I've mentioned before how much I love botanical charts + prints as artwork. And in particular, how much I love botanical prints with black backgrounds.
Well a few weeks back, I was searching through the vintage printables site, and came across some of the black-background botanical prints that I love so much. I immediately knew that I wanted to make some art with them!
And in case you're unfamiliar with vintage printables, it's a site that curates old and out-of-copyright images, most of which are scientific and botanical illustrations from vintage textbooks. And since they aren't copyrighted, you can print them or use them in graphics to your heart's content. It's a great source if you want to print your own botanicals and frame them as a series for wall art, similar to this.
Please forgive the less than stellar photos, by the way. My photo-taking skills are decidedly lacking, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get rid of the reflections on the glass. These were the clearest ones, I promise :)
So, for a few of the details. Here's what I did:
I picked the 3 prints on the site that I liked the most (I found them on this page specifically), cropped off the uneven borders, enlarged them in photoshop to a 16x20 size, and had them printed at Costco for $6 each.
You could also print them one size larger, attach wooden dowels at the top + bottom, and hang with string, so that they look more like the real botanical charts, seen here. It still would only cost $9 to print a 20x30 size at Costco, rather than the $100-$200 for the real botanical charts.
So there you have it. Cheap + pretty wall art - my favorite!
