a whole section of unique wall decor.

She also has a lovely blog at http://www.katiesrosecottage.blogspot.com/

All the photos here are Copyright Katie's Rose Cottage.
Click on any picture to visit!

Valentines Day

Ah, Valentine's Day. Some love it, some hate it (there is a growing tongue-in-cheek "hate Valentines Day" movement, mostly among those without a partner and young men who don't like being expected to buy presents!) I think it's nice to have a day just to celebrate romance.

Personally I don't care for the commercialization of any holiday, but you can look past that if you try and find the true meaning, a celebration of romantic love. And if you don't have (or want) romance in your life right now, why not give yourself some dark chocolate and a bubblebath!

It's Monday Again!

Let's do a Monday free image today ~ this pretty lady with her red hair and distant gaze seems perfect for this time of year. Here the locusts buzz and hum as summer drifts off, and there is cool air in the evenings and early mornings. Days are still warm and sunny, but the light is slanted and you can feel the wheel turning toward autumn. While the cooler air is energizing there's a sense of sadness and longing, even loss .... I guess I'm a romantic in the original sense, who likes my beauty mixed with a little darkness, because it's my favorite time of year!

Enjoy this image for your personal, non-commercial projects. Please credit Lunagirl Images if your work is displayed online or published. If you want to use this image for commercial use, just email at info@lunagirl.com

You'll find a great variety of images of women on our Lunagirl Victorian Vintage People CD! It's soon to be discontinued in favor of a revised edition, so get this version while you can.

Featured Artist: BONZIE

We're deep into summer now, and I want to feature some items/artists for a "Summer Splurge." And wow, what a wonderful and talented artist we're featuring today.

Bonzie, an independent fashion label in Ireland, creates absolutely gorgeous corsets, neck adornments, handbags and more ~ see the pictures below. They are wonderfully feminine, romantic, gothic, elegant, playful.... I especially like her new wearable art bags (some feature Lunagirl images, plus fabric flowers, lace, other vintage and vintage-inspired elements and embellishments). I have a weakness for handbags!

Truly an indulgence for yourself or a lucky friend ~ and some pieces would be amazing for your wedding ~ but note that Bonzie's custom neck adornments are very reasonably priced for such lovely custom pieces!

Visit http://www.designsbybonzie.blogspot.com/

or the etsy shop! http://www.etsy.bonzie.com

Victorian Romance vintage photos & cards

Brand new Lunagirl CD just released!

"Victorian Romance"
Vintage images of couples, brides, kisses & sentiments of love - 550 images on CD. This collection features images from the Victorian & Edwardian eras.Charming postcards, photos & other ephemera scanned and saved as easy-to-use jpg images for your projects.




You'll find romantic couples with flowers, lovers kissing and flirting, brides & grooms & weddings, fiancées, married couples, couples at tea or table...







lovely ladies & passionate gents, women & men out for a stroll or a drive, even a special category featuring sweet pictures of children playing at love.






Many include romantic verses or greetings in French (you can of course use your image-editing software to remove these & add your own if you prefer!)





These are lovely for card making, invitations, gift tags, labels for handcrafted items. Add to your scrapbooking pages or wedding album, altered books and boxes, collage, mixed media, primitives, decoupage, ATCs...

CLICK ANY OF THE PICTURES TO SEE DETAILS & MORE SAMPLE PICTURES at Lunagirl.com.

Vintage Romance

To our regular visitors, I apologize for neglecting the blog for awhile! We have been quite busy around here. The least I can do is give you a link to our Lunagirl Feature Article on VINTAGE ROMANCE, just in time for St. Valentine's Day. It has bits of fun information about the origins of Valentines Day and its customs, and of course plenty of pretty pictures to look at!

I've been creating new Lunagirl collage sheets like crazy. You can see all the latest at http://lunagirl.com/W-Lunagirl-Collage-Sheets-NEW.htm

I think there are too many new ones to put them all here, but I do want to share a couple of favorites on the theme of Vintage Romance!

Stay tuned for Vintage Blue Flappers, and a link to our Feature Article on The Victorian Language of Flowers (Spring is around the corner!)

What kinds of images would you like more of?

We are (literally) surrounded in our office by hundreds of vintage photo postcards recently purchased as a large collection from overseas. Most are French and some are German or Dutch. We have pictures of women from the Victorian and Edwardian age, romantic couples and some brides, Victorian boys & girls, flappers and little girls of the 1920s and 1930s, holiday photo cards, and more, all waiting to be scanned, restored, altered and published.

What to work on first!? It would help us to hear from our customers .... what you like to see more of in terms of images for your art and crafts projects? Email us at summertownsun@yahoo.com and let us know!