Overview
Download two free printable butterfly collage sheets featuring vintage natural history illustrations from The Natural History of British Butterflies by James Duncan, published in 1840.
The collection includes 1.5" × 3" butterfly images and a second sheet of decorative butterfly gift tags.
Use these vintage butterfly printables for junk journals, art journals, scrapbooks, ATCs, handmade cards, tags, mixed-media collage, and paper crafts.
The original butterfly illustrations come from a historical publication and are public domain.
The images can also be used for digital collage, digital scrapbooking, and graphic design in programs such as Canva, Procreate, and Photoshop.
The Art Scavenger's printable sheets are original compilations and may be used according to the site's Terms of Use.
Free Printable British Butterfly Illustrations from 1840
If you're looking for free printable vintage butterfly images, I've got two collage sheets featuring illustrations from The Natural History of British Butterflies by James Duncan. Published in 1840, the book contains 36 colored plates documenting butterflies of Great Britain.
The original illustrations have the detailed look that makes nineteenth-century natural history artwork so useful for crafting: carefully rendered butterflies, botanical backgrounds, plate numbers, and printed species information.
I've selected and arranged some of these illustrations into two printable sheets. One contains 1.5" × 3" butterfly images, while the second features decorative butterfly gift tags.
Scroll down to download the free printable sheets and start creating.
What Are These Vintage British Butterfly Illustrations?
Vintage British butterfly illustrations are historical drawings created to document and identify butterfly species found in Britain. Before photography became practical for scientific publishing, natural history books relied on artists to create detailed visual records of plants, animals, and insects.
James Duncan's The Natural History of British Butterflies is a wonderful example of this tradition. Published in 1840, it contains detailed colored plates depicting British butterfly species.
Today, these illustrations make excellent craft elements for:
Junk journals
Art journals
Scrapbooks
Mixed-media collage
Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)
Handmade cards
Gift tags
Bookmarks
Nature journals
Bullet journals and planners
Altered books
Digital collage and scrapbooking
You don't need to be a Victorian entomologist to appreciate them. A pair of scissors and some glue will do nicely.
The Natural History Illustration Tradition
During the nineteenth century, illustrated natural history books gave readers access to detailed visual records of species they might never have encountered themselves.
The artwork in Duncan's book is especially useful for crafting because the original pages already contain so many interesting details: butterflies, botanical surroundings, plate numbers, and printed captions.
That makes them ready-made vintage ephemera.
A single illustration can become the focal point of a journal page, while smaller sections can be cut apart and layered with other papers.
More Vintage Nature Printables
If you're collecting natural history imagery for your journals or mixed-media projects, these collections make good companions:
Vintage Insect Illustration Printables — Antique insect imagery including butterflies, beetles, bees, and other insects.
Free Printable Butterfly Fairy Ephemera — Vintage butterfly-fairy imagery for more whimsical projects.
Science of Botany Printables — Botanical illustrations from Richard Duppa's 1812 book that pair beautifully with butterfly imagery.
Baby Bird Printable Collage Sheets — Vintage bird illustrations that work well with butterflies and other nature-themed ephemera.
Combining butterflies with botanical illustrations, birds, insects, old book pages, and handwritten elements can give a journal spread the feel of a miniature natural history collection.
What's Included in the Free Butterfly Collage Sheets?
This free download includes two printable sheets made from restored vintage butterfly illustrations from Duncan's 1840 publication.
Sheet One: 1.5" × 3" Butterfly Images
The first sheet contains twelve 1.5" × 3" rectangular images featuring butterflies within the original natural history compositions.
Some images feature one large butterfly, while others contain several specimens. They're particularly useful when you need smaller pieces for layering.
Sheet Two: Butterfly Gift Tags
The second sheet contains nine decorative gift-tag-shaped designs using selections from the same historical illustrations.
Use them as:
Junk journal tags
Pocket inserts
Page embellishments
Tuck spots
Mini collage pieces
Handmade card decorations
Bookmarks
And, naturally, you can also use them as actual gift tags.
Free printable British butterfly collage sheet featuring 1.5” x 3” vintage natural history illustrations from James Duncan's 1840 book, The Natural History of British Butterflies
Why These Butterfly Images Work So Well for Crafts
Butterflies are easy to incorporate into layered paper projects because they have strong silhouettes and recognizable shapes. You can use an entire illustration as a focal point or cut around an individual butterfly and use it as a separate embellishment.
