Victorian Valentine's Day And Romance Illustrations From The Harper's Young People Illustrations Book From 1889

Nothing speaks Valentine's Day more than Cupid.  And, what Cupid is more charming than the one in the illustration above that appeared in the March 16, 1889 weekly in the Harper's Young People Illustrated book on page 273.  The illustration above was entitled " Love's Valentine" and was drawn by Jessie Shepherd (Jessie Curtis Shepherd).

As a child I can remember getting little paper Valentines on Valentine's Day - can't you?  I can also remember my mother telling me that I could participate but I would need to give a Valentine to every student in the class.  When I asked her why I had to give one to everyone she simply smiled and said: "So no one is left out."  Given I was in the first grade back then I didn't understand the significance of that.  I certainly do now.

The illustration above was in the March 16, 1889 weekly of the Harper's Young People Illustrated book on page 285 and was entitled "Where Cupid Took His Valentine."  It wasn't signed so I don't know who drew it but I find it totally charming and hope you do too.

There are three little illustrations contained within this picture as well as a totally charming poem to go along with the drawings.

"I'm getting sick of Valentines" 

Said Cupid to his brother.

"And do you know I almost think

 I'll never send another.

I carried one a year ago,

 To little Rosebud May,

And found that twenty more or less, 

Had come for her that day.

Now when you send a Valentine 

"Said Cupid," what's the fun.

Of knowing that it simply counts

As "number twenty-one."

I know a child," his brother said

"A little friend of mine,

Who never yet in all her life

Has had a Valentine."

"I'll take her one," cried Cupid,

Springing lightly to his feet,

"Tell me the number of her house,

And kindly name the street."

And only waiting to be told

The best and shortest way

He spread his shining silver wings, 

And flew without delay.

He found the little girl and stood

Before her in surprise

For shabby gowns and ragged cloaks

Were strange to Cupid's eyes.

This lassie had a sweet round face

A dimple in her chin,

But ah, alas! her shoes were worn,

Her dress was old and thin.

One moment Cupid stood amazed

Then with a bow as fine

As any ever seen at court

He gave the Valentine.

"For me!" the little maiden cried

Her eye alight with joy.

"I never had one in my life

Oh, thank you little boy!"

"The thanks are mine," said Cupid,

Still bowing very low

I'll always be your Valentine

If you will have it so."

"Oh dear, how nice!" then with a blush,

"I'm very poor you know."

"Oh that's no matter," Cupid cried,

And smiling turned to go.

Now every year that little lass,

Whose dress is poor and old

Receives the prettiest Valentine

That can be bought for gold.

And Cupid tells his brother,

When e'er they chance to meet,

That rich or poor it matter not

When a little girl is sweet.

Can't you just picture the little maiden above crying: "For me!" I certainly can and love the expression on her face as well as the poem.

Sometimes  you can just feel the love even from a simple illustration, like the one above which appeared in a story about a sea captain in the May 11, 1889 weekly of the Harper's Young People Illustrated book on page 404.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

My Pretty Mixed Media Paper Flowers and Collage Embellished Bottles

I have been having a delightful time experimenting with glass vases and bottles for the past few months.

Some of the bottles I decided to embellish were small 4" - 6" clear bottles from my crafts stash that I wanted to decorate with a Victorian theme.

The four bottles shown in the collage picture above will either remain as mixed media embellished bottles or end up with embellished paper flowers in them.  I haven't decided as of yet.

I decided I wanted my bottles to not only be Victorian in nature but "pretty."  A combination of Victorian, creative embroidery embellishments, collage, and paper-clay stamped images.  In other words, a real mixture of "prettiness"....

My "Circle Me In Dresses" Victorian Wool Felt Penny Rug Dresses Picture Free E-Pattern

As mentioned in a previous post back in 2010 I decided I wanted to try needle felting and penny rug felting with wool felt as it seemed like everyone was having so much fun with it that year. I don't mean wet needle felting where you are actually creating a needle felted object from the wet felt. I'm just not that adventuresome!

