I’m not quite sure what it is with my fascination with bunnies, bees and clover recently. It must be a Spring Thing after being cooped up inside the house all winter. We’ve had an awful lot of snow and some sub-zero temps.
This cute little bunny is sharing a big bouquet of spring’s first batch of tender green clover with a little fairy friend. She looks rather hesitant, as if she’s uncertain as to whether he would like for her to eat it or use it as a bouquet. It might be a bit of both, since you’d share your food with someone you care about, right?
I’ve included two images, one that can be used as a digital download or coloring page, and the second can be used as the same, but includes spaces for addressing it to Someone Special from You!
For You From, Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
This image has an area for you to write in the name of Someone Special you’d like to give your colored image to.
We all love freebies! Me, included. Here’s a FREE adorable digitally downloadable printable jpg file (300 dpi) for you to use in your St. Patrick’s Day and Spring crafting projects – scrapbooking, digital stamping, cardmaking, papercrafting, journaling, albums, gift tags, adult coloring, stickers, and more!
For You!
From Me!
For You, From Me, Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
If you are looking for images to add an antique or vintage flair to your cards, page layouts, journals, gift tags and more, please see the folowing comprehensive lists in two of my previous blog posts. These posts contain links to millions of public domain (copyright free) images! You’ll find the most wonderful and intriguing photos, posters, postcards, stamps, old book illustrations and more!
I believe it’s only fair to warn you, though….you’re going to feel like Alice in Womderland once you start your search, and you may never want to come back out of that amazing rabbit hole!
FREE Printable Digital Downloads for Your DIY St. Patrick’s Day Projects
The following sites are great resources for digitally downloadable and printable resources for FREE scrapbook layouts, images, vector, embellishments, papers, fonts and more! They aren’t just for digital scrapbooking, but are wonderful to find images and parts and pieces to print out for all of your creative projects and physical scrapbooks!
*Please check each site’s policy on how the images may be used, especially if you intend to use them on a blog, website, or on products for resale.
More FREE St. Patrick’s Day Resources
For MORE free public domain (copyright free) images to use in your St. Patrick’s Day projects – scrapbooking, papercrafting, greeting cards, mini albums, journaling, bible journaling, bullet journals, stickers, gift tags, wrapping paper and more – please see the previous blog post.
St. Paddy’s Day is almost here! Time to get your Irish on with some thrifty fun.
Crafting is pricey. And I’m guessing that if you are reading this, you probably have a veritable dragon’s lair, and horde, of arting and crafting supplies of all types, shapes and sizes…definitely enough to make a dragon jealous.
So, for those of us who are insatiable crafters and seem to always be putting out large sums of money on new supplies, it’s always nice to be able to get our crafty hands on freebies to help give our favorite projects just the right touch. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a handy-dandy all-in-one list of sites where you can find FREE public domain images for use in your St. Paddy’s projects.
This list includes vintage images, photographs, line art, book illustrations and more. Any and every subject and holiday you can possible imagine is there just waiting for you to dive in and explore! On your mark, get set, GO!
Be sure to read the policy of the site you get your images from. Some sites have a limitation on how many images which can be reused from their site and how. This is important.
Don’t forget about old books, magazines, postcards and other paper ephemera that can be purchased on sites like eBay! These can be scanned in, saved, digitally manipulated, cleaned up and printed off for favorite projects, too! If you plan on reselling something with one of these images on it, make sure to read up on copyright laws. Anything pre-1923 in the U.S. is generally safe to use, but copyright law is tricky, so please read and research carefully to be sure.
Hoppy St. Paddy’s Day to SomeBunny Special! Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
It’s that time of year
For stripey bees and clover…
Those tiny leafy plants –
White and green all over.
St. Paddy’s Day is here,
’Cause it’s that time of year!
I’m working on this digital greeting card design in Procreate. It’s a lot easier, faster, and less troublesome to create a practice greeting card on the iPad than it is to break out the paper, coloring supplies, glue sticks, buttons, scissors, embellishments, ribbon, etc. (It’s not that I don’t have piles and piles of 6×6, 8.5 x 11, 12 x 12 cardstock and scrapbooking paper in many different shades, prints, textures and surfaces, ribbon of all kinds – satin, grosgrain, sheer, wired, buttons in every shape, size, and subject matter, low temp glue guns, glue sticks, archival glue sticks, jewelry glue, stickers from various sticker companies across the globe, and other necessities. It’s definitely not that…or maybe it is. ) And when I break it out, I “break.it.out.” You know what I mean. And, my husband is MUCH happier if I don’t.
Designing attractive greeting cards is not easy, as I’m discovering. Making them look half-way decent is one thing. Making them look GOOD is another. But, making them look good enough for people to want to purchase is another kettle of fish entirely.
And that would be why companies spend millions on research into the psychological aspects of colors, shape, design, marketing trends and whatnot. It’s also why companies have a huge staff of folks who handle completely separate parts of the design process: linework, coloring, character design, lettering, page design, etc.
So, I’m going to keep practicing in Procreate until my craft room(s) is/are slightly more orderly, and try to keep hubby fairly happy (since he’s the one who pays for all the craft supplies).
Hoppy St. Paddy’s to Ya!
Hoppy St. Paddy’s Day to SomeBunny Special! Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
I’ve always had this fascination for red hair. As a child. I wanted to be a red head. As a kid with plain straight brown hair, blue eyes, and lots of freckles all over my nose and around my face….and I do mean “lots”…there was just Something about the lure of RED hair that captured my imagination.
Charlie Brown was always in love with the elusive “little red-headed girl.” And it seemed to me that being a red-head would be so amazingly wonderful, fun, adventurous, exciting, glamorous and freeing. My favorite book heroine had red hair…Anne of Green Gables. Look how adventurous and exciting and romantic her life was!
