How to make your own Vintage Book Print on a $0 Budget

Day 5 and all is well on my $0 Budget front. We are having a hodge podge of things for lunch today so I can use up those little things I found in the freezer. The kids usually love this because they gets bits of some of their favorite junk type food (you know the last 3 chicken finger, a handful of french fries, a few perogies) so they won't complain. 

 

If you have been on Pinterest recently, you probably have seen those really cool Vintage art pieces where the designer has 'created' art on old dictionary paper. You know the ones I am talking about; they sell for $7-$8 depending on the Etsy seller. Well I use the word design very loosely because if you have a printer, internet access and an old book you are willing to cut up, you can make these for NOTHIN.

(sorry, I haven't hung it. It is standing on my headboard)

 

I sat down last night after getting the kids to bed and thought I would give this a try. It literally took me 5 minutes from the time my behind hit my chair to being finished.

Here is how I did it within my $0 budget.

At my local not-for-profit thrift store they have a book shelf of free books. One offs that they can't sell so they just let you take what ever you want. So whenever I am there I look for old books and dictionaries. I like to stack them to prop up little items on our bookshelves. Over the past few months I have created good collection of odd old books...some are not as good as others like the Nursing one from a really long time ago that has horrible drawings in it. I be sure to keep it high so the kids don't see them :) Sorry, I went off topic a bit.

So I grabbed one of my free books that was a little bigger than 4x6 and had a nice yellowing to it. If your page doesn't have the color you want, search on the internet and there are simple ways to yellow the pages.

I carefully cut out the pages with an exacto knife and a metal ruler. Since the book I used was a gardening one, I only used pages that had no drawings on them.

 

 I searched the internet and found an amazing site that offers "Free vintage images, printable, downloadable" . The funniest part of finding this is, that after I started going through the images, many of those being sold on Etsy are from this site. So you might be able to create the exact one you like for FREE.

There are so many on this site I can guarantee you will find something you love. Here is my favorite octopus (which they have loads of) and one of my favorite flowers.

When you find the image you like, right click on it and select 'Save Image As' . Save it to a location you will find easily.

Open Word and insert the image. I used a full page to design it because my printer is horrible and I find this works the best. But be prepared to have a few test prints before you print the final ones.

Here is where it gets fun. I didn't want my images to be really bold, I wanted them to be a little blurry and not crisp. So I used an artistic affect called 'glow diffused'. It just softened the image around the edges.

If you want to change the overall color like they have on the Etsy shops, this is how you do that. Select the image by clicking once on it, go to the 'Format' tab, select 'Color' and then this window will open.

Then run your arrow over the different colors to see what they will look like. Once you find one you like, click on it. That simple! You can always go back to the original so play around and see what you can do.

Next, put a sample paper in your printer and test how it prints. Change the size, positioning, etc. as you need to and print it again.

It really is that easy!

I had a three panel frame from IKEA sitting around that I had intended to use last Father's day but I never got around to. So I printed three images that remind me of our travels (the squid from Korea's fish markets and the sea horses from San Fransisco's Monterey Bay Aquarium). The best part is these can easily be changed as I grow tired of them.

The possibilities are endless! Wouldn't it be great to customize these?

• My mom is a nurse, so I could cut a page out of my horrible nursing book and print the nursing symbol on it.

•  If you have a gardener, cut a page out of an old gardening book and print some images of flowers, trees, etc.

• A dictionary page for a teacher with their name, initials, or the Chinese symbol for teacher.

• As a wedding or shower gift with a large heart and then the bride and grooms initials  and wedding date.

If you don't have a local thrift store to find the books at, talk to your parents, grandparents, neighbors, go to garage sales. I can guarantee you will not have to look far to find what you want.

What do you think? Can you use this for something?

I guess I can post this on both my frugal gift idea page and my $0 Budget page :)

Stephanie