How to find FREE vintage botanical art to print at home

Are you looking for a budget-friendly way to decorate your walls this season? I’m sharing one of my favourite hacks: how to find FREE vintage botanical art to print using either your home printer, a copy centre, or an online print shop and create your own artsy botanical garden!

This blog post is part of a seasonal blog hop – Seasonal Simplicity – hosted by The Happy Housie. Make sure to check out all of the other spring printables from my blogging friends linked at the bottom of this post! I love getting together with my blogging buddies to bring you a whole bunch of great ideas instead of just my own. 

Wall Decor

It can be so challenging to find good wall art, don’t you agree? It is not easy to find pieces that look good with the rest of your decor, fit in with the items in your existing gallery wall, AND (obviously) keep you on budget. I’ve always loved vintage botanical illustrations, and I think they are such a classic and work well as wall art with almost any home decor (can you say farmhouse style?) and any room too.

Botanical wall art makes a big impact in the living room, dining room, guest bedroom, or even the bathroom! Sometimes you can get lucky and find the real thing if you know where to look in the right places. Once in a while it is possible to discover antique botanical prints in old books, in a thrift store, or from someone you know. Yet these are very hit or miss ways to procure a specific design item!

Where to find Free Printable Botanical Prints

I got tired of waiting to find the perfect pieces in a store and decided to turn to my favorite place to look for things: the internet! I wanted to see if I could find what I was looking for online and then just print them instead. And I discovered that it’s amazing what you can get as a free download if you’re willing to go looking.

It’s actually SO easy to find FREE vintage botanical art online to print at home! I’m going to share my favourite hack for finding it with you, plus these exact vintage botanicals as a free printable. If you use the right search method, you can turn up all kinds of things that are free for personal use without any fear that you are somehow stealing them from the artist. The public domain is a great thing! Let me explain.

Free Vintage Botanical Art Hack

The biggest concern I had (and I’m sure you will have this concern too) was making sure I printed art legally and in a way that wouldn’t hurt the artists who created it. 

To find royalty free art you can print at home to use on your walls with zero guilt:

1. Go to the Creative Commons search by clicking here.
2. Next, type in your desired art style. I like to try “botanical painting”. Hit “Search”.
3. Once the search results load, click “CC0: This work has been marked as dedicated to the public domain” on the left hand side. This will show you all the images that are licensed as “public domain”, so they are free to use.
4. Finally, click on the images you love and then click the button that says “Go to the Image’s Website” to see the larger scale version of the art and download it.

So simple, right?

I found these white botanicals by using the method above. Here’s the daffodil illustration on the Creative Commons website. Isn’t it just so pretty?

In this case both the illustrations I’m showing you today are from 1805, which I thought was such a great thing! I love anything vintage or antique so just knowing that someone drew the originals for these prints long ago is enough to make me smile every time I look at them.

Crop, Print and Frame

After I downloaded them, I used Photoshop to move the lettering up a little. Then I could crop them to a perfect 8 x 10 inch size and frame them in an 11 x 14 inch frame with a mat. I think they look great here, and they are a lovely accessory for spring or summer.

Furthermore, you can change the size to make them fit perfectly in one of your favourite frames, another thing I love about this way of finding art! It’s very versatile and customizable. And you don’t even have to hang them on the wall once they are framed. In fact, they would look lovely leaning on the wall as part of a mantel or sideboard vignette too. Be creative! 

Click on each image below to download these royalty free 1805 botanical prints that I’ve cropped to 8 x 10.

I’ve included crop marks so that you can print them on a letter-sized piece of paper and trim them down. In fact, these would make some wonderful first additions to a beautiful collection of stunning botanical prints in your own home!

 

If you’re in the mood for even more unique and creative wall art ideas, then check out this post too. 

Enjoy!

This post was first published February 2021 and has since been updated.

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This week I’m joining some of my talented blogging friends for the beginning of this year’s Spring Seasonal Simplicity Series! We’re all sharing some free printable art for spring with you! Be sure to check out these gorgeous free printables in more detail by clicking on the links below each image.

Free Printable Art for Spring at The Happy Housie

Bloom Free Spring Printable at The Handmade Home

Cherry Blossom Printable Art for Spring at Modern Glam

Cottage Farmhouse Spring Printables at Tatertots & Jello

Free Printable Encouragement Gift Tags at Just a Girl and Her Blog

Watercolour Nest Free Spring Printables at Clean & Scentsible

Free Spring Printable Collection at She Gave it a Go

Free Printable Floral Card for Spring at Fynes Designs

Free Modern Spring Printable Duo at Lemon Thistle

How to Find Free Vintage Botanical Art to Print at Home at The DIY Mommy

Free Spring Printable Art at Life is a Party

Vintage Botanical Printables for Spring at Rambling Renovators

Nest Acrylic Moody Painting at Craftberry Bush