Botanicals on Black Paper and Mary Delany

It's no secret that I love botanical prints. But I really, really love botanicals with black backgrounds.

Jamie's store, Furbish

MSL

It seems like black botanicals are sort of hard to come by? I searched eBay and etsy and then I moved to Amazon. There I stumbled across this book about Mary Delaney.

It sounds like she was a fascinating society woman and artist in her day (the mid-late 1700's), who, between the ages of 72 and 82, made over 1,000 botanical works constructed almost entirely from cut paper. Can you imagine!?! I am endlessly inspired.

Lucky us, the British Museum allows downloading and printing of their images for personal use! Here are some of Mrs. Delaney's many works.

New York Public Library

I had a different post scheduled for this morning, but I had a 'stop the presses' moment when I saw this post from design*sponge pop up in my reader.

HOLY JACKPOT!!

If you thought Vintage Printables was good, you are going to die when you see the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. There are all sorts of beautiful images just begging to be printed off and framed.

I'm strangely obsessed with floor plans. I would love to frame a series of these NYC pre-war building floor plans.

These pages from the Builder's Pocket Book are AMAZING.

Check out this amazing cabinet maker's guide

A cute little bird to add to a gallery wall

I love the colors in this fish print.

Cool engravings of objects in the Empire style

And of course, more botanical prints than you could ever wish to hang.

These floral prints would be wonderful inspiration for a bedroom

I would use the bottom orange portion of this page

And what an amazing series this set would make

Love this floral

and this one

wow, so pretty

{I'm assuming since there is a 'print' button on all these pages, that the images are copyright-free. Please note that there is also an option to purchase the prints, if you want them in larger sizes.}

Beautiful Sponsor: Once Upon a Paper

I am loving these adorable love birds by Once Upon a Paper. Elena's shop is filled with bright and colorful tree and love bird prints.

She loves trees and states, "So dedicating a few sheets of paper to the image and spirit of trees is just my way of giving back to our woods. I use part of my profits from this shop to plant trees in my old garden. We should all do so. "

Thank you Once Upon a Paper!

Would you like to be a sponsor of Bright, Bold, and Beautiful?

Please e-mail me for rates: laura.trevey@gmail.com

eBay Art

I love to buy inexpensive art on eBay.

This is my favorite search:
Paintings, original, oil, pre-1800-1969, $0-$200.

Here are a few favorites up for auction right now:

floral still life


seaside scene


pretty landscape


un-floral floral.


Another floral. Love this one.


Village street


Painterly hydrangeas in a bamboo frame? What's not to love?


Tiny lovliness


Moody abstract


This oil is my favorite piece of art in our home. I bought it on eBay last year for almost nothing - it felt sort of dishonest, I got it for so cheap.

I love the lady peeping out behind the flowers. And the colors just sing to me.

I think it's from the 20s or 30s. The canvas is pretty crusty and a little saggy. It could use a professional cleaning and it really needs to be restretched, but all that can wait a year or two.

Vintage Scarves as Pillows

One of my clients inherited quite a few vintage silk scarves from her grandmother. Lots of Liberty of London and Vera.

We're putting the collection to good use. One will be framed and several others made into pillows. One of my favorite scarves is a sweet blue Liberty of London floral that will go on a chair in the nursery. It looks just like this one, available here:


Both Martha and Eddie Ross have featured this same idea for turning scarves into pillows and shared their instructions here and here.

image via Eddie Ross

image via Martha Stewart Living

Framing vintage scarves is another great idea.

Country Living

Domino

House and Garden by way of Style Court

Martha Stewart Living

World of Interiors via

This framed Vera scarf hung in the Rockefeller Center Anthropologie.

image via the Vera Co blog

If you're not lucky enough to inherit dozens of vintage scarves, check out eBay for an incredible and very inexpensive selection. Here are some of my favorites up for auction right now:

Orange, teal and yellow Vera



YSL



40s floral


Pink and yellow



Vera cityscape


For my color-loving Canadian readers!



Red and gray Vera
Navy polkadots!




Blue and orange stylized floral


Make two boudior sized pillows out of this long Vera floral



French floral


Red and white stripey


Kick start your collection of LofL scarves!



Emerald green (the color du jour for me)


Any other great ideas for repurposing vintage scarves?