Vintage Botanical Prints and Illustrations – Where to Find Them, Plus 5 Botanical Print Projects

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Do you know where to find vintage botanical prints online? I first saw vintage botanical prints being used in home decor when I was a little girl. My aunt had these huge vintage botanical prints framed and hanging on her wallpaper covered walls. I remember admiring the botanical prints, in spite of the palm print wallpaper. I am no home decor expert by any means, I pretty much know what I like and what I definitely don’t like when it comes to my home decor style.

I feel like I need to offer a little disclaimer about the length of today’s post. It’s just that I’m really loving these botanical prints and I don’t want you to miss out on such a gorgeous and economical way to add touches of color to your home decor! 

I love neutrals with a little pop of color here and there. I love clean, organized and uncluttered spaces. I love the cottage and farmhouse styles with it’s white-on-white, simple, back to basics style. I like a place that feels comfortable, safe and inviting. Big comfy chairs to cozy up in by the fire. A place for everything and everything in its place. I love shiplap, painted wood walls, hardwood floors, a big apron front kitchen sink, clutter-free countertops, white dishes, a big long wooden dining table (that’s full of stories and character), Mason jars filled with everything and handmade touches. I mostly like a clean, inviting, uncluttered space that my family calls “home.”

I don’t know exactly what you call that style. I think of it as modern farmhouse with a touch of cozy cottage comfort. That’s me. That’s what I like!

I also happen to like these vintage botanicals that seem to be popping up everywhere from home decor blogs, sites like Houz and Zillow and even on Fixer Upper and Magnolia Market. I really think these vintage botanical prints can be used in many different styles. It’s all in how you frame them, display them and the space they’re used in.

I thought I would share with you a couple of sources for vintage botanical prints online and a few project ideas for using those prints in your home decor.

The first botanical prints I ever used in my own home were ones I had found in an old gardening book that my husband’s grandfather had in his library. When I was in my 20’s (just a couple of years ago), I was really into gardening and learning everything I could about it – vegetable, herb and flower gardening. I was fascinated with the whole idea of having a vegetable garden, canning our fresh vegetables and enjoying them over the winter. Doesn’t that sound amazing? Open up a can of tomatoes that were canned fresh from our garden in the middle of an Ohio winter and one bite takes you back to summer. Summer in a jar! That’s what home canning was to me.

So, grandpa gave me this old, yellowed gardening book and I literally ripped the pages out of the books and framed them in my kitchen. I felt really bad about ripping out the pages, but I told myself I was giving the book new life. (I still feel bad about ripping out those pages!) Thankfully, I don’t have to rip old books apart anymore (but you can if you want to). I have found a couple of great sources for vintage botanical prints online and I thought I’d share where to find vintage botanical prints online with you.

Where to Find Vintage Botanical Prints and Illustrations

Biodiversity Heritage Library

The very first botanical prints I ever found online were from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. You can read more about it here. You can find the above print here.

Botanicus

Botanicus is a free, web-based encyclopedia of digitized historic, botanical literature including literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. You can read more about Botanicus here. The above print is part of a book entitled Medizinal-Pflanzen, a rare book from 1887.  You can find the above print here.  Please note you can’t download just one page from this book, you must download the entire book in PDF format by clicking on the Download link near the tip of the page.

Ancestry Images

Ancestry Images is a free image archive for antiqueprints.com.   The above print can be found here.

 

 

 

The Graphics Fairy

The Graphics Fairy is a fantastic online resource for printable graphics of all sorts, including vintage botanical pints and illustrations like the above apple blossom. The above print can be found here. You can’t talk about vintage graphics without mentioning The Graphics Fairy.

Australian Botanical Illustration

The world wide web really has made resources around the world so much more accessible. The mission of the Australian National Botanic Gardens is to inspire, inform and connect people to the Australian flora. To support this aim, the Botanic Gardens maintains a collection of accurately-documented photographs of Australian plants and their habitats. You can find the image image here.

There are a lot of resources online where you can find vintage botanical prints and illustrations. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you need to follow all copyright and usage laws before you download and use any pints, images or illustrations you find online.

DIY Projects for Vintage Botanical Prints & Illustrations

I love these vintage botanical prints and illustrations. You can download them, print them, frame them and use them in all kinds of projects. You can even use a heat transfer method to transfer the prints onto fabric. Here are a few DIY Botanical Print Projects to help inspire you to use these vintage botanical prints in your home decor.

DIY Botanical Hanging Print

If you’re a fan of HGTV’s Fixer Upper, then you’ve probably seen this idea for a DIY Botanical Hanging Print on Fixer Upper. You can find the full tutorial on Magnolia Market.

Botanical Wood Slices

Cami from Tidbits shares a tutorial for transferring botanical prints onto wood slices. You can make coasters and so much more with this technique.

Gallery Wall with Botanicals

Kenarry: Ideas for the Home is always a great source for, well, ideas for the home. In this tutorial, Rita Joy from Harbour Breeze Home, shares how to hang a gallery wall using gift wrapping paper as a template. Brilliant idea! And, of course, she’s using free botanical prints in her gallery wall.

Botanical Prints and Salvaged Window

I just love this idea from Crafty Nest to put botanical prints in an old salvaged window.

DIY Vintage Botanical Print Pillow

Follow Lauren’s DIY Vintage Botanical Print Pillow tutorial on Bless’er House. This project uses fusion transfer gel and laser printer prints.

There are literally hundreds of different vintage botanical illustrations available for you to download for free online! There are also literally hundreds of different ways for you to incorporate these illustrated prints into your home decor projects.  In fact, wouldn’t these be really cool transferred onto some kitchen towels? Boy, the possibilities really are endless!

Have you used botanical prints in your home decor? If so, I’d love to hear all about it!

Til next time…

 

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