The aged cream paper and botanical backgrounds also make these images easy to combine with other vintage materials.
Try pairing them with:
Torn antique book pages
Vintage ledger paper
Botanical prints
Old maps
Handwritten letters
Sheet music
Fabric scraps
Lace
Washi tape
Vintage labels
For a junk journal, place a butterfly over a torn book page and add a handwritten label. For an art journal, use one of the larger compositions as a starting point and paint or stamp around it.
For ATCs, the narrow rectangular images are especially convenient for trimming and mounting onto cardstock.
Use These Printables for Digital Art & Design
These butterfly images aren't limited to paper crafts. You can also use them in digital collage, graphic design, and digital scrapbooking.
Import the images into Canva, Procreate, Photoshop, or another image-editing program to crop, resize, layer, and combine them with your own artwork.
Digital project ideas
Digital junk journal pages
Digital scrapbooking layouts
Vintage-style social media graphics
Printable wall art
Digital stationery
Planner pages
Nature-themed graphics
Digital collage artwork
A few practical tips
Crop individual butterflies. You don't have to use an entire plate. Crop a single butterfly and save it as a separate design element.
Layer the artwork. Place butterflies over scanned paper, botanical backgrounds, handwriting, or textures. Lower the opacity of a layer for a softer effect.
Remove the background. If you want an isolated butterfly, remove the cream-colored background in Photoshop, Canva, or another editor and save the result as a transparent PNG.
The downloadable files are high-resolution, so they can be resized for different digital projects. The JPG files can also be converted to PNG if your workflow requires it.
The original illustrations come from a historical publication and are public domain, making them useful for a wide range of creative projects.
Public Domain & Usage Information
The original butterfly illustrations from The Natural History of British Butterflies are public domain.
There is an important distinction, however, between the historical artwork and the collage sheets on The Art Scavenger.
The antique illustrations are historical source material. I have selected, restored, arranged, and formatted them into new printable compilations.
According to The Art Scavenger's Terms of Use, you may use the collage sheets for personal or commercial creative projects, including projects you make and sell. You may also print them as needed.
The restriction is that you may not redistribute or sell the collage sheets themselves "as is," either digitally or in printed form.
For example, using a butterfly from the sheet in a handmade journal that you sell is fine under the site's terms. Repackaging the complete printable sheet and selling it as your own digital download is not.
When to Use British Butterfly Printables
Butterfly imagery naturally becomes popular in spring and summer, when gardens, flowers, and insects are common crafting themes.
But these printables work year-round in:
Nature journals
Garden journals
Botanical scrapbooks
Natural history art journals
Spring and summer planners
Handmade stationery
Everyday junk journals
Butterflies are also a perennial Pinterest search topic, covering everything from journal cards and tags to scrapbook embellishments and digital collage elements.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these vintage butterfly illustrations public domain?
Yes. The original illustrations from The Natural History of British Butterflies are from a historical publication and are public domain.
Can I use these butterfly images commercially?
Yes. The Art Scavenger's Terms of Use allow the collage sheets to be used for personal or commercial creative projects, including handmade projects that you sell. You may not sell or redistribute the collage sheets themselves as-is.
What paper should I use for these printables?
For tags and sturdier embellishments, try 60–80 lb cardstock or matte presentation paper. For lightweight collage layers, regular printer paper works well and is easier to tear, fold, or blend into a background.
Can I resize the butterfly images?
Yes. You can print the sheets at their original size or resize them for your project. The 1.5" × 3" images are particularly useful for smaller journal projects, while the gift tags can be used as larger focal pieces or trimmed down for layering.
Final Thoughts
I love natural history illustrations because they combine science, art, and historical ephemera. These British butterfly illustrations were originally created to document the natural world, but nearly two centuries later, they make wonderfully useful craft supplies.
Use them in a junk journal, turn one into a gift tag, build an ATC, layer them into a mixed-media page, or pull individual butterflies into a digital collage.
Download the two free printable sheets and give these 1840 butterflies a new place to land!
Antiqued butterfly illustrations arranged in to a sheet of printable gift tags
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