Penny rug felting involves using pieces of wool felt hand-sewn in a decorative pattern using a blanket stitch or other embroidered stitch to create a miniature rug that is hung as a decoration or used as a table-mat.

Needle felting is similar to penny rug felting only it also includes using roving that is punched into the wool felt to create part of the decoration. Decorative pieces created of this nature are usually primitive in design and created for a primitive decor.

For needle felting you take a piece of wool felt and place it over a needle felt mat. Then you take a bunch of the roving and using the needle felt tool you keep punching the roving into the wool felt piece until you get the desired effect that you want.

Wool penny rugs started out as coin shaped decorations stitched together from scraps of fabric.

According to Wikipedia.com: In the 1800's, starting around the time of the Civil War, thrifty homemakers would use scraps of wool or felted wool from old clothing, blankets and hats to create designs for mats or rugs. Using coins as templates, they created circles and each piece was then stitched in blanket stitch fashion. (Thus, the name "penny" rug). Sometimes, the mats or rugs were backed with old burlap bags or feed sacks. Sometimes a penny was stitched inside the mat to make it lie flat.

Penny rugs and needle felted wool decorations are very popular with the "primitive" home decorating community.  They are no longer rugs for the floors but have developed into all sorts of decorations for ones home.

My Victorian Wool Felt Embroidered & Embellished Dress Ornament Free Combo E-Patterns

How can you not love a combination of everything and anything Victorian and crafting with wool felt. Not sure you can. At least I can't...lol

After creating 9 handmade Victorian wool felt dress ornaments that I embroidered and embellished with beads, ribbons, and lace trim decorations I decided to create Victorian wool felt dress free e-patterns for so you could create some of your own.

Recently I decided to create three 6 in 1 Victorian wool felt dress free e-patterns so you could create multiple combinations of my Victorian dresses.  I hoe you enjoy creating your own wool felt Victorian dress ornaments.

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"Black Elegance Belles, Green With Envy Belles and Waltz Thru The Pink Night Belles" Free Combo E-Pattern #1

I love dresses of every kind, shape and size.  I especially love Victorian dresses and thought it would be fun to make some Victorian dress ornaments out of wool felt.

If you love making dresses, too then you're going to love our wool felt Victorian embroidered and embellished dress ornament s6 in 1 combo free e-pattern.

6 in 1"Black Elegance Belles, Green With Envy Belles and Waltz Thru The Pink Night Belles" Wool Felt Victorian Embroidered And Embellished Dress Ornaments Combo E-Pattern- 38 Pages

Wool Felt Victorian Embroidered & Embellished Dress Ornaments Free E-Patterns

I just LOVE creating with wool felt. Whether it's an ornament, a pillow, a wall-hanging, a doll or a penny rug - I just LOVE it.

I was introduced to penny rugs during a shopping trip with my Mom to Sturbridge many, many years ago. There were several wonderful primitives shops out there that we liked to visit who carried primitive doll kits, wool felt kits, punch-needle kits, and penny rug kits.

One store in particular specialized in wool fabric. And, boy, did they have wool fabric. Some of the most beautiful wool fabric you'd ever want to see. And, boy, was it EXPENSIVE.

This store, in particular, would put together wool fabric bundles, maybe 10-15 wool pieces per bundle. I just loved looking at the color combination's and would imagine what I could make out of them. Then, my Mother would snap me back to reality by turning the price tag over. YIKES! Beautiful wool is expensive. Alas, all I could do was dream and save my pennies.

During the last couple of years there was also a store out there that we liked to visit that put together penny rug kits. It, too, is no longer there. However, during our last visit I bought several penny rug wool kits and, finally, had a chance to put some of them together during the summer  of 2010.  That's when I developed a love for penny rugs. I was already in love with wool felt as I had been using it for my doll and animal crafts for years and this was a new craft I could try.

