Welcome Spring!

OK I have been on a bit of a unplanned sabbatical but I'm trying to get back on the horse and start getting some fresh new images up for you to use.  So since the official day of Spring has Sprung here is a collage sheet of vintage seed packets for you to have lots of crafty fun with. Enjoy!

My Artist Pick of the Week: Mary Cassett

I love being inspired by the works of famous artists and I clearly remember the first time I ever saw one of Mary Cassett's Paintings in the National Gallery in Washington, DC.  From that moment on, I was an huge fan.  I remember the piece was of a little girl in a straw hat and the expression on her face was priceless and amazing.  Mary is also known for her tender gentle interpretation of Mother's with their children and babies.  Her ability to capture on canvas that special bond between mother and child, truly creates one of those remarkable moments when a picture does speak a thousand words.  So  here are some of my favorite paintings by Mary Cassatt.  I hope you enjoy them.

Vintage Floral Beauties

It's been one of those crazy weeks weather wise this week, We started off with warm temps that melted the snow and we actually saw the ground, but Jack Frost decided to let us know he's not done with us yet and we got an unexpected 6 inches of snow and another snow day off from school. So with all that said, I'm in the mood for Spring today.   In anticipation of what will surely come our way in the coming weeks, I've put together some vintage floral postcards for you to enjoy!

Happy Presidents Day!

Well I hope everyone here in the US is enjoying their Presidents Day, and if you are one of the lucky ones who gets the day off, I'm sure you are enjoying your free day! Years ago when I worked at the Courthouse we used to get Lincoln's Birthday and George Washington's Birthday off separately. It was great! Now the two have been combined and made into one group holiday to save money. Alas most companies these days don't even give their employees the day off, my husband's company being one of them. So I guess we must celebrate our Nation's Forefathers on our own time. Anyway, I have put together some images that celebrate this special occasion and also some cool vintage cherry images too. So have fun and enjoy!

Cute Little Irish Kids

OK I have been on a little break here for a while but I'm back with more stuff now! Here are some cute little Irish children for you to print out and have fun with.    I'm still working on other goodies so keep coming back to check out the new things I'll be posting!  Have a great weekend all.

And the Winner for the One World One Heart Blog Event is....

CONGRATULATIONS to Rob (CreativSpirit)! from the land down Under!  She is the winner of all 3 Art Trading Cards!  They will be whisking their way to Australia as soon as I hear back from her and get her mailing information!

I had a wonderful time participating in this wonderful event and I thank Lisa Swifka for organizing this 5 years in a row!  I'm just sorry I only found out about it for the first time this year!

On another quick note I'm behind in posting some new freebies for you to download but I will be putting some new stuff up real soon!

9 Heart Designs to Scrapbook and Craft With

I been a little busy on the "One World One Heart" blogging journey that it's been a while since I posted some new stuff so since Valentines Day is only a week away, I've put together 9 12x12 pages of heart designs for you to download and use.  I'm so behind I still need to make valentines for the kiddos to take to school and then my youngest who's in Kindergarten gets to address them and sign them.  He has 28 kids in his class!  It's actually ridiculous amount of kids but our school is so overcrowded we have 6 kindergarten rooms of 28 kids. They desperately need to redo the boundaries of the school districts. But I digress...

I hope you come up with some cool ideas to use these papers with and have a great week!

One World One Heart Blog Event

Hello, and welcome to my "One World One Heart" Blog Entry.  I first have to say I'm so excited to be able to participate for the first time in the final 5th year of this event.  I think it's such a great idea and I'm very grateful to Lisa Swifka from A Whimsical Bohemian Blog for sponsoring it.  So with no further ado, I would like to introduce myself and give you a good sneak peek at what I'm offering for my give away here.