Maybe it had something to do with my maiden name “Hagerty” and the funny pride all Americans seem to hang onto and display whenever they talk about their “heritage.” “Hagerty” is an Irish name, from the South of Ireland (I believe, but don’t quote me on that). It is a derivative of “O’Hegarty.” Being very curious, I looked up the old meaning of this family name and found that it means “unjust.” That put a slight damper on my enthusiasm for my family name and “heritage.”
In elementary school, I can remember looking forward to St. Patrick’s Day with gusto. I was so proud to be “Irish” and a Hagerty. This was My day!
Because I was “Irish,” I didn’t even have to wear the pre-requisite green to avoid being pinched! At least, that’s what I proudly informed my classmates who sauntered over to me with that knowing look in their eye scanning to see if I had any on and if that gave them an open door to pinch me. If they really pressed me on not wearing green, I’d just tell them my underwear were green. There was no way they could verify that! (They just had to take my word for it.)
But, being the proud “Irish-American” that I was, I ALWAYS planned way ahead for this day and what green I wore. I think I might have forgotten to wear it once, being a kid, but I’m pretty sure I was on top of it the rest of the time.
I honestly don’t know how my Irish ancestors came to America or when. I don’t think there was anything royal, noble or famous lined up in my ancestry. I think they were just good hearty, honest farming stock, probably motivated by the Great Potato famine in Ireland. I know two sides of my family have been here since before the Revolution, and another was here in the 1600s, but who it was exactly, I honestly couldn’t tell you (and you could probably care less, lol). I’m qualified to be in the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) organization, but for the life of me, there’s no way I can provide the necessary documention, or even relevant information, to make it official.
In high school in the 80s, I finally decided to give that red-haired dream a go when Sun-In was all the rage. You spray it in your hair, sit in the sun or blow dry your hair, and the heat activates the peroxide – resulting in red or blond highlights. I think I was hoping for more of the blond at that time, but I would have been happy with either blond or red. Unfortunately, I got orange. And it lasted a loooonnnngggg time. I waited, and waited and waited for it to grow out. So much for that dream of glorious red hair.
I’m still fascinated by red hair, but now I’m just fascinated by pretty much anything and everything….as an artist, everything interests me. There are so many beautiful people with all kinds of beautiful hair colors, textures, ethnicities, cultures, languages the world over. I have been so privileged to meet many and call them friends and students.
My hair is now long and plain, normal everyday brown, with an awful lot of silvery gray, but my husband and kids think it’s pretty, and that’s all that matters to me now. Sometimes, I’ll unintentionally wear it a certain way, they’ll stop me, examine it, tell me to turn my head this way or that, and exclaim over how pretty the silver is. And here I thought it was mousy brown.
I don’t color it because I remember my high school fiasco with the Sun-In all too well and don’t want to have to go through that again, or have to constantly touch up roots every 4 to 6 weeks. I’m too lazy for that much effort. I’ll just pull my hair back into a ponytail or bun, thank you.
I figure if hubby and the kids like it, and they’re the ones that have to look at it, then it’s all good. 😀
*This sweet little red-headed girl is available in my Etsy shop SherryWestArt for papercrafting, scrapbooking, stamping and more!
We are having a Happy St. Patrick’s Day Coloring Contest in my Facebook group Sherry West Art Adult Coloring.
Come on over and join us, make new friends with wonderful, caring, supportive, encouraging people and for a free downloadable coloring page. Enter your coloring of this page for a chance to win a brand new coloring book from my personal stash!
We live in a big old fixer-upper house on a hill by a river, with a large yard chock full of clover. Darling wild little cotton-tail bunnies hop and rabbit-trail all over the yard in search of dainty morsels that spring from the grass each morning.
Their white cottony little fluff-ball tails bob up and down as they hop to and fro across the yard. The kids and I all yell “Bunnies!!!” if one of us sees one so we can run to the window to watch them.
They are wild bunnies, so they are woodsy-colored with their variegated brown and gray coats, but their tummies and tails are creamy white and as just as cute as they can possibly be.
Always on the lookout while they eat, they sometimes sit straight up with their ears tall and erect, barely moving.
We had the great good fortune to take care of a baby bunny that our cats were about to have for their supper. We tried to leave it underneath the bush where the mother bunny had left it, but the cats always watched us. For the safety of the baby, we brought it indoors and raised it. In the springtime, it was large enough to release outdoors safely.
We were all very sad to see our little bunny go, but that was where he belonged, and we were glad we could help him get through the winter.
Every now and then, we drive into town in the evening. When we return home and go up the drive, bunnies invariably dash out of the bushes up the long drive-way, scattering in all directions, with their little white tails bobbing up and down in the headlights. We yell “runny bunny!,” and everyone gets terribly excited, adults included.
Since we live out in the outer areas of a small farm town, our place is surrounded by fields of corn, hay and soy beans – a bunny haven. This is what we have fondly (although unofficially) renamed our home – “Bunny Haven.” And, it really is.
Bunnies
Sherry West
Morning dawns for the clear fresh day –
Drowsy bunnies dart out to play.
Mama nibbles in a clover bay;
Cotton-tail nestlings, so blithe and gay,
Tag one another, then dash away.
Afternoon sun in bright array –
In quiet, cool burrows they placidly lay.
Evening’s pale moon draws near to stay –
Joyous little bunnies
Caper, leap, frolicking, play.
(This is a set of five images which is currently sold in my Etsy shop SherryWestArt https://www.etsy.com/shop/SherryWestArt , which is wonderful for creating greeting cards, ecards, scrapbooking, adult coloring and many other papercrafting activities.
These images were created digitally using my Ipad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate, and are suitable for high-quality printing.)
HAPPY ART FOR A HAPPY HEART! 