That new craft turned into a love of penny rugs and wool felt.  Not only do I love penny rugs and wool felt but I also love everything and anything Victorian and love it when I can combine a love for Victorian dresses with a love for crafting with wool felt. Such was the case when I was designing and making handmade Victorian wool felt ornaments with embroidery and embellishments.

After creating nine handmade Victorian wool felt dress ornaments that I embroidered and embellished with beads, ribbons, and lace trim decorations I decided to create Victorian wool felt dress ornaments e-patterns for all of them so you could create some of your own.  I hope you enjoy creating your Victorian embroidered and embellished dress ornaments as much as I did and fall in love with penny rugs and wool felt.

My Christmas Victorian Themed Mixed Media and Collage Embellished Bottles

As you all know from my previous posts I spent the last two months blissfully creating mixed media Christmas crafts.  I was in crafting heaven.  So, in thinking about some of the bottle crafts I wanted to make now I decided I would make some Victorian themed Christmas mixed media bottles that could function as vases with embellished paper flowers.

However, after creating four Christmas bottles I decided they would stay as bottles as I loved them just the way they were and hope after reading this post and seeing the pictures you'll agree.

I decided that I wanted all four of the bottles to have a stamped oval or round paper-clay Christmas words saying in the front of the bottle.  I chose "Joy, Peace On Earth, and Merry Christmas" word stamps.

I also decided I wanted all four sides of the four bottles to be covered with scrapbook papers with Victorian Christmas images or Victorian graphic images and with various mixed media trims, ropes, ribbons and different paint embellishments.

For the bottles above first I added old book page collage papers to them.  Then I sponge painted them with a dark green acrylic paint and then a combination of different metallic green paints, metallic red paint, metallic gold or silver paint, red acrylic paint and white acrylic paint.  After the Victorian Christmas images were added I sealed the bottles with a glazing medium.

Old Man Winter Illustrations From The Harper's Young People Illustrations Book From 1889

For someone who doesn't like winter and snow I don't mind making snowmen or looking at Victorian winter illustrations like the illustration above which was in the December 8, 1888 weekly in the Harper's Young People Illustrated Book on page 61.  It was entitled "Such a Heavy Load."

The illustration above was in the November 2, 1889 weekly in the Harper's Young People Illustrated Book on page 814.  It was entitled "Our Champion Climbers."

I just love the look on the little girl and little boy's face.  She looks like she's say, "This is not fun!" He looks like he's saying, "See, I told you we could do this."

The illustration above was in the December 1, 1888 weekly in the Harper's Young People Illustrated Book on page 41. It was drawn by E.J. Meeker.

I just love the old man winter image in the sky and the saying:

King winter rules o'er hill and plain,

And shrill the north wind whistles.

While snow-flakes white, a fairy train,

Fall soft as floating thistles.

For look, a painter grey and old,

Above the storm abiding,

With stars and spheres and crystals cold,

The bare brown earth is hiding.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the Victorian old man winter illustrations.

Victorian Girls and Dolls Pictures From The Harper's Young People Illustrations Book From 1889

I love dolls.  I love making dolls and I always loved playing with my dolls.  I also love the Victorian Era, history, and books.  So, it should come as no surprise that I would love illustrations from the Harper's Young People Illustrations Book From 1889 that I found recently.

As you might recall from a previous Linda's Blog post Some of the mixed media projects this summer I created some mixed media items that required quite a bit of old book papers for collage purposes.  So much so I ran out of the book pages.

Well, in looking around the house I found an old Harper's Young People Illustrations Book from 1889 that was in poor condition and with some of the pages already missing.

I don't know where this book came from and who it belonged to.  Most of the old books I have belonged to my great Aunt Flossie but I didn't think this was one of hers.  The time-frame was right but the book wasn't signed with her name - which she always did on the inside of the front cover.