My name is Chris, and I am a stay at home mom living in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD.  I've been married to my wonderful hubby for 23 years on February 20th! YIKES can it really be 23 years?   Since I'm only "29",  I really was a "child bride", ofcourse I did stop counting how old I was once I hit 29.  We have two beautiful boys who are the light of my life, and both are on the Autism spectrum.  Life is never dull at our house with two special needs boys and I like to call our world "Adventures in Autism".  This year is the first year I have  both of my kiddos in school full time and back in November 2010, I started my blog.  I offer lots of Free Graphics for folks to download and use for their own art projects, which is the main purpose here, but I have also found that blogging about other things as well has been quite therapeutic for me.  In my other life before "Adventures in Autism" I was a freelance illustrator and worked from home.  When my first son was born, I put down my pen & brush and focused on being a mommy as it took over 8 years of infertility and several miscarriages to finally become a mother.  Autism was the curve ball we were not expecting and I made the decision to focus entirely on the boys medical needs, and therapies, as early intervention is a key component to successful outcomes.  Now 11 years later, I'm finally able to take a bit of time for myself and this blog is the result. I love being creative and I really enjoy sharing and meeting other kindred spirits so that is why I'm so excited about this event.  Being a "Newbie" to the blogging world this is such a great venue for me to  meet folks, so I really am looking forward to going through the list of participants.  

Now onto my offerings:

I love Art Trading Cards and so I will be offering 3 original Art Trading Cards that I drew in Pen & Ink and then watercolored.  Art Trading Cards are always 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" in size (The standard size of a baseball car).  This is really the only rule that you need to adhere to when creating your cards.  I've been  trading and collecting for about 4 years or so, and it's a very fun hobby.  So here are the cards I will be giving away.

"Clover" (Original  Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

"Floral Bouquet" (Original Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

"Chickipoo" (Original Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

If you would like to be including in the drawing for my giveaway, please leave a comment below and a way to contact you if you win.  Good Luck All!

It's Groundhog Day!

Hello and Happy Groundhog Day! The prognosticator of prognosticators has come out of his hole in Gobbler's Knob, Punxsutawney, PA  and made his prediction for 2011 and it is official:  "Spring will come early".  Now if you happen to live in two thirds of the US states covered in snow and enduring the weekly cataclysmic winter storms, you probably are somewhat skeptical  of Phil's prediction.  Of course if he's right we all will be singing the praises of the groundhog!

So to celebrate this auspicious occasion I have put together a clip art sheet to honor the weather predicting rodent!  I hope you find some fun things to make with today's offering!

Some cute Valentine Kitties

I know I've already put together a Cat Valentine clipart sheet but my oldest son absolutely LOVES cats, and  I'm pretty sure we will personally be using this page to make our own valentines with, so I thought I would share some more kitties with you!
Have a great day!

How about some Fun with Fairies?

Well I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while.   I've had the boys home from school 5 days in a row!  I have to say I'm very happy school's opened back up today on time!  I'm really hoping the Groundhog will not see his shadow on Feb. 2nd so we will have an early spring!  Now I'm wondering is Groundhog day just a US tradition or is it celebrated by other countries? Give me a shout out on that one in the comments posts.   I'm really curious about it!  but I digress,

For Monday's offering I've put together some really fun Fairies for you to enjoy.  I've always loved Fairies and on some level I still am a child who wants to believe they are really hanging out in the forest fluttering about.  My cousin who lives in another state, has a park near her where people have built little fairy houses throughout the park.  My aunt  took  pictures of them and I thought they were the cutest things ever.  The houses were all made of materials you find in the woods and some of them were so elaborate.  Maybe I can get my aunt to share a few of her photos so you can see for yourselves, but once again I digress, LOL

I hope you enjoy using these little fairies for some fun projects!  Happy Monday and have a great week!


If you are enjoying today's Fairy theme, I also have included in my Etsy shop a 1x1 inch squares with Fairy images that you can use for making scrabble pendants or whatever else you can think of to do a 1 inch Fairy.

Click here to see this in my Etsy Shop!

Various Victorian Vintage Images

Today has been an off day, we got a unexpected amount of snow from a crazy snow storm that included lightning and thunder, which is so bizarre to see during blizzard strength snowfall.   Ofcourse school was closed today and I'm sure it's going to be closed tomorrow so I have another day figuring out how to keep the kiddos happy and content.   I really had a kink put in my but I have finally another clipart sheet for you.  It's just a bunch of random Victorian images but they are interesting and can be used in alot of different projects.
So I guess that's about it for now and I hopefully will be back in the next day for some more cool clipart and graphics.

