Need some spooky critters that just happen to be French and vintage (and FREE) for your journals and other work? Last year I was lucky enough to acquire a stash of animal and bird prints from 1820. They are from an early encyclopaedia called Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle and I had long fantasised about owning some but they were rarely in my budget, until I was an antique show in France and found a guy with a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of table (my favourite kind). He had hundreds of loose prints from the book and he generously let me cherry pick the ones I couldn’t live without and made me an offer I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) refuse for a job lot. That was a special day.
While I do not make seasonal work I bet a lot of you do so just in time for Halloween, I’ve put high-res printable scans of some of the prints I thought would make terrific additions to journals, collage, cards, and other mixed media projects that you might be coming up with for the season. Or maybe, like me, you can think of other ways to use them for mysterious pages all year long. Anyway, enjoy!
If you have printer, simply
Click on any image to enlarge then right click
Choose “copy image”
Go to an image programme such as Photoshop or Paint (I actually use Word which shouldn’t make sense but I find it simple and it lets me drag and resize the image easily) and right click and choose “paste.
If you don’t have a printer you can put the images onto a thumbdrive/stick and take it to your local copy shop (often found where you buy office supplies or art supplies and sometimes at your local big box store). Or download to your photos on your phone and most copier places will print them using bluetooth. Or why not email them to a friend who has a printer and ask for a favour? You can barter some art in exchange. Or cookies, choose your poison.
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September 5, 2024 at 12:18 pm
Love the images Kelly, Thank you!
Teri Levin
September 5, 2024 at 12:44 pm
It is my pleasure, Teri. I hope you make some fun pages!
September 5, 2024 at 1:26 pm
How fun, Kelly. Thanks from the northeast US!
September 6, 2024 at 10:49 am
It is my real pleasure, Roseanne. Northeast? I used to live in Massachusetts and often camped in Vermont. That northeast?
September 8, 2024 at 3:36 am
Massachusetts? My dad’s family was from Nova Scotia (Acadians) and headed south but only made it as far as Southbridge where they lived in town to work in the Optical Industry in the winter and ran a waterskiing school in Holland called Camp Kitty Kat in the summer. Those were fun summers despite the fact that the family only spoke French and at 6 I didn’t pick up much of what they were saying but I’ll never forget the trip to Maine and my first jump into the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. A little off topic from from your subject but I was introduced to crawdads first by one nipping my toes and then as a delicious dinner.
September 5, 2024 at 6:10 pm
Thank you, Kelly. I appreciate your lovely prints that I can use in my journals.
September 6, 2024 at 10:47 am
Hi Lynne, you are so welcome. Some vintage toads and bats are always good things to have in the library of images, no?
September 5, 2024 at 7:16 pm
Thank you!
September 5, 2024 at 7:26 pm
Lovely, thank you.
September 5, 2024 at 9:02 pm
Does anyone else journal about past lives? I bet yes! Almost all journals are about past events, anything else is a “To-Do List”. I’m loving the bats and frogs– I probably won’t do a Halloween themed book, but am compiling ephemera for a camping, hiking, journal. Fond memories with the grandkids, sitting through a presentation on Bats, with the Park Ranger!
Thanks Kelly, for sharing the images and something pleasant in my email!
(I am looking forward to the next)
September 6, 2024 at 10:47 am
Thanks bunches, Patricia. Quirky bats and toads always come in handy. Past lives? I do a ton of diary work and I guess you’re right, even if that past life is yesterday. I don’t see writing about the future as a to-do list (although it can be) so much as defining and shaping and resetting my life day by day with ideas. Maybe that is the same thing. Anyone else?
September 7, 2024 at 8:58 pm
Since you are both Bat friendly, yesterday I learned about the Hammerhead Bat which is huge and oh so scary ugly looking. It’s head looks like a horse’s, the snout especially. It’s the biggest of all bats, a giant in the sky, big body huge wings.It is worth a look, very scary Halloween appropriate. 🙂
September 9, 2024 at 5:54 pm
Yikes. Off to look that up now. Or should I?
September 6, 2024 at 2:51 am
I think ,I need the frogs for sure. Thanks
September 6, 2024 at 10:44 am
They pretty much fall under the “they’re so ugly they are cute” umbrella.
September 6, 2024 at 2:34 pm
Thank you, Kelly!
September 6, 2024 at 5:03 pm
Myra, it is my very real pleasure. Kelly
September 6, 2024 at 5:08 pm
Thank you Kelly….love the bats!
September 9, 2024 at 5:53 pm
Hi Janet, thanks for stopping by. I hope you can make great bat pages and whatnot.
September 8, 2024 at 10:25 am
These are great, Kelly, thank you!! I love them all!!
September 9, 2024 at 2:39 pm
Thank you for the creepy images. They would have been great in the halloween journal I just finished for my Daughter’s birthday. Her birthday is in October and halloween is her favorite time of the year. I could just print these out and add them to the journal except I have already wrapped it. I had to because I kept putting more and more stuff in it until it was getting too big so I just wrapped it to prevent myself from adding more…..I will just print these out and give them to her in her card to add to the journal herself. Again thanks,
Kathy
September 9, 2024 at 5:56 pm
Hi Kathy. Yes, you could actually make them into cards that she could then tuck into the book herself. Happy Halloween and birthday greetings to Daughter and I hope you enjoy lots of cake.
September 18, 2024 at 4:15 pm
I just happen to be working on Halloween journal right now. Well, procrastinating my way through it. These images are just glorious, thank you for sharing! Gilly