Did you know that you can create vintage botanical prints yourself, for free? All you need is to know where to find the artworks and how to adjust them to fit the perfect poster size. In this DIY blog, I’ll guide you through the process step by step.
What are Vintage Botanical Prints?
In short, vintage botanical prints refer to illustrations or prints of plants, flowers, or other botanical subjects that were created in the past. Typically dating back to the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. These prints were often created using techniques such as engravings, lithography, or woodcuts and were commonly used for scientific purposes, as well as for decorative and educational purposes.
Nowadays they are a popular home decor item. My own interior is a mix of modern basic and Scandinavian, but botanical prints can also enhance a classic, eclectic, or even a gothic interior.
In the picture above you can see my kitchen/dinner area (doubling as my office space).
How to get these botanical illustrations – for FREE
Now for the fun part: getting your hands on them for free! Yes, a 100% free. I’m Dutch and my culture is known for their love of free stuff and discounts, so yes this makes me super excited, hehe.
You might see stores selling these prints, but the truth is that those prints are PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Public domain images are images and illustrations whose copyright has expired, allowing them to be used without permission. In the case of vintage artworks the copyright protection period has ended after the creator’s death plus a specific number of years.
Stock images site RAWpixel has a huge collection of these images, that they digitally enhanced. All you need to do is pick your favorites, and download them. Below are a couple of vintage botanical prints collections that I personally find beautiful. They’re mostly from the artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté.
“Nederlandsche Flora en Pomona”
“Traité des arbres et arbustes”
And if you’re looking for the one in my picture, it’s this one.
Creating posters from your favorite Vintage Botanical Prints
After finding and downloading your favorite artwork, the next step is resizing it to fit perfectly within your chosen picture frame or poster frame. I opted to use a large poster frame from IKEA for this project.
The easiest way is to create a new document in Canva or Photoshop with the dimensions of your frame. Then, insert the illustration and adjust its size until it fits nicely. I chose to make the illustration slightly smaller to leave some white space around it, mimicking a mat board.
Printing your posters and framing them
After resizing your image, you’re now ready to print! If you have a nice printer at home, you’re all set. However, if you’re like me and don’t have a printer or need a larger format, you can easily order a poster print online for just a few euros (or dollars).
Now all that’s left is to place it in your frame and hang it up in a beautiful spot. 🙂
You can even sell them yourself
With the copyright expired, you have the freedom to use the illustrations for commercial use as well. So if you have a store or an online shop, you could explore selling the framed posters (like the ones we’re making in this DIY) or, for example, sets of botanical illustration postcards.”
