I'm a big fan of graphics subscriptions and premium plans - but sometimes the perfect image is out there, and it's completely free. Today I'm sharing some of my favoriteplaces to find free vintage printables (some are for commercial use, some are not) that you can use in your junk journal.
What Sites Offer Free Vintage Graphics?
Each of these sites offers free vintage graphics and printables for you to download and use -- they may also offer paid items as well. They're in no particular order; some are for specific types of materials, like botanicals -- others are repositories of massive amounts of printed material that is no longer in copyright and that is legal to use both commercially and personally.
These are not the only places to find free vintage ephemera printables and graphics, they are just the ones that I think offer the highest quality images with the best variety. If you know a place I missed (and don't mind sharing) please let me know and I'll add it.
10 Sites Offering Free Vintage Images and Ephemera
If you like maps and atlases, you're going to be amazed with this collection. It is housed at Stanford University but has been digitized, high resolution downloads are available for all items. From the 1500 atlases to the thousands of maps, elevation charts and tables, there are more cartography images here than you could use in a lifetime of journaling.
Here's a peek at the astounding number of categories available:
Licensing: All items in the collection are available for personal use and easy to download. There is a button at the top right of each page that allows you to select the size and format you want. Maps and other items range from 1400 to present day; items after 1920 are usually copyright protected.
MagpiePrintables Blog and Free Library
If you have not already done so, you can join the free subscriber library right here -- and immediately access dozens of printable projects, vintage graphics and more. Here are some of the newest pieces in the free subscriber library:
There are over 100 free vintage graphics and projects here on the blog as well -- hit the "free" tag below to see a huge list of them. Lastly, the shop has some free printables that are just too large for the blog to handle -- one of my favorites is this one, the Van Gogh printable junk journal tag book:
The Biodiversity Library
There are two ways to search this image rich collection of public domain pieces. First, you can head to their Flickr stream to discover all kinds of amazing free graphics that can be used in commercial and personal junk journals. This was on the first page, along with dozens of other natural history and animal images:
There are so many interesting and useful natural history and animal images here it is almost overwhelming.
I love their flickr stream for inspiration and easy viewing, but if you want something specific, you're better off searching the online collection. This is also the better place to go if you want images that are not overused -- since it takes an extra step to get to them.
Search the full Biodiversity Collection here, and download images, individual pages or entire books. Almost all are old enough to be public domain and used as you wish.
Wikimedia Commons
If you need images ranging from old books to vintage botanicals, historic figures and pretty much anything you can imagine, head to Wikimedia Commons. This is part of the Wikipedia family and almost all images are public domain and free to use. It can be a little clunky to search, but the results are well worth the effort. Here is a piece I found there today that would make an interesting addition to any vintage Christmas junk journal project:
I've done a full writeup on using Wikimedia Commons for your commercial projects -- if you want to search it effectively or learn more about finding images for printables you design and sell, here's the full piece.
Creative Fabrica Free Files
WHile they do have a huge amount of paid (and subscription) files, this commercial graphics warehouse also has almost 10.000 free fonts, images and crafts. You can access the freebies by heading to the home page, then clicking the "freebies" button in the upper right.
Here are the latest free fonts as of today:
If you have a specific holiday, junk journal theme or image you are looking for, you can also type that into the search bar and then filter for "free".
Creative Fabrica is one of the most versatile paid and free sites -- I did an entire piece on using it for commercial design and printables you want to sell here. Hop on over for more information.
Bibliodyssey Blog
It is sadly no longer updated, but you'll still find a rich archive full of useful and usable images here. The Bibliodyssey blog is home to hundreds of public domain images in high resolution, large sizes. This collection is eclectic and skews older -- much older. The interesting illumination below is from this site, and there are many. many more to choose from:
A note on this site -- while the images here are wonderful quality and unique, they may not be around forever. Blogspot blogs were once a lot more common and popular than they are, and they go offline all the time. I suggest exploring and downloading the images you think you'll use, just in case this valuable resource goes away. It is live as of October 2021.
The Graphics Fairy Free Library and Blog
Another favorite, I am a premium subscriber here as well (I think I subscribe to most of the commercial graphics sites at this point). With a rich catalogue of images and easy, high resolution downloads, the Graphics Fairy is a wonderful resource for both free and paid images.
In addition to the premium site, the Graphics Fairy has an extensive and well organized free library. The image above is part of a collection of paper doll scraps, perfect for collage. This free collection can be found here. The site does have search, but browsing by category is more effective and you can generally find more images by doing so.
The Vintage Moth Blog
Another site at risk of eventually disappearing is the Vintage Moth. This site is home to a lovely collection of free vintage images that are well suited to collage and junk journaling. If you're looking for unusual vintage ephemera or images, then you might find something special here. It was last updated in 2014, and is live as of October 2021.
I found these pretty vintage dairy coupons on the Vintage Moth today, click on over to get a high resolution download and further explore the site.
RUKS Studio
RUKS Museum, this amazing museum is home to some of the world's oldest masterpieces -- like Night Watch -- it also offers high quality downloads for your use. While I love being able to see so many interesting pieces in one place, the most interesting thing about RUKSmuseum is that it allows visitors to curate their own collections.
This mini-museum curator role allows anyone to make a collection of artworks, making for both eclectic and unusual roundups of images you may have overlooked if you just toured the best known pieces.
This is a curated collection of 20+ unusual pieces of headgear and hats in vintage art -- all in one place:
Visit RUKS Studio here to make your own collection, find art for your journal or just get inspired by both famous and lesser known works of art.