Make a Holiday Banner from Vintage Postcards

Click to see larger

Although I use vintage postcards in all kinds of projects and even though I have a huge collection, I don't often display postcards or ephemera in my house. I guess I don't want them to get worn or damaged. However, I should start showing them off more, if for no other reason so that I can enjoy looking at them!

Here is a easy, cheap way to show off your vintage postcard collection without damaging the originals.  Just scan and print the postcards you like on cardstock. I used 90 pound, because that's what I had, but something heavier would be better. Then use a hole punch and string with some pretty ribbon or yarn.

In the banner above I used a collection of unique and different Christmas postcards I liked, but you could make the a banner more unified by using all Santa postcards or all carolers or all snow scenes.

And you don't have to stop at Christmas, make a Thanksgiving banner, a New years one or an Easter one. Make one with any vintage postcard or photo collection you have. A banner of all linen postcards of the desert or the seaside would look cool. Also, one of all vintage family pictures would look great.

All you need is a color printer. I have a pretty old inkjet Canon MP600 which still works great. 

If you need to add to your postcard collection, I am adding new holiday postcards all the time in the shop.

making unique holiday cards with vintage post cards

If you come across a vintage postcard or greeting card you love, you can easily use it to make all your holiday cards this year.

A lot of the vintage postcards are so pretty and have such charming sayings on them. Many have unique rhyming greetings, which you don't really see much anymore.

Personal printers and scanners make it easy to reproduce high quality images at home (If you don't have a color printer at home, a copy shop can do them for you at little cost. Just make sure to fit as many onto a page as you can). You can use these to make holiday cards, or you could even just print directly on a super thick card stock and send out postcards.

If you wanna make cards, here are a couple suggestions.  I copied this vintage postcard onto two kinds of paper from my canon printer.

The top one is glossy photo paper and the one underneath is matte presentation paper. They both look really good and it was hard to tell the difference without touching them. The postcard on the glossy photo paper was a little sharper and had more contrast. It had a bit of a green cast to it. The matte photo paper had a bit of a blue cast to it.  I think how you are going to use them is what might determine which paper you use.

The glossy photo paper is thicker and better to use like you would a photograph. An easy way to make cards with these would be to use photo corners and just place the copies like a photo onto blanks cards or folded colored paper stock.

If you want to decorate the cards more, using the matte paper would probably be better. It is thinner and easier to paste down. You could make some gorgeous handmade Christmas, New Years or any greeting cards by using the copy of the vintage postcard and then decorating with glitter, ribbon, vintage items or whatever you can think up.  I am no pro at this, by any means, but I have done my cards like this in the past. I made one up today, just to give you an idea. I'm sure you can do much better.

You can use some colored paper to make the background have a little more depth if you want. After that is glued down I added some glitter.

If you want some better inspiration, take a look at the Little Pink Studio. She is always making something pretty and artful with vintage images.

I'd love to see what you make this year. Please let me know.  Happy Christmas Season!