Vintage elements for digital scrapbooks let you combine the ease of creating a layout on your computer with the charm of old fashioned scrapbook embellishments. They're also a very economical way to expand your collection of scrapbook supplies.
Download Free Vintage Scrapbook Elements
While you may think traditional paper scrapbooking is the only way to achieve a vintage look for your layouts, digital scrapbookers have more options than ever before when it comes to creating a scrapbook page with old fashioned appeal. Digital patterned papers, frames, embellishments, brushes, and photo filters make it possible to duplicate the vintage look of traditional paper scrapbooking using your favorite software.
Vintage elements are the perfect choice for family heritage albums as well as wedding scrapbooks and retirement scrapbooks. The vintage style is also a popular choice for creating gift albums for older friends and family members.
To help you add a vintage feel to your scrapbook layouts, download this exclusive collection of frames and patterned papers. To use these designs, simply click on the picture of the item you wish to download. Save the file to your computer when prompted, then open the PDF file using Adobe Reader. Print it onto the paper of your choice, then trim and add to your scrapbook layout.
In most cases, white cardstock is the best choice for scrapbook printables. For vintage elements, however, you can get some unique effects by experimenting with your printing material. Try printing on vellum, ivory colored textured cardstock, or brown kraft paper. To further enhance the vintage feel, lightly sand or crumple the printed page to give it an aged appearance.
More Ways to Get a Vintage Style
Vintage layouts often incorporate buttons, ribbons, lace, beads, charms, old keys, pressed flowers, old postcards, dictionary pages, and map pages. Other hallmarks of a vintage scrapbooking style include the use of black and white or sepia toned photos and typewriter or calligraphy style fonts.
Here are some additional resources for finding vintage inspired digital scrapbook elements online:
- Daisy Trail, a partner of Digital Scrapbook Artist, offers free scrapbook kits once per month as well as CDs with kit collections that you can choose to purchase. Two of their free kits with a vintage look are "All That Glitters" and "British Street Party."
- Vintage Florals is a free kit from Shabby Princess with coordinating papers, ribbons, and flowers.
- If you love music, the Vintage Music Papers collection from Far Far Hill is sure to please. This freebie features six papers designed to look like pages from an antique songbook.
- The vintage style isn't just for girls! If you're looking for a kit to scrapbook pictures of the men in your life, there's plenty to love in the Vintage Trains kit from Lucky Girl Creative. This railroad inspired kit features 10 coordinating papers and 80 different embellishment choices for about $10.
- The Vintage Handwriting Digital Collage from Etsy designer CherryPinkPrints brings to mind the days when proper penmanship was looked upon as an art form. Download these designs for around $5.
- Etsy designer UpstairsCats has a 6 Epherma Vintage Digital Papers collection with subtly distressed solids that would work well for everything from baby to wedding pages. Get the collection for under $5.
If you can't find vintage elements online that fit your needs, try making your own supplies by playing with the brightness, contrast, and color filters in your favorite image editing program to give modern digital elements a vintage look. You could also scan your favorite vintage fabrics and old newspaper clippings to use as background paper for your project.
Bringing Vintage Elements Into the Modern Age
The classic elegance of vintage style makes it a popular choice for today's scrapbookers, but you'll have even more fun if you blend a few vintage elements with some modern designs to create a contemporary look that's all your own. Since digital scrapbook supplies can be printed as many times as you wish, there's no reason not to experiment as you're working on developing your own unique scrapbooking style.
