When it comes to Christmas images, boughs of holly just seem to bring forth images of garlands of green leaves and red berries draped around fireplace hearths. Wreaths of holly are so striking when hung on a front door. Our holly bushes have berries much of the year but even when it is during the heat of August, the plant just somehow says Christmas.
This vintage black and white image from 1875 is no doubt one of those ‘stock’ images that were sold by print foundries. They would offer graphics, letters and shapes for publishers to use. They often looked much like our rubber stamps of today do in printing areas of light and dark and here and there things might get a little muddy or have missing bits and pieces.
This drawing of a holly bough and berries actually looks a bit nicer when you make it smaller. I was going to offer it in the smaller size but though by giving you the original, you would have more sizing options. We don’t have a lot of them, but you might want to look at one of our Photoshop Tutorials & Tricks to colorize the leaves and/or berries.
I would think if you used two of these vintage Christmas images together, it could be quite pretty. Just use this image with its original orientation and take another one, flip it horizontally and meet them in the middle. Maybe add a bit of red ribbon tied into a bow in the middle and you could really spice up this two-dimensional vintage Christmas image from Betty’s Bright Idea and use it for a package tag or part of a Christmas card.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
