Digital art sources

I love artwork. I rely very heavily on the creative illustrations of others (the one exception is the artwork on my Fish Invitation, whose sea creatures were done by moi, purely because I couldn't find fish illustrations for cheap when I needed them).

My favorite source has long been istockphoto.com, which serves up a ton of photos, illustrations and more. I tend to use the illustrations as they often better suit the style of my cards. It really is a wonderful source, and, while you do have to pay for each item, photos are as low as $1 (for a low, web-resolution image). Illustrations are typically $10, but since I started designing cards professionally (it seems odd to say that, but I guess I lost my amateur status with my first etsy sale. Huzzah! But, sadly, will never get to compete on the Olympic level if card-making were ever deemed an actual sport) then forking over that small initial investment has seemed worth it for the quality of the artwork that I've been buying.

I was recently impressed with some cards that were sold locally that featured vintage artwork (illustrations of happy housewives, cute old-fashioned valentines day cards, etc) and wondered where to find something similar.

It was right under my nose: etsy!

I found some truly lovely Alice in Wonderland artwork from rebelsher, a fellow etsy seller. A number of etsy folks seem to do quite well by collecting and scanning artwork that is now in the public domain. Costs and quality between different vendors appear to vary widely, but I'm quite pleased with my Alice in Wonderland art, which was emailed to me quite promptly.

The cost for this: $2.50! What a wonderful bargain! And the same seller has some other similar artwork to check out as well...

I'm working on a pop-up card with the Red Queen pointing an accusatory finger at Alice. Both Alice and the queen will pop up away from the background of the card.

This vintage-look card will be a bit of a departure from the rest of my work, but it is fun so far!

I will post an image of the work in progress as soon as I can get my craft robo to cooperate and finish cutting the two figures..... ergh!

This will be a cute card and, with the never-ending fascination with Alice in Wonderland, I suspect it might be popular, but I have to figure out what it's for (birthday? just a notecard?) and a cute phrase to tie it all together.... clearly the queen is screaming her trademark "Off with her head!" but how to work that into a birthday greeting.... copywriting isn't my strongest suit.

I can see a series of Alice in Wonderland note cards that I can sell as a set... hmmm.....