Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Dahlia Flower Fairy Representing Loveliness, 1867

Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
Thou mov'st as calmly on.
― Nathaniel Parker Willis
A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the vivacious and exuberant dahlia. The fairy is pictured kicking her heels as she lightheartedly dances with a garland of dahlias that twists and twines around her in a floral S-shape.

Accompanying the illustration is the second stanza of a porm from Nathaniel Parker Willis entitled "To a Belle." You can read this bright and lovely poem in full here. This vintage drawing is originally from a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the modest violet here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.


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.

Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Collage, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Violet Flower Fairy Representing Modesty, 1867

Sweet flower, that hides in the shade,
Meet emblem of the modest maid,
Whose virtues, like thy perfumes rare,
Makes home delightful everywhere.
― Sir Walter Scott
A fairy tale illustration showing a flower fairy meant to represent the shy and retiring violet. The fairy is pictured clutching the stems of two clusters of violets growing upwardly in an U-shaped arch. Accompanying the illustration is a short porm from Sir Walter Scott. From a pair of 1867 Victorian advertising cards. You can find the companion card with the lovely dahlia here.

To download the free high-res 5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here. Can be used in collage, papercrafts, and scrapbooking projects or simply print and frame for wall art.


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 Printable Bird Illustration for Altered Art, Graphic Design or Scrapbooking: Spring Doves with Basket of Forget-Me-Nots

Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
A vintage postcard from 1908 that shows a pair of white doves flying aloft as they carry a basket of brilliantly blue forget-me-nots contained within a basket with pink ribbons tied in bows for handles.

This colourful bird illustration would be lovely as the cover of a greeting card to a friend or loved one (Mother's Day, Valentine's Day or birthday) but could also be used in a mixed media art project or to decorate a scrapbook.

To download the high-res 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click 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.

Whimsical Fairytale Illustrations for Card Making, Collage, Crafts or Scrapbooking: A Garden Fairy & A Spring Workman

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
― Roald Dahl
Two fairytale illustrations; the first shows a girl fairy sniffing a white blossom as she stands on the leaf of a rose bush, with a pink rose curling in towards her on the left. From a late 19th century Victorian trade card.

The second illustration was published in April 1874 and shows a small winged cherub with a paint palette and brush painting the colours onto a garden pansy, one of the first flowers to appear in spring. The caption that originally accompanied the drawing stated that this was "A Spring Workman (from a French picture)."

You can download the first illustration as a high-res 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here and the second illustration as a high-res 6" x 4" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Both digital files are watermark-free and can be used for card making, collage, crafts, scrapbooking or other creative 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 you use or share this work.

Free Whimsical Fairytale Illustration for Cardmaking, Collage, Crafting or Scrapbooking: Overheard Between the Mice

A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.
― Roald Dahl
A very sweet black and white fairy tale illustration from 1901 that shows a mischievous garden fairy with butterfly wings, creeping up close to listen in on a couple of mice's whispered conversation as they huddle under a tangle of nasturtium leaves. Originally captioned "Overheard Between the Mice." I wonder what they are saying?

You can download the high-res 6" x 4.5" @ 300 ppi JPG without a watermark for cardmaking, collage, crafting or scrapbooking project 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 Illustration for Cardmaking, Garden and Nature Journals or Scrapbook Page: Birds Exchanging News of Spring

Never cut a tree down in the wintertime.
Never make a negative decision in the low time.
Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods.
Wait. Be patient.
The storm will pass. The spring will come.
― Robert H. Schuller
Antique illustration from the late 1800s showing a sparrow coming to the bullfinches' icy perch to exchange news of spring - will spring be early or late this year? Delicate and subtle sprigs of spring blossoms surround the borders of this image. A great whimsical graphic for greeting cards, garden or nature journals, collage, and scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 6" x 4.5" @ 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 Bird Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage, Crafting or Scrapbooking: Messenger Doves with a Ribbon of Pink Envelopes

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
First-generation digital scan of a vintage postcard from 1906. It shows an illustration of a flock of doves flying towards the recipient with love notes in little pink envelopes strung on a red ribbon. This would make a lovely greeting card for Valentine's or Mother's Day but you could also use it in a mixed media collage project or to decorate a scrapbook page or as a gift tag. You can download the high-res 4" x 6" @ 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 Bird Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Scrapbooking: Robins on Icy Branches with a Rose in Full Bloom Amid Winter Snow

When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Digitally restored and enhanced antique postcard from the early 1900s with an illustration showing a pair of robins percehed on snowy branches in wintertime. Miraculously, a marvelous pink rose is still blooming amid the winter cold.

Free to use in your cardmaking, collage or scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 6" x 4" @ 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.

Free Vintage Bird Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Scrapbooking: The Finches Take Shelter in a Snowstorm

She captured a feeling, sky with no ceiling,
the sunset inside of a frame.
― La La Land
Antique postcard from the early 1900s with an illustration showing a pair of finches, male and female, huddled together on a stalk of wildflower. They are sharing a pale blue umbrella as they take shelter from the snowflakes swirling around them. A frame of birch tree trunks surround the winged couple.

Free to use in your cardmaking, collage or scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 6" x 9" @ 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.

Free Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: Apple-Tree Hall by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald

Here is an antique children's poem of nature and imagination by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald, published in the October 1910 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine.

APPLE-TREE HALL

There's an old spreading apple-tree, gnarly and wide,
In an orchard (I can't tell you where),
Where Dora and I can curl up side by side,
And nobody know we are there.
We go there on Saturdays, -- that's if it's fine,
And Mother is willing, and all, --
Take our dolls and our dishes, and there we keep house
Till tea-time, in Apple-Tree Hall.

There's the loveliest carpet, all wood-brown and gray,
And the walls have a pattern of green;
The windows are curtained the coziest way
That ever was thought of or seen;
And as for the ceiling, it's blue as the sky;
And we've crimson globe-lamps in the fall --
In the spring we have pink, and in summer use none
(Such a saving!), in Apple-Tree Hall.

All the neighbors are charming, -- so musical, too!
Madam Thrush has a voice like a bird,
And the love-songs she sings (in Italian, I think)
Are the sweetest we ever have heard.
Then the dryads and wood-nymphs dwell close to us, too,
Though they are too bashful to call.
The society really is quite the best
When we're living at Apple-Tree Hall.

Oh, I wish I could tell you one half of our plays,
And the fine things we plan when we're there,
Of the books that we'll write and the deeds that we'll do
In the years that wait, shining and fair.
My mother says, sometimes, -- and so does Aunt Kate, --
That these are the best days of all;
But we think it's just the beginning of fun,
Keeping house here in Apple-Tree Hall!

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.