Cool Postage Stamps and Handwriting on Postcard

Well I hope it's warmer where you are today because the temp this morning here was a balmy 9 degrees F or (-8 c), and I heard there's talk of a snowstorm  on Wednesday.  Well at least it's sunny!  Summer just seems so long and far away right now.
Sorry it's been a few days since I posted some fun freebies but I've been working hard on some other projects, and got behind.  So for today I have some really cool postage stamps with cancel markings and some handwriting too.  Just think of all the really fun stuff you can do with these so enjoy and have a wonderful week.

I Just Put an Item in my Etsy Shop

I started a new endeavor tonight so I guess we will see how it gos. I posted a digital download valentine card and matching envelope in my Etsy shop. I've tried a few things here and there in and there but have never really jumped in. The nice thing is that it's only 20 cents a listing for 3 month so it really is reasonable. I've included a link below the images so if you have a chance go over and take a look.  I only have one item in the shop now, but I'm gonna be adding some more stuff.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend

Etsy Shop Valentine Notecard with Matching Envelope Digital Download

I'm feeling Blue today...

Actually I'm feeling just fine, but I was in the mood for designing a blue set of papers.  So here they are.  I also included frames, and a paper of different blue images to match.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Heart Valentine 12x12 Pattern Papers to Print!

Howdy I hope everyone is well and enjoying their week.  We have been iced in from a storm that hit us last night but the temp has risen, and we have thawed out some so I do believe the kids will be back in school tomorrow, after a long 4 day weekend.  Since I was house bound I designed some more 12x12 Valentine papers, and I also did a ballerina illustration for a card for my Cafepress Shop.  I was going for a Degas painterly feel to make my ballerina look like one of his paintings.  I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out.

Ballerina Dancer Greeting Card



Just click on image below to take you to the original image and right click to download them

Kitty Valentines for you today!

Well after a really rough weekend battling the stomach flu, I'm back to the blog with a few cute Kitty Valentines for you to print out.  I need to get to working on some more things to post so this will be short.  I'll also including a link to my latest addition to my CafePress shop.  I made a kitchn magnet with different vintage Absinthe advertising images including the Green Absinthe  Fairy.

Click here to view Absinthe Green Fairy Magnet in my Shop

More Vintage Valentines for you to have fun with and some cards I made for my Shop.

Here is a new vintage clip art sheet of some cute children's valentines.  I hope you will find some cool ways to use them.  I've also included below my design I came up with using the images for a Valentine Card and another card I did using vintage images.  They are both in my Cafepress shop.

Vintage Valentines Greeting Card

Paris Girl Note Card

My New Valentine Card at CafePress

About 4-5 years ago I opened a little CafePress shop called "The Perfect Gift".  Since then I have been putting my designs and Illustrations on their products and it's been a fun ongoing project.  I haven't created anything new in my shop for a while so I decided to make a Valentine Card.  I sat down with my .05 ink pen and came up with a fun little drawing that I decided to scan and colorize in Illustrator and this card is my finished product.  I'm pretty pleased and I also used a color palette that is different from my normal choices, so it was fun to go out of my comfort zone and try something new.

You can find this in  my CafePress shop:Whimsical Hearts Card at The Perfect Gift

I'll be back soon with more art freebies but I just wanted to post this and share my other work as well.

Happy Thursday Everyone!

An Inspired Tribute to Paris

Today I was inspired by a postcard that I found on a new Friend's blog called French Kissed by Trishia Jacobs. She has an amazing collection of vintage postcards and she has a Esty shop where you can buy downloads of these amazing one of a kind images at: French Kissed Etsy Shop
This past week in Trishia's Blog she offered a freebie of a vintage photograph of the Eiffel Tower Circa 1908.  I just fell in love with the image and was inspired to make another set of scrapbook papers.  I also need to acknowledge another great site where I found more wonderful Parisan Ephemera that I used as well.  This site is by a wonderful artist named Arbutus Hunter and her blog is entitled: Vintage Ephemera.  I hope you will take time to visit these wonderful blogs and see what these great artists are doing.
I hope everyone has a wonderful 2nd week of January!