220+ Vintage Scrapbook Paper Backgrounds to Print

Old paper has a look that new paper cannot fake with a filter: uneven colour, darker edges, a crease where it was folded for fifty years. You can make it yourself with coffee, a baking tray and an afternoon. Or you can print it.

This page gathers seven sets of vintage paper from our catalogue, 224 sheets in all, and sorts them by what they are good for: plain aged pages to write on, patterned papers in colour, and vintage Christmas. For each set you will find the number of sheets, the size, and what the designer made it for.

Quick answer: for vintage scrapbook paper to print at home, choose blank aged sheets when the page will carry writing or photos, and patterned sheets for covers, pockets and tags. The seven sets below hold 224 backgrounds: 140 plain aged papers, 24 patterned papers in blue and green, and 60 vintage Christmas papers. Most are 12 × 12 inches at 300 DPI; one set is Letter size.

Plain aged paper: 140 backgrounds to write on

These three sets have no print on them at all, only the paper itself: stains, fibres, speckles, tide lines. That makes them the base of a junk journal. Anything can go on top: handwriting, a stamp, a typed poem, a photo.

Coffee Dyed Blank Vintage Paper

Twelve pages from off-white and pale cream to honey yellow and dark tan. The designer modelled them after antique sketchbook pages. It is the paper you would otherwise make by soaking sheets in coffee and drying them in the oven, without the curled edges that jam a printer. The files are already Letter size, so they print one to one with nothing to crop.

Old Vintage Paper Textured Background

One hundred textures sampled from real antique paper, from pale cream through tan to burnt orange. Most sheets are lighter in the middle and darker toward the edges, so a photo or a paragraph in the centre stays readable while the edges do the ageing. The sheets are landscape and large: 4800 × 3200 px is more than a Letter or A4 page at 300 DPI.

28 Light Vintage Paper Background

Most vintage packs are dark. These 28 are light on purpose: white, ivory, beige, warm yellow and sage green, aged with fine cracks and speckles. Ink and stamps stay readable on them, and a printed sheet uses little ink. They are square and print as 10 × 10 inches at 300 DPI.

Patterned vintage paper in blue and green

Vintage paper is usually brown. These two sets keep the classic patterns, script, newsprint, damask, postmarks, and change the colour. The last two cards are junk journal kits for the pockets and tags that go on top of the pages: one printed with old newspaper textures, one in cream, sand and peach florals.

Blue Vintage Scrapbook Paper

A clock face, old newspaper print, handwritten script, a checkerboard, stripes, damask, fleur-de-lis and small roses, all in faded blue and soft aqua. Cool and light, the pages suit winter, the sea and anything that would look heavy on tan.

Green Vintage Scrapbook Paper

Shades from pale sage to deep forest, with script, damask, faded roses, old postmarks and a small bird on a branch. The light sheets work as writing pages; the dark ones are strong enough for a cover or a title block.

Vintage Christmas paper: 60 backgrounds

Two paper sets for a December journal, cards and gift wrap, and a page of tags to cut out for them.

Antique Christmas Scrapbook Paper

Each of the twelve sheets is a frame: holly, berries, bows and ribbons sit in one or two corners, and the centre is plain aged parchment. They are ready-made pages for a photo, a letter, a recipe or a menu.

Vintage Christmas Paper

Forty-eight papers: deer among pines, holly and berries, golden bells, baubles, a knitted stocking, white deer on red plaid. Some sheets are a single scene; others are patchworks of small squares that can be cut apart into a dozen little pictures.

The full Christmas list, with blue and pastel sets as well, is in Christmas Junk Journal Printables: Tags, Labels & Paper.

Which vintage paper for which job

• Writing pages and letters: the light sheets. Coffee Dyed pages in off-white and cream, or anything from the 28 Light Vintage set.
• Photo mats: textures with a light centre and dark edges, such as the Old Vintage Paper set.
• Covers, title blocks and spines: the dark sheets of the green set, the deepest tan of the coffee pages.
• Pockets, envelopes and tags: patterned papers. A pattern hides fold lines and glue marks better than a plain sheet.
• Cards and invitations: the Antique Christmas frames, or a blank aged page with a printed text in the middle.

How 12 × 12 inch paper prints on a home printer

Scrapbook paper is traditionally 12 × 12 inches, and most home printers stop at Letter or A4. You have two choices in the print dialog:

• “Fit to page” shrinks the whole square sheet to the width of your paper, about 8 × 8 inches on Letter. You keep the complete design, a little smaller.
• 100% or “Actual size” keeps the pattern at its full scale and prints the part of it that fits your paper. This is the better choice for all-over patterns such as script, damask or plain texture, where no part of the sheet is more important than another.

Sheets with a frame or a corner decoration, like the Antique Christmas papers, should be printed with “Fit to page”, otherwise the corners are cut off. The Coffee Dyed pages are Letter size already and print as they are.

Paper and settings

1. For journal pages that fold, use ordinary printer paper. Heavier matte paper suits writing pages; light cardstock suits covers, tags and cards.
2. Select the same paper type in the printer settings as the paper you loaded.
3. Set the quality to “Best” or “High”. Aged textures have a lot of fine detail that draft mode turns into bands.
4. Print one test page first. Colours look a little different on paper than on screen.
5. Home inkjet prints can smudge when they get wet, so a glue stick or double-sided tape is safer on them than liquid glue.

Cut the sheets into pockets and envelopes

A printed sheet is also raw material. The Envelope & Pocket Template Maker draws an envelope, a pocket, a tag or a corner tuck in the size you type in. Print the outline on the back of a patterned page, cut along the line and fold. One Letter sheet gives about six classic tags or two medium journal pockets.

For what to put in them, see 53 Junk Journal Ideas for Pages, Pockets and Prompts.

Questions about printable vintage paper

Can I print 12 × 12 scrapbook paper at home?

Yes. On a Letter or A4 printer choose “Fit to page” for the whole design at about 8 × 8 inches, or 100% for a Letter-size piece of the pattern at full scale.

Is printed vintage paper as good as tea or coffee dyed paper?

It looks the same on the page and it is flat, so it feeds through a printer and glues down without bubbles. What it does not have is the rough feel of soaked paper; if you want that, crumple the print and smooth it out again.

Can I print on both sides?

Yes. Print one side, let it dry, turn the sheet and print another background on the back. For a journal signature this saves gluing two sheets together.

May I sell things I make with these papers?

Every set on this page is listed with a commercial license from Creative Fabrica. The exact terms are on the product page of each set; read them before you sell.

More paper

The printable sets on this page are made by independent designers and hosted on Creative Fabrica. Downloading is free with their free trial: a payment card is needed to start it, and you can cancel the subscription at any time. Each set has its own page here with every sheet shown before you download.

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