A little "thank you"

12 Days of Christmas Give Aways = 12 Winners

But I was so overwhelmed by the positive responses and by your support within the first few weeks of starting Commona-my house, that I want all of you to feel like you have won something.

SOOOO...after much searching on-line, I found a very special site that has free downloads. But not just any downloads.  Remember Day 11: Butterfly Calendar and the design suggestion to make a calendar into art prints? Well, this site Botanicus.org has meticulously digitally scanned their collection and has made it available on line.  This is a treasure trove made available from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. Some of the prints are from books as early as the 1600s.

The prints you see above are only examples. They have many modern looking prints as well.

I'll walk you through how to go about finding a print or several prints that you will love.

1. Go to the botanicus.org subject page. 

2. Choose a subject to poke around in.  (Butterflies, Plants,  etc). If you end up in a subject you aren't finding anything in, to get back to this subject page, click on the subject file option at the top.

3. You will be presented with a myriad of books titles.  Choose one to start searching in.

4. They will show you page by page what is in the book that you have chosen to view.

5. Scroll through the pages. Most of the prints appear in the page line as ILLUSTRATION or appear at the end of the book.  

6. Once you have found a print that you like, guess what, you download it from the upper right corner of their screen. This is a fantastic way to have a series of prints. Sort of custom.

7. Once you have your artwork saved on your computer or a zip drive, you can experiment with either printing it on your own printer, with cardstock paper, rather than just regular printer paper. Or you may want to take your zip drive to a copy center and have them print them for you.  You could have them enlarge the print(s) to legal size and crop and enlarge as you wish. This would be a great budget friendly project, to do one each month..print and frame, then do another the following month, etc.

SO, HERE IS YOUR GIFT!  

Do you want to find a lemon print?

 or a fern print? 

or a butterfly?

map of S. America?

It's all there..how much time do you have on your hands?

-To sort of get the hang of this, click on home page  http://www.botanicus.org/browse.  There is only 1 book in the "butterflies" section. Click "butterflies".  Then, click on the book title (German, from the Harvard Library,Exotische schmetterlinge /von Dr. O. Staudinger und Dr. E. Schatz. Publication Info: Fürth :V.G. Löwensohn,1888-1892. ). The book cover will appear.  On your left margin, scroll down to the end of the book (which is mostly text).  Every other page in this section is a butterfly print. Click on any of the pages that start with Taf. and a #. When you find one that you love, there is a rectangle with arrows on your right upper corner of the screen. Adjust any placement and then click the straight down arrow. It's yours.

Butterflies,  Taf. 6

Butterflies, Taf. 2

I think if you are looking for a specific type of flower, or subject matter and you can't find a calendar with that subject then this is a fantastic option, especially if you want a huge set, as the one pictured above (there aren't 21 months in a calendar, only 12!  But if you are sort of happy with any subject, you are looking for 12 or less  and you can find a calendar that you like...the calendar would be my first small time-investment option.  This is FREE to download but requires a bit of time to hunt and peck and find your gem and don't forget: you have to print it.

To see more inspiration print walls read this again about Calendar Art as Prints.

I hope you like this gift from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library.  It's there when you're ready for your print(s).

Thank you for making the 12 Days of Give Aways so much fun. It truly has been better to give! And I feel blessed to have this happy corner of the blogosphere to share.

Commona-my house will be having regular monthly give aways starting again at the end of January!

XXXOOO!