Downloads – Hero & Bea

Hello, friends!

Thanksgiving has passed. There’s frost on the ground. Tonight, I will watch the last episode of this season of the Great British Bake-Off.

It is now, officially, the holiday season.

As you might have guessed, I ~love~ the holidays. (It’s the best time of the year! I practically run on hot chocolate, Ella Fitzgerald is always on the radio, and everyone wears turtlenecks! The chicest of clothing!!)

Today, I’m kicking off this most wonderful season with some literary-inspired desktop wallpapers. These downloads feature wintery and Christmas-y quotes from three classic books, and I hope they help get you into the joyful spirit as well.

So, grab your turtlenecks, and let’s get to it!

download here: desktop | iPhone

This first wallpaper features a paraphrased quote from one of my favorite childhood book series, Anne of Green Gables. Specifically, we’re looking at Anne of Avonlea, the second installment, in which our heroine has taken up teaching in her beloved Canadian town. Having awoken to a lovely wintery dusting, Anne marvels at the transformative nature of snow:

She had a good sleep that night and awakened in the morning to find herself and the world transformed. It had snowed softly and thickly all through the hours of darkness and the beautiful whiteness, glittering in the frosty sunshine, looked like a mantle of charity cast over all the mistakes and humiliations of the past.
Anne of Avonlea

I am 100% sure Lorelai Gilmore would approve of this quote.

download here: desktop | iPhone

Little Women is a stealth Christmas book, in that it takes place across all seasons but its best scenes (I think) are set during the holidays. This paraphrased quote comes from one of those scenes:

The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
Little Women

I once took a Which Little Women Character Are You? quiz and gasped in both awe and horror when it revealed I am a combination Jo-Amy. I hope this wallpaper, unlike that experience, helps bring some cheerful tranquility to your hours of screen time.

download here: desktop | iPhone

We round today off with a quote from Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. Lewis Carroll’s Alice books defy all logical holiday characterization (besides unbirthdays, really) but this quote seems fittingly dreamy for upcoming December days:

“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

Through the Looking Glass

Enjoy your last days of November, friends!

lulu

P.S. these are the fonts I used to make today’s wallpapers: Astida, MADE Barista, MADE Sunflower, Torches. Check them out, they’re super cool! (:

Happy Sunday friends!

I hope you’re enjoying all the lovely things that late fall has to offer: fuzzy socks, warm tea, gingersnaps, the start of plaid skirt season, the works! My mind, per usual, has jumped straight to the holidays (A Very Kacey Christmas plays in an eternal loop on my Spotify account) but I am enjoying these last tastes of fall as well.

Autumn, after all, is one of my favorite times of year to read fairytales! With an abundance of spooky forests, magic lore, and gruesome-yet-beautiful imagery, folklore retellings always seem to feel at home in the brisk fall air. My latest read, Poisoned, certainly does! Jennifer Donnelly’s newest book has Grimm-style gore, plenty of kindness, and a heroine whose clockwork heart charmed my own.

Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen’s huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman pulled out his knife . . . and took Sophie’s heart.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule — a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she’d heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . .
With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can’t extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.
Goodreads

Jennifer Donnelly is such a talented writer, and I always marvel at the command of language she displays in her books. Poisoned — like Donnelly’s 2019 output, Stepsister — is a refreshing take on a classic tale; it both celebrates and subverts the beats of the Grimm Brothers’ Snow White. It’s feminist and folksy! A winning combo!!

In honor of Poisoned, I’ve created some desktop wallpapers with a favorite quote of mine from the book. You can check out the wallpapers and download them below!