Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Blue Lily from 1800

Blue thou art, intensely blue;
Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?
– James Montgomery
A digitally restored and enhanced antique illustration of a blue lily (African agapanthus or Agapanthus umbellatus) from an 1800 botanical magazine. You can download the free high-resolution 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Can be used in a mixed media collage project, as a greeting card or journal cover, or simply print and frame to enjoy as 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 Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: The Song of the Bee by Nancy Nelson Pendleton

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

THE SONG OF THE BEE
by Nancy Nelson Pendleton
(originally published September 1897)

Buzz, buzz, buzz
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow,
A jolly good fellow,
And yet a good worker is he.

In days that are sunny,
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy,
He's hoarding his wax;
On pinks and on lilacs,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms
He levies a tax.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover
He humming hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings;
He never gets lazy,
From thistle and daisy
And weeds of the meadow
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
From morning's first gray light
Till fading of day light,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through,
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.


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.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Young Lady in a Flower Garden by Tivadar Zemplényi

Young Lady in a Flower Garden
by Tivadar Zemplényi (1864 - 1917)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
― Anaïs Nin

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
― Jane Goodall

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud.
In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.
― Goldie Hawn

Free Vintage Bird Clipart: Profiles of Birds in Finch and Sparrow Family

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
— e.e. cummings
Ten antique illustrations from 1898 that show profiles of birds in the finch and sparrow family. Figure 150 shows a White-throated Sparrow, Figure 151 shows a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Figure 152 shows a White-crowned Sparrow, Figure 153 shows a Chewink, Figure 154 shows a Song Sparrow, Figure 155 is of a Cardinal, Figure 156 is of a Junco, Figure 157 is a Redpoll, Figure 158 is a Snowflake, and last but not least, Figure 159 shows a Dickcissel. You can download the high-res 12" 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.

Free Vintage Tags for Cardmaking, Journaling or Scrapbooking: Victorian Girls in the Garden (Set #1)

A set of two Victorian trade cards originally published in the late 1880s.

The first (lower) card shows a girl in a summer orchard, reaching up to pluck a ripe peach as a colourful bird sings joyfully on a bough. Her image is surrounded by a border of garden roses. A little verse below her hand reads: "Thy name is music unto me, Thy voice the sweetest melody."

The second (upper) card shows another girl surrounded by fall leaves and an overarching tree branch covered with blue violet flowers, waving a handkerchief either in greeting or farewell. The verse that accompanies this card reads: "Smile on the flowers, they bring thee Love!"

Both have blank spaces where you can add your own personal message. You can use these templates in junk journals and scrapbooking or in other graphic design projects such as gift tags and greeting cards.

You can download the high-res 6" x 3.5" @ 300 ppi JPEGs without a watermark here and 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 Animal Clipart for Crafts or Collage: Frolic, the White Squirrel

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
― George Eliot, Mr Gilfil's Love Story
This illustration originally appeared in the December 1904 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine. Drawn by Meredith Nugent, it shows Frolic, a young albino squirrel that became a much-loved family pet. "In June, he stained his paws with strawberries; in August he feasted on mushrooms; and during winter birch buds fresh from the snowy woods were always a great treat." You can download a 6" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG for crafts or mixed media collage projects 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 Template with French Floral Embroidery Design for Cardmaking, Journaling or Scrapbooking

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
A vintage flower embroidery border originally published in an antique 19th century ladies' magazine. I have incorporated it into a template that you can use for cardmaking, journaling or scrapbooking. You can download the free high-res 10" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Add your own words by opening up the file in Photoshop or importing into Microsoft Word. I recommend printing on high-quality heavyweight cardstock or hot-pressed watercolour paper.


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: Green Lattice by Charles Courtney Curran

Green Lattice, 1919
by Charles Courtney Curran (1861 - 1942)
I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by abscence?
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

You felt a deep sorrow, the kind of melancholy you feel when you're in a beautiful place and the sun is going down.
― Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us

Vintage Art Appreciation: Young Girl Carrying a Pumpkin by Fausto Zonaro

Young Girl Carrying a Pumpkin, 1889
by Fausto Zonaro (1854 – 1929)
Before the fruits of prosperity can come, the storms of life need to first bring the required rains of testing, which mixes with the seeds of wisdom to produce a mature harvest.
― Lincoln Patz

We were put on this magical planet, not to dominate and consume her, but to care for her and love her. To harrow gently. To harvest gratefully. To build reasonably.
― David Paul Kirkpatrick

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