Free Vintage Flower Printables: Victorian Floral Magazine Ephemera
A Look Inside This Post
Features authentic floral illustrations from The Floral Magazine, first published in the 1860s.
Includes two printable collage sheets: one with 2.5” x 3.5” ATCs and another with 2.5” circular designs.
Perfect for junk journaling, scrapbooking, and mixed media nature projects.
Ideal for layering with other Victorian and botanical ephemera.
In the mid-19th century, when the study of plants was both an art and a science, The Floral Magazine became a cherished publication among gardeners and artists alike. It brought the beauty of the natural world to parlors and libraries through exquisitely hand-colored lithographs. Each page was a celebration of botany. It was elegant, precise, and designed to captivate the Victorian imagination.
The pages of The Floral Magazine bridged science and aesthetics. They weren’t just illustrations. They were expressions of a cultural fascination with collecting, cataloging, and creating beauty from nature. These carefully detailed plates reflected a world where every blossom held symbolic meaning like purity, affection, and remembrance, and where floral art adorned everything from stationery to wallpaper.
Today’s free printable set brings that timeless botanical beauty into your craft projects. These vintage flower designs, originally published more than 150 years ago, offer a glimpse into a world where art and natural observation intertwined, and where color, composition, and detail were elevated to high art.
About the Free Printables
This giveaway includes two downloadable collage sheets taken directly from The Floral Magazine (1860s):
Sheet 1: A collection of 2.5” x 3.5” artist trading cards (ATCs) featuring individual flower illustrations, each framed to highlight the natural grace and color of the bloom.
Sheet 2: A companion sheet of 2.5” circular designs, perfect for tags, embellishments, or layered collage work.
Each image has been digitally cleaned and formatted for high-resolution printing while preserving the delicate texture and painterly quality of the original lithographs.
You’ll find a charming mix of floral species: garden favorites, delicate wildflowers, and exotic varieties that captivated Victorian botanists. The colors remain rich yet naturally aged, offering a palette that complements everything from antique-style journals to modern mixed media spreads.
2.5” x 3.5” ATCs
How to Use These Printables
These vintage flower illustrations are versatile creative elements that can be used across many types of projects:
Junk Journals: Tuck the ATCs into envelopes or pockets, or use the circles as floral seals on folded journal pages. Layer them with lace, vellum, or text clippings for a classic Victorian look.
Scrapbooks: Frame a single flower card with patterned paper and decorative borders to create focal points on themed scrapbook pages.
Mixed Media Art: Combine the botanical imagery with paint, gesso, or stamped textures for dreamy collage compositions.
Altered Books: Use the circular designs to conceal or highlight areas on a page, or incorporate them into hand-bound nature study journals.
Stationery & Tags: Print on matte cardstock to create handmade note cards or gift tags inspired by antique garden journals.
Each printable has been sized for ease of use with no resizing necessary, and can be printed on standard letter-size paper or lightweight cardstock for extra durability.
More Creative Inspiration
Try building an entire “Floral Study” spread in your art journal: layer a few of the ATCs with small labels, seed catalog snippets, and handwritten botanical notes. Add a wash of watercolor to blend modern texture with historical imagery.
Or, for something more experimental, print the sheets on vellum or tracing paper. The semi-transparency gives the blooms a delicate, ethereal quality, perfect for overlays or windowed collage pockets.
You can even cut the circular designs into half-moons or petals to form new patterns, a technique reminiscent of Victorian découpage. Artists of that era often used these same motifs to decorate paper boxes, albums, and keepsakes.
Other Free Printables You Might Like
Free Vintage Fern Collage Sheets — Detailed botanical engravings of ferns, ideal for pairing with the floral ATCs in nature-themed journals.
Free Vintage Butterfly Ephemera Printables — Elegant butterfly illustrations that complement floral art beautifully in nature collages.
Free Printable Bird Ephemera Sheets — Colorful vintage bird illustrations perfect for mixed-media spreads inspired by wildlife and gardens.
Free Vintage Botanical Labels Printables — Use these antique labels to add text elements and notes to your floral-themed journal pages.
2.5” Circles
Final Thoughts
There’s something timeless about floral imagery, especially when it comes from an era that valued both beauty and craftsmanship. These flower printables invite you to slow down, experiment, and rediscover the joy of color and composition that defined Victorian botanical art.
Whether you use them to decorate a handmade journal, build a nature-themed scrapbook, or simply enjoy them as miniature works of art, they’re a beautiful bridge between the past and your own creative storytelling.
our supplies for art journaling, junk journaling, bullet journaling, collage, artist trading cards (ATCs), scrapbooking, and other mixed media artwork, and crafts.
You may also enjoy these free collage sheets.
Terms of use:
Free to use for personal or commercial projects. You may print the collage sheets as many times as you wish for your personal crafts or in your projects to sell, including: art journals, scrapbooks, junk journals, collage art, etc. You may not redistribute or sell the collage sheets “as is" in either print or digital form.
If you wish to share the files on your own website, please do not make the files available for download directly from your site. Instead, include an image with a link back to this site.
To the best of my knowledge, these are all royalty free images that are in the Public Domain in the US. However, you should always do your own research if you plan to use them commercially.
