Vintage Christmas Cards Holiday Display

Vintage Christmas Cards make a beautiful display for the holiday season, especially if you love vintage-style home decor.

This past weekend, we went to a local flea market. It was filled with booths with all kinds of offerings, but I was thrilled to find one vendor with a large display of vintage holiday cards. Literally hundreds.

I spent a good amount of time shuffling through them.

There were vintage Santa Christmas cards, foil cards, and even a hand-embroidered card!

The first Christmas card is said to have been designed and sold in England in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. If you happen to be browsing Victorian Era cards, keep an eye out, because one of these Victorian Christmas cards sold at auction for $35,000!

All of the vintage Christmas greeting cards I found were postmarked between 1901 and 1940, and had been sent to a variety of Iowa homes– such small towns that the post office didn’t even require addresses, just a family name, and their town!

I loved reading the handwritten Christmas greetings on the back of them. Just little note cards containing messages of warm wishes and good tidings, from a time when life was far more simple.

Sigh. My vintage-loving heart was enthralled!

Although I didn’t find a valuable “best seller”, I couldn’t resist coming home with a stack of these vintage holiday cards to use as Christmas decorations in my own home.

How to Make a Vintage Christmas Cards Holiday Display

These vintage Christmas images were too beautiful to be packed away in a box again, where they likely had been all of these past years.

I set out to create a way to showcase them and add some extra vintage holiday nostalgia to my Christmas decor.

Wooden Sign with Vintage Sheet Music

I began with a wooden craft sign that I got at Hobby Lobby. Watch for sales– I got mine at 40% off.

To give the sign itself a vintage look, I printed THESE sheets of vintage Christmas music from Etsy. They look so realistic and only cost a couple of bucks.

I created a collage of the vintage holiday music sheets and used Mod Podge to adhere them to the wooden sign.

As they dried, they wrinkled slightly, which made the sign look even more aged and vintage.

Once the base layer was almost completely dry, I came back and gave the whole thing a top coat of Mod Podge, to thoroughly seal the sheet music to the sign.

Attach String with Thumbtacks

Once the Mod Podge was dry, I used red and white string and attached it in zig-zag fashion using vintage-inspired thumbtacks to secure it.

My string and clothespins were leftover from my Advent Calendar for Couples project from last year, but you can still order them on Amazon HERE and HERE.

Clip the Vintage Cards to the String

The last step is as simple as clipping the vintage holiday cards to the string with the mini clothespins.

I just experimented until I had an arrangement that looked nice, mixing and matching some vertical, and some horizontal cards.

Aren’t they wonderful?!

There wasn’t room for all of my cards, but that just means I can use this same display board next year, and highlight some of the others.

Follow me on Instagram for even more great ideas like this one!

Create Your Own Version

If you want to make your own vintage holiday card display, you can frequently find vintage cards at antique stores.

You can purchase printable copies of old holiday cards on Etsy HERE, or buy lots of used and unused vintage cards HERE.

Other Ideas

• This would be a wonderful way to display your current Christmas cards. As you receive new ones in the mail each day, just clip them on your display board so you can see and enjoy them.
• I often save a few of the special holiday photo cards I receive each year. This is the perfect way to display them again from year to year.
• This display doesn’t have to be just for holiday cards. I often find vintage postcards at flea markets and antique malls. Swap out the Christmas sheet music for something else, and use this board to display any kind of vintage postcards you want. What about using vintage maps for the background and then clipping on vintage travel postcards? That would be amazing! (Hey, I think I just gave myself an idea for another project…😜)

Wishing you a (vintage) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

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