10 Great Free Vintage Clip Art Sites

✯ Day 310 of Vintage 365 ✯

It’s not uncommon for a person’s interests and hobbies to overlap, and in my case one spot where that happens quite often is when it comes to the subjects of vintage images and paper crafting (specifically scrapbooking and card making).
I’m constantly on the prowl for wonderful old school images to use here on Chronically Vintage, as well as for general inspiration, and to save for possible use on future crafting projects.
As result, over time, I've gathered a growing list of online resources that offer an abundance of vintage images - from photographs to illustrations, that hail from many decades and a wide range of (original) sources.
Such images are often immensely beautiful, serving us as well today as when they were first created.
Within Christmas mere weeks away, I know that many of us are in holiday card making overdrive at the moment, so I thought that today would be a great time to share ten of my favourite vintage image sites with you, in case you'd like use some charming old school images on your craft projects (and/or blogs) this Christmas season.

10 Great Free Vintage Clip Art Sites

-Antique Art: To quote this handy site itself, at Antique Clipart you can "browse one of the largest free Public Domain archives of Victorian, and Edwardian era clipart on the Internet! Containing 1044 clipart images of People, Flowers, Animals and more." (Note that the small and medium sizes are free, the largest ones are available for purchase.)

-Averyl's Attic: A lovely selection of illustrated Christmas (and other holiday related) Victorian clipart (that would look marvelous of holiday cards). Please note, this wonderful site was retired in 2015 and now links to a charming blog run by the same person who founded it.

-Carol Anne's Boutique: There is a terrific selection of beautiful vintage images and ephemera to be found here, including scrapbooking favourites like ledger paper, sheet music, and antique postcards.

-Free Vintage Clip Art: Lovely roundup of varied vintage images, from Victorian brides to ornate architectural scrollwork (as well as less common, completely useful images such as coats-of-arms).

-Grandma's Graphics: Features a large array of images, most of which are sourced from vintage books (from the Victorian times onward). A marvelous place to turn for whimsical, classic images that are perfect for everything from greeting cards to children's themed mini albums.

-Imagenes Vintage: A site in both Spanish and English that houses a charming assortment of vintage images, including classic works of art - as well as a selection of great digital scrapbooking elements.

-The Graphics Fairy: One of the best known and most loved online sources of diverse, wonderful antique and vintage images. (A must bookmark site, and terrific resource, for all fans of the past!)

-The Vintage Moth: Crafters rejoice, this site bills itself as offering "free antique and vintage images for mixed media artists" and they certainly deliver on their word.

-Vintage Catnip: Offers a varied assortment of interesting vintage images from sources such as photographs and illustrations, postcards and even woodcuttings.

-Vintage Holiday Crafts: This delightful site features an array of excellent vintage images, the majority of which are (as the site's name implies) holiday themed.

{This elegant illustration of a vintage alarm clock, which comes by way of The Graphics Fairy, is especially fitting for the fact that daylight saving time ends today.}


The majority of sites that offer free vintage images for download do so under the condition that you use the photos, art , and illustrations they offer for personal, not commercial, purposes, but this point varies, so always check with the policies of the site you're interested.

This list, while teaming with ten of my favourite vintage image sites, is no means exhaustive. I'd love to hear about other similar websites that you enjoy turning to for when you're on the prowl for wonderful images from the past.