The Pearly Story Behind "Dusting in Pearls"


I always feel like a walking paradox. I can get out in the garden with my shovel and sledgehammer and love every dusty dirty minute I'm out there. I spend the majority of my life dressed in my "grubbies". Yet there's a part of me deep down inside that still likes "the frillies", "the pearlies", and "the sparklies"--all the pretty things. Maybe it's all the great classic Hollywood movies I watched as a kid. I don't know. All I know is that I can be dirty and sweaty and still want to put on heels when it isn't practical; buy the prettiest apron even if it will get dirty; and don pearls when all I'm going to be doing is dusting and vacuuming the house. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to. I've decided to claim it, celebrate it, and have fun with it... and create some "pearly" goodness along the way.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

NEW COLLECTION! The Lure of Fishing


I am really excited to announce the release of a new collection of authentic vintage art and graphics at the Rosehaven Cottage Digital Download Shop--"The Lure of Fishing".

A few years ago, I acquired a collection of travel brochures that was compiled by a young girl back in the the 1950's. She had written to different boards of tourism in the various states and territories of the U.S. and received standard tourism packets in return. Each packet had been carefully preserved and untouched for over 50 years when they were given to me by the all-grown-up collector.

As an artist and graphic designer with a love of vintage illustration, I have treasured the collection as a treasure trove of inspiration and irreplaceable vintage photographs (many in color!). But for a long time, I've tried to figure out a way to share them with others in a format that would inspire others' creativity as they had inspired mine. Last month, the solution finally came to me! I could share the images in collections as digital downloads!

I carefully scan each graphic image using my high-resolution art scanner. Then I take each graphic into Photoshop CS3 and digitally restore it. Once that is done, each graphic is compiled with other coordinating graphics onto a 300 dpi digital sheet with 12"x12" physical dimensions for printing. Each coordinate sheet can each be purchased separately to mix and match. The sheets can be printed and cut apart by hand or cut apart digitally and used for a variety of creative projects.

"The Lure of Fishing" is the first of a number collections I plan to release. Click on any of the images below to read more about that particular set.






IMPORTANT "PEARLY" NOTE: If you are using Internet Explorer, you aren't having the most beautiful "pearly" experience that you could have if you were viewing this site with Mozilla Firefox for the PC or Firefox for the Mac which is available for FREE download at the above links.