Free Vintage Postcard for Holiday Cardmaking and Announcements or Storytelling Collage: Romantic Edwardian Couple on Terrace in Twilight

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation.
It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
A vintage postcard from c1910 showing a beautiful Edwardian lady in a blush pink evening gown and bright blossoms in her hair embracing a handsome Edwardian gentleman with a magnificent handlebar moustache on an outdoor terrace in the twilight. He looks extremely dashing in his white tie and tails as he clasps her gently around the waist with one hand while the other hand cradles her right arm. His gaze is tenderly affectionate and her smile is luminously happy.

I thought this image would be a great graphic for holiday invitation cards, party announcements or even in a romantic storytelling collage. You can download the high-res 6” x 9” @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Garden View with a Dog by Tomás Yepes

Garden View with a Dog, 1660s
by Tomás Yepes (1595 – 1674)
All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.
For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.
― Charles M. Schulz

Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.
It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.
― Ashly Lorenzana

Free Vintage Illustrated Template for Cardmaking or Scrapbooking: Blue Campanulas on Aged Paper

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you,
and to give thanks continuously.
And because all things have contributed to your advancement,
you should include all things in your gratitude.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Campanulas, a popular flower in traditional cottage gardens, are often associated with gratitude. They are also given as symbols of affection, as they represent constancy and everlasting love. Here is a pre-made template that merges a botanical illustration of a violet-blue campanula on a distressed old paper texture.

You can download the free high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. This vintage template can be used as a background for cardmaking or junk journaling but can also be used for announcements and other graphic design projects.


All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem Fairy Snow

Here is a sweet nature poem that was originally published in 1911, charmingly illustrated in a distincetive art nouveu style by Rachael Robinson.

Here is how the poem goes:
We toss the thistle-down away
And wait to see it fly;
'Twill make a rather snowy day
For fairies in the sky!

Then after all the summer rain
When wintry winds shall blow,
They'll send it down to us again,
In little flakes of snow!

You can download this illustrated poem as a 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for use in greeting cards, nature journals or simply print and frame for wall art.


Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Bird Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Scrapbooking: Hummingbird in Field of Wheat and Corn

In life, we plant seeds everywhere we go.
Some fall on fertile ground needing very little to grow.
Some fall on rocky soil requiring a tad bit more loving care.
While others fall in seemingly barren land and no matter what you do;
it appears the seed is dead.
Nevertheless, every seed planted will have a ripple effect.
You could see it in the present or a time not seen yet.
So be wise about where you plant your seeds. Be very mindful of your actions and deeds.
Negativity grows just as fast if not faster than positivity.
Plant seeds of kindness, love and peace and your harvest will be abundant living.
― Sanjo Jendayi

The above image was originally a Victorian trade card from 1880 for American Breakfast Cereals, a producer of steam cooked and dessicated cereals as well as cereal milk and cereal cream. The card shows a ruby-throated hummingbird perched on a stalk of wheat in a field of wheat and corn.

Free to use in your cardmaking, collage or scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 6" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without any words or watermark here.


From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Last Flowers by Jules Breton

Last Flowers, 1890
by Jules Breton (1827 – 1906)

The magic fades too fast
the scent of summer never lasts
the nights turn hollow and vast
but nothing remains...nothing lasts.
― Sanober Khan

If today is not your day,
then be happy
for this day shall never return.
And if today is your day,
then be happy now
for this day shall never return.
― Kamand Kojouri

Life is made up of a collection of moments that are not ours to keep. The pain we encounter throughout our days spent on this earth comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. Clinging to people and experiences that were never ours in the first place is what causes us to miss out on the beauty of the miracle that is the now. All of this is yours, yet none of it is. How could it be? Look around you. Everything is fleeting.

To love and let go, love and let go, love and let go...it's the single most important thing we can learn in this lifetime.
― Rachel Brathen

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Crafts, Collage or Junk Journaling: A Victorian Aviary and Flowering Angel Trumpets

Larks in the morning, crickets at night. There is no other world.
― Marty Rubin
A black and white illustration of an aviary in a Victorian garden, surrounded by climbing roses and wild convolvulus. This particularly ornamental aviary was manufactured by Mr. E. Crook of 5, Carnaby-street, Regent-street, London, and was quite popular with many ladies of that era. You can download a 8” x 7” @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true.
― Abraham Cowley
A botanical illustration from Henderson's Handbook of Plants that shows a small flowering tree growing in a landscaped, walled garden. The "tree" is actually a standard shrub of Brugmansia suaveolens, also commonly known as angel trumpet or angel's tears. The remarkably beautiful flowers (usually white but can be yellow or pink) are sweetly fragrant in the evenings so they can attract pollinating moths but hang half-closed during the day. A lovely graphic to use in crafts, collage or junk journaling. You can download the 8” x 10” @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Illustrated Template: Thanksgiving Invitation or Harvest Menu Template with Stylized Grapevine Border

What are you planting today to harvest tomorrow?
― Lailah Gifty Akita
A pait of illustrated borders, originally published in a printer's manual circa 1900, that features stylized bunches of grapes nestled in thick masses of grapevines and leaves. Great for decorating invitations to Thanksgiving dinner but could also be used to display menus, as place cards, to feature recipes or as decorative frames for a journal page?

Download this free high-resolution 11" x 8.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. You can insert words by opening the file in any graphic or text editing app. I recommend printing on heavy card stock.


All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 4 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 4 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Out in the dews with the spider at his shuttle --
In that half-dreaming hour that awakes the whippoorwill
And sets the nighthawk darting sinister and subtle,
F'er the full moon complacent loiters o'er the hill.

Back to the farm!
With the friendly brute for neighbor,
Where youth and Nature beckon, the tryst who would not keep?
Back to the luxury of rest that follows labor,
Back to the primal joys of hunger and of sleep!

Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 3 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 3 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Off to the wood lot where brier bloom runs riot
And wary forest creature no hunter's snare deceives,
Virgin growth beguiling the solemn-hearted quiet
With songs of winter fires a-ripple through the leaves.

Up to the bars in the twilight's soft reaction --
Winding through the ferny lane to barns of stooping eaves
Welcoming at nightfall to simple satisfaction,
When the reeling swallow her dusky pattern weaves.

Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 2 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 2 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Down in the hayfield where scythes glint through the clover;
Lusty blood a-throbbing in the splendor of the noon --
Lying 'neath the haycocks as castling clouds pass over,
Hearing insect lovers a-piping out of tune.

Caught in the spell of old kitchen-garden savors --
With luscious lines retreating to hills of musky corn,
And clambering grapes that spill their clustering flavors --
Each in fragrant season filling Plenty's golden horn.

Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Back to the Farm (Part 1 of 4)

You can download this illustration by N.C. Wyeth for free as a 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.

BACK TO THE FARM
Part 1 (of 4)
by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

Back to the farm!
Where the bob-white still is calling
As in remembered drawings when youth and I were boys,
Driving the cattle where the meadow brook is brawling
Her immemorial wandering fears and joys!

Home to the farm for the deep green calms of summer,
Life of the open furrow, life of the waving grain --
Leaving the painted world of masquerade and mummer
Just for the sense of earth and ripening again.

Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Illustrated Template for Cardmaking or Scrapbooking: Butterfly and Honeysuckle Decorative Border on Old Paper

You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.
— Rupi Kaur
An art nouveau illustrated border that shows a purple butterfly resting on the stalk of a stylized yellow-orange honeysuckle. The blue stalk of the honeysuckle becomes a ribbony scroll pooled at the bottom edge of the template.

I think this would make a pretty background for a greeting card but you can also use it in a journal or as a scrapbooking page. You can download the high-res 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without words or watermark here.


All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Moonlit Nigt by Ivan Kramskoi

Moonlit Nigt, 1880
by Ivan Kramskoi (1837 - 1887)
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Free Vintage Outdoor Clipart for Crafts, Collage or Junk Journaling: Victorian Girl Gathering Garden Flowers

When we are children we seldom think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
This sweet illustration of a Victorian girl plucking flowers in an overgrown garden was originally a Victorian trade card. I digitally restored the faded card and added the floral wallpaper and bright coral background. You can download this free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. You can print this out and use as-is for a greeting card or incorporate it into crafts, collage or junk journal projects.


From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if sharing or publishing.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Wildflowers by Anna Stainer-Knittel

Wildflowers, 1889
by Anna Stainer-Knittel (1841 - 1915)

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
― Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them