Postcards were trendy in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the artwork of that era tended to be elaborate and beautiful. Happily, many of those old postcards have survived. You can buy them at antique stores and, of course, they’re also available for sale online.

Vintage postcards make lovely additions to collage art pieces. Here I’ve used one as the focal point of a collage art piece that also includes ribbons, paper lace bands and a Czech glass button.

Supplies You Would Need to Make a Similar Collage:

• Some sort of collage base — I used a page from a scalloped chipboard mini album by Clear Scraps. If you don’t want to take apart an album, there’s a similar product you could use — although your methodology for a collage using this base would vary from the process I describe below. It’s a scalloped frame. I haven’t tried using these, but in general, I’m a fan of Clear Scraps products (Full disclosure: I’m a long-ago former member of the Clear Scraps design team, circa 2009ish, but the business is under different ownership now).
• Of course, you’ll need a vintage postcard.
• Textured cardstock: I used Core’dinations cardstock in this piece
• Assorted ribbons
• A Czech glass button
• Decorative scissors — I used Fiskars Paper Edgers, but there are many competing brands of decorative scissors that would work just as well.
• Hand punches — I used Fiskars hand punches, but again, there are many brands making punches that would work.
• Thin ribbon
• Adhesive: I used Zip Dry paper glue, but you can probably use whatever paper-compatible adhesive you happen to have on hand.
• Craft wire for hanging the piece

How to Make the Collage:

If you’re using a chipboard shape as your collage background, grab it to use as a template. Draw around it onto your cardstock and cut the shape out. Use your adhesive to attach the cut-out cardstock shape to its base.

Attach your postcard to the base using adhesive. Set it aside to dry.

Make paper lace bands as follows: Use your decorative scissors to cut narrow strips of paper that have decorative edges on both sides. Using a square hand punch, punch a series of evenly-spaced holes down the middle of the paper strips. Then weave ribbon through the holes — over, under, over, under, until there’s ribbon woven through the entire strip. Then attach the paper lace bands to the piece across the upper and lower edges of the postcard.

If you’re using ribbon and a Czech glass button, you’ll also have to attach those to the piece. My memory is fuzzy on how I actually accomplished this. I’ve never owned a hot glue gun, so I can definitively say that it wasn’t hot glued– although you could probably hot glue yours if you like. I’m guessing I probably used a needle and sewing thread and stitched the ribbons, buttons and button to the chipboard.

The base I used already had holes in it, and I simply cut a length of craft wire and wound wire through the holes on each side to create the hanger.

So there you have it: That’s one possible way of making collage art with a vintage postcard.

If you’re new to collage art, I invite you to try making a similar piece — or to check out our main directory of collage art projects and articles to find another idea that would inspire you.

Happy crafting!

Find Must-Have Craft Supplies:

• Click here to see our product review of Fiskars Paper Edgers decorative scissors.
• Click Here to Find the Best Ink Pads for Stamping on Paper
• Click here for paper.
• Click here for adhesive.
• Click here to find scoring tools for paper.

Posted By: Amy Solovay

This page was last updated on 8-